THE STAR LEDGER

July 09, 2006

Bookends: At 64, Paul Simon has a brave new album

and a fresh outlook on the past

By Jay Lustig

More than 35 years ago, when he was still a fairly young folk-rock star, Paul Simon pondered his senior-citizen years, in the song, "Old Friends."

"Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be 70," he wrote in the song, which he recorded with then-partner Art Garfunkel.

Simon isn't 70 yet. He's 64. And yes, he finds it terribly strange. Or at least surprising.

The title of his new album, "Surprise," refers to a line from one of its songs. "Make a wish and close your eyes: Surprise, surprise surprise," Simon sings in "Everything About It Is a Love Song." But there is also an autobiographical element to it.

"To me the surprise is, you're just surprised to find yourself where you are," says Simon, who will perform at the Borgata in Atlantic City on Friday and Saturday, and at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on July 16. "When you're young, the rest of your life is so unanticipated. So, there it is, and you're surprised, and it's a cliché, you know: 'I can't believe this happened!' 'I can't believe that happened!' 'I can't believe I'm this age!'

"I'm surprised to be in my 60s -- it's an area I never inhabited before. I'm surprised at what the culture became. I'm surprised at how intensely I feel what life is. My mother is 96, my youngest child is 8 -- I'm amazed at the span, and (I'm amazed at how) how grateful I am and how angry I am at things."

Simon -- born in Newark, but raised in Queens, New York -- is no stranger to surprise. His fans aren't, either.

As the psychedelic '60s came to an end, he drew inspiration from gospel on perhaps his greatest achievement, the towering ballad "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

In 1986, he revived his career with the African rhythms of "Graceland," which played a big part in igniting the world-music movement.

In 1998, he built a Broadway musical, "The Capeman," around Latin sounds and the true story of a 1959 gang murder. It wasn't a hit, but it was still a bold move.

No matter how exotic his music has become, his projects have never seemed like genre exercises. With their sturdy melodies and poetic, often cryptic lyrics, Paul Simon songs are recognizably Paul Simon songs, no matter what style he is working in.

"Part of his genius is not to stay stuck: he's always pushing the envelope," says Rex Fowler of the folk-pop duo Aztec Two-Step, which has been presenting occasional Simon & Garfunkel tribute shows since late 2005. "But even 'Graceland, which was the monumental (sonic) breakthrough, still had all those exquisite melodies and lyrics."

The main musical curveball in "Surprise" comes via the presence of Brian Eno, who became a hero on the avant-garde scene in the '70s with his ambient-music experiments, and his offbeat solo albums. Eno has also collaborated with artists like U2, Talking Heads and David Bowie on some of their most daring work.

Eno's presence is felt throughout "Surprise"; the credits describe his contribution as "Sonic Landscape." There are dissonant drones and a restless techno beat on "Everything About It Is a Love Song"; a grinding, industrial rhythm to "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean"; and spacey sound effects on "That's Me."

"It's one of (Simon's) more experimental works in terms of melding modern sounds to the construct that he's established so well, with songwriting," says Rudi Riet, who created a Web site devoted to Simon & Garfunkel, Song For the Asking (www.songfta.com). "I think it succeeds where one of his earlier efforts, (1983's) 'Hearts and Bones,' failed, in bringing in a modern electronica texture to things, in a way where it's not trampling the music.

"'Hearts and Bones' was so reliant upon kitschy new technology that the songs were lost in the shuffle. Whereas with this one, the Eno atmospherics hit you, but they don't hit you over the head with a mallet."

Simon, who has been familiar with Eno's work for many years, met him for the first time in early 2004, at a mutual friend's house. "We had a lot to talk about," he deadpans.

They began recording together a few months later. Eno contributes to 10 of the album's 11 tracks. (The exception is "Father and Daughter," which was nominated for an Oscar after it was included on the soundtrack of 2002's "The Wild Thornberrys Movie"). And Eno is credited as a co-writer on three: "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean," "Outrageous" and "Another Galaxy."

"On 'Outrageous,' he really helped shape the structure," says Simon. "In other words, here I'm playing this guitar part, then it switches to another guitar part. So he would say, 'You should go to another section here' or 'Do something there.'

"For 'Another Galaxy,' he had a loop that he really liked. He took a piece of my guitar and then he made this loop. And then I started to play against it. All I said was, 'Make it in E Flat. Somewhere down the road, it's going to be convenient for me to have something in a flat key' ... so, he made that loop, and that loop was powerful enough to suggest various other parts."

Simon's current tour follows a rare batch of Simon & Garfunkel reunion dates, in 2003 and 2004. It was called the "Old Friends Tour," and the duo sang that song every night.

"It's sort of amazing that I was, whatever, 27, when I wrote that song," says Simon. "And there you are, all those years later, singing it, and it has some element of truth to it. However I intuited it at that age was amazing."

The tour also featured a nightly mini-set by one of the duo's biggest influences, the Everly Brothers. All four would usually also sing together, in the course of a show.

The emphasis on harmonies inspired Simon to overdub layers of his own vocals throughout "Surprise."

"That was not intentional," he says, "but subconsciously, I was very comfortable with the duo sound, between Artie and me and Don and Phil (Everly). That sound was in my head. Just about every track (on 'Surprise') has vocal harmonies on it -- either two voices or three."

While Simon keeps his usual philosophical distance through much of the album, there are also some moments that seem stunningly personal.

"There could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you," he sings, repeatedly, in "Father and Daughter."

"I've been given all I wanted/Only three generations off the boat/I have harvested and I've planted/I am wearing my father's old coat," he sings, over a triumphant rock beat, in "How Can You Live In the Northeast?"

"I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through," he pledges in "Wartime Prayers."

As earthy as "Surprise" is, Simon also drifts into the stratosphere at times. In "Everything About It Is a Love Song," he describes looking back on the planet from "far above the golden clouds."

"The Earth is blue," he sings, "and everything about it is a love song."

As Simon talks about this passage, he becomes even more philosophical. And brings the discussion back to his songwriting.

He gets a little mystifying. But he's Paul Simon. He's allowed to.

"You look back at the whole thing from some distant place," he says, "and the Earth looks so beautiful and blue. Then you say, 'Well, it's all about love.' Love that worked out, love that didn't work out, all the manifestations of love, love that turns to hate and all that.

"If you don't stay in the big picture and you're right in the midst of things ... well then, you feel it with an intensity that's not at all mellow. You're in the throbbing life of the 21st century.

"But if you go back and forth between the two views, it creates a kind of a hum. It makes a kind of a sound. And if you can capture that sound, then you could say, 'That's the way I hear things.' That's about all you could say. You can't say, 'I understand it.' But you can say, 'That's the way I hear it.'"