All language subtitles for The Music of Paul Simon (2023)_Eng

Yeah, hot diggity dog.

It's 7:00 in Wimberley, Texas.

Toddy and the Pooch back
at the controls here at KWVH.

Tonight, well, we've got
something a little different.

In our never-ending quest
to get your toes-a-tapping

and your tails-a-wagging,

we've got a very special guest.

Very special, well, doesn't
really even begin to cover I,

does it?

Tonight's guest
has won more Grammys

than I could count,
three for Best Album.

A two-time inductee into the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Over the mountains
down in the valley.

Lives a former talk show host.

Everybody knows his name...

He's performed in front
of over half a million people

on multiple occasions.

Tell her to make me.

A cambric shirt.

Parsley,
sage, rosemary and thyme.

When I was grown to be a man.

He's sung with the Muppets...

And the devil called my name...

Live from New York,
it's Saturday Night!

With special guest, Paul Simon.

...has been one of the all-time
great performers on Saturday Night Live.

Once again, Paul
Simon. Once again, Paul Simon!

We're staying at the Pierre,

and we're gonna meet Jack and
Anjelica and have a drink there.

And if you'd like to come,
we'd love to have you.

He's acted in an Academy
Award winner for Best Picture.

Uh, not a big deal.

It's just relax, just
be very mellow. Mm.

Remember we had that thing?

What thing?

I know what I know.

I know what I know.

We come and we go.

We come and we go.

I know what I know

I know what I know...

And even more
significantly than all of that,

he is quite simply
the greatest songwriter

in the history
of American popular music.

We love you, Paul!

"I Know What I Know"
from Graceland.

I can't believe
I get to say this.

Paul Simon is joining us today.

Hey!

Thanks, Todd. Thanks, Ben.

The songwriters, I
mean, obviously, you in particular,

one of the things
I've always wondered,

you know, once you were
writing your own material

and success in the
whirlwind of rock and roll,

you know, got a hold of you,

how did you experience music?

Or how do you even still today?

So there's different, you know,
if your career is songwriting...

And it's a pretty
unusual career...

I never
thought anything was a risk.

I really didn't know
which song was gonna

be a hit,
and people used to say,

"Oh, you have your finger
on the pulse."

And I would think,

“No, I don't have
my finger on the pulse.

"I just have my finger
out there,"

"and the pulse is running
under it for the time being."

Your creative abilities,
that's mysterious

why it happens
and how long it stays.

I love the mystery.

I really love the mystery.

Your process seems
to be something like mine,

which is, you gather a lot of
information, and then you...

That's-that's exactly
what's happening.

...and then you say, so what's
the interesting story here?

That's right. You know?

How does the story begin?

That's always a major
question in writing songs.

What's the sound I want here?

You know, it's like
an old saying,

"Guitarists spend half
their life tuning their guitar"

"and the other half
playing out of tune."

So this... this little guitar...

...riff is sort of
the basis of the...

On January 15, 2019,
I had a dream that said,

you're working on a piece
called "Seven Psalms."

And I hadn't been writing
anything for a couple of years,

nor did I feel like writing
anything for a couple of years.

The dream was so strong
that I got up

and I wrote it down,

"Seven Psalms,
January 15, 2019."

But I had no idea
what that meant.

But gradually,
information would come,

like...

And I'd say, "Oh,
okay maybe that's in it."

"You know, maybe this is in it."

Let's play it again.

This is the opening
of the record.

I don't think you heard this.

That's a whale bone.

I'm trying all the time
to move things

in this kind of flow way
that puts you in a dream.

And I think if you're willing
to fall into a dream space,

you're willing to let
your judgment down.

You know,
it's like a meditation.

The information that comes in
comes in more purely,

and you can hear it and feel
it more clearly and intensely.

How were you
hearing it just now?

Well, it started out
with me being very aware

that you're here
and the camera's on, so...

I have to split my thinking
between, uh, the music

and "Was that
a good performance?"

Or, you know,
is judgment going on?

Now, will those cameras be, uh,

inhibiting, Paul?

I live with these cameras,
Artie.

These cameras, do you ever
see them inhibit me?

Such a different... such
a, such a different medium.

I forget how much I re...
how much I rely on the fact

that you can make sound
without being seen.

You can create pictures
without being seen.

That's how I...
that's how I write.

Pictures but you don't see them,

so you sort of evoke pictures.

But this, this is pictures.

I write for various reasons.

Some songs, I write for the
pleasure of writing a song.

Doesn't have any great
meaning. It's just a song.

Songs are nice.

People sing, uh, songs.

Kids sing songs all the time
for the pleasure of the singing.

Some songs, you try and
express yourself emotionally.

Those are different songs
for me.

And they express what I feel,

and they relieve...

tensions that I feel
when I express them.

But I don't think about
getting through to somebody.

Train, train...

Growing up,
I had, like, four idols:

Mickey Mantle...

...Kennedy,

Lenny Bruce...

I was, like, a real
depressed kid, you know?

And seven or eight years old,
and I'd really get juiced

and get out of my...

...and Elvis Presley.

Didn't matter what they did,
I was fascinated with them.

Yeah!

The name Elvis Presley
was one of the weirdest names

I'd ever heard.

You know, everybody
that I knew was named,

you know, David
Rothbaum or something.

Well, if your baby leaves you.

And you got a tale to tell

I don't really know
what kind of background

you have and all.

Were you... were you, uh, poor?

All the songs, at least
on the latest album,

the one that's... isn't it the
number one selling album

in the country now or has been?

I think it was.

Bridge Over Troubled
Water, yeah. Yeah.

Uh, there's a lot
of riding the rails and...

...and, uh, all
that kind of thing.

Is your background that?

Were-were you a poor kid?

No, I would... middle class.

Yeah.

I grew up here
in New York in Queens.

This is my street, 70th Road.

This was considered to be
like almost the country,

it was so far away
from New York City.

It was the end
of the subway line.

Number 62 was my house.

Up on the top was my bedroom.

Paul was the
neighbor three blocks away,

whom I met in the sixth grade,
so we were 11.

And we were singing
right in the beginning.

She's gone...

We would sing in my house,

and we'd put stuff down
on the tape machine.

Gone...

We're starting
to harmonize together.

She's gone...

We were cast
together in the Alice in Wonderland play.

He was the White Rabbit,
and I was the Cheshire Cat.

And then the next year,
in junior high,

we were in the same classes.

I watched him
form his personality

and become who he
chose to be, as he did me.

He's a very unusual guy.

He always was,
even when he was ten.

He was... he was...

You know, the first time
I really met him,

he was in, uh, this candy store

which we used to go to after
we would get out of school.

And I ca...
And here was this kid,

and he was, he was shaking
ho-boxes of, un, Good & Plenty.

And then finally...
and I was watching him,

you know, because I was going
in to buy my Captain Marvel comic.

And he was shaking these boxes
of Good & Plenty,

and finally, the owner of
the store kicked him out,

said he had to get out.

And I said to the guy,

"Why did you, why
did you kick him out?"

And he said, "He comes
in here all the time",

"and he shakes
these boxes to see

"which has the most
Good & Plenty

"and that's the one
he buys," you know.

And now
here are some fellas who originated

one of the top songs
in America not too long ago.

We used to listen to
the Top 20 over at Artie's house.

And he used to keep a chart
of all the songs,

and we would follow them
from week to week.

I loved that the
song had numbers to them, you know.

These songs were competing,
and they were calibrated,

and you could see last
week's number seven song

jumped to this week's
number two song.

Well, the mathematics
of that kind of thing

reached me somehow.

I was somehow locked
into that aspect

as well as the music.

If you look at it now,
you would say

he was obsessive-compulsive.

His handwriting, it
looks like a typewriter.

My lovin' baby till the end of time.

Ah... I can't seem...

My favorite group
was The CLEFTONES.

Off my mind.

Little,
little, little, little, lit, yeah...

"Little Girl of Mine."

Bow-bow-bow-bow.

Can't we be sweethearts?

Why don't we fall in love?
Right from the start...

"Can't We Be Sweethearts."

You're
the girl I'm thinking of...

The Moonglows,
who did "Sincerely."

Never, never let her go.

Sincerely...

Ah-oh.

Earth angel, Earth angel.

I liked The
Penguins' "Earth Angel."

The one I adore...

I'll forever love you.

"Pledging My Love"
by Johnny Ace.

The rest of my days

I'll never part from you.

And your loving ways...

I don't know,
I could think of 15 or 20

where I say
I really like those records.

They actually make me
feel nostalgic

and bring pictures to my mind
of my neighborhood.

Like standing on the corner
by this candy store

that everybody hung out in.

And in the summertime,
we're in the playground.

Picture that schoolyard.

My culture was the radio.

It wasn't like I sang the
music of Queens, you know?

We didn't have people
sitting around

on the porches
in Queens singing,

you know, fables about what it
was like in Queens in the old days.

There was none of that.

Bye-bye, love.

Bye-bye, happiness.

When I heard the
Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love,"

I immediately
fell in love with it.

Bye-bye, love...

The only record store
was in Jamaica.

In order to get there,
you had to take two buses,

and it took about an hour to
get to Jamaica to buy this record.

So I bought the record,
come back, I play the record.

I turn it over,
I play the second side,

and then I went
to play it again,

and I hit the record player and the
needle scratched.

I got back on the bus,
rode another hour,

spend another dollar, of
which I didn't have that many,

and buy the record again.

I couldn't bear
that this was scratched.

She was my baby.

I called Artie
and said, "Listen to this."

Goodbye to romance...

And we were just
learning about what harmony was.

Bye-bye, love.

Bye-bye, happiness.

The Everly Brothers sang in thirds.

The harmony
was above the melody.

I think I'm gonna cry-y.

Bye-bye, love.

That's Don singing.

Phil is singing...

Bye-bye, love.

Bye-bye, happiness.

Hello, loneliness

I think I'm gonna cry-y...

Then we just practiced
singing like the Everly Brothers.

We had enough
of the Everly Brothers

on our minds to know
how to produce that harmony.

And we wrote together
and got jealous

of the recording artists
on the radio

and saw ourselves as competing
and learned how to make demos.

Who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop, you're mine.

Say who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop.

You're mine.

Hey, schoolgirl
in the second row.

The teacher's looking over.

So I gotta whisper way down low.

Say, who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop...

"Hey Schoolgirl," ”
we wrote that when we were 15.

We basically wrote it
about our high school.

She said,
"Hey, babe, but there's one thing more".

"My school is over
at half past four".

We would go around
to record companies,

just knock on the door,
you know.

We'd say, we wrote this song,
and, you know, in those days,

people would say,
"Oh, really? Come on in."”

By the time we were almost 16,
we had recorded this song

for a small record company
called Big Records

that was in the Brill
Building, 1619 Broadway.

To say, who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop.

The record company
gave us the name Tom and Jerry.

I was Jerry.

She
said, "Hey, babe, I got a lot to do".

The record was a hit.

It went on Dick Clark's
American Bandstand.

The kids danced to it.

And then we went
on The Dick Clark Show

with Jerry Lee Lewis.

I did tell them
on American Bandstand

that I came from Macon, Georgia.

Just came out.

"Where are you guys from?"

"Macon, Georgia."

He just popped up
with this Southern accent,

and he was from Macon, Georgia.

I kept thinking, "Why didn't he
tell me he was gonna do this bit?"

I could see Artie,
like, looking, like, "What the..."

"Where are you from?"
And he said, "Queens."”

Let's meet after school at 3:00.

At that time,
I worked in a shoe store.

But after we went
on American Bandstand,

I came in, and the boss,

who I couldn't stand,
said, "You're late."

I said, "No, no, I quit."”

Bug out of here real fast.

Hey, schoolgirl...

Despite the fact that
my father was a bass player,

he led a band at Roseland
for, like, 25 years,

he really was not encouraging

about doing rock and roll
as a career.

He thought it was
really stupid music.

I'd say, "Why... why
don't you like this music?"

He said, "Because it's
really dumb. It's dumb."

I'd say, "Dumb?"

“'Earth Angel.'

"'Earth angel.'"

"See what I'm saying?"

Like, to me,
it was the first time that,

that any ironic sense
had ever entered into my life.

"Earth angel."

He said, "I understand.
I just think it's dumb."

So we were having
some fun listening to some early songs.

Oh, yeah, wh-what
was the one that you liked?

Saturday
night, and I'm all alone.

Don't have a date

I'm just sitting home.

Forgot all about
it and then I listened to it

and I said, "Gee,
my voice was really nice."

"It was a sweet voice."

Play me a sad song tonight.

Don't wanna hear a lullaby

I can't sleep

I just sit and cry.

Play me a sad song.

My dad, he was really happy

that I went to Queens College,

which was a tuition-free school.

I was an English
literature major.

And then I scored very high
on the law boards,

and I went
to Brooklyn Law School.

But really,
from the very beginning,

I just said, I don't know
what I'm doing here.

I've never wanted to be
anything other than, you know,

a singer and a songwriter
since I'm 13.

Come gather round,
people, wherever you roam.

And admit that the waters
around you have grown.

And accept it that soon.

You'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you
is worth saving

I started to go down
into the Village

to Bleecker and MacDougal
folk scene,

and that was really interesting.

For the times,
they are a-changin'...

That's the first time
I ever heard Dylan.

He was singing grown-up music.

Come, writers and critics.

Who prophesize with your pen.

And keep your eyes wide,
the chance won't come again.

And don't speak too soon.

For the wheel's still in spin.

And there's no telling
who that it's naming.

"Cause the loser now will be..."

I started to write
on acoustic guitar

and find little figures,
you know,

to play on acoustic guitar.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come lo talk with you again.

I used to go into the
bathroom of my parents' house.

There was tile
on the wall, and I turned the water on.

Left
its seeds while I was sleeping.

And the vision
that was planted in my brain.

And the tile made the echo,

and the water was like
a white noise sound.

Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams,
I walked alone.

I
Was going to a space that was a zone.

Narrow streets of cobblestone.

Neath the halo of a streetlamp.

There's a very
easy flow of creative energy.

When my eyes
were stabbed by the blast of a neon light.

That split the night.

And touched the sound of silence.

One second ago,
that thought wasn't here,

and now I'm weeping.

You know, how'd that happen?

And how can I do it again?

People hearing without listening.

People writing songs.

That voices never shared.

And no one dared.

Disturb the sound of silence...

Oh, yeah. I...

Thank you, guys.
We love your show.

- It's really fun.
- Thank you, Edie.

- That's really nice.
- It was so much fun.

We'll do it again.

We'll do it again since...
Oh, yeah stop by anytime.

Yes, you know. We're, we're...

I'm always here. You pass me by.

You see me in the window.
We're Wimberley people,

so we'll...
we'll come back and...

we'll come back and do it again.

This is really
such an incredibly nice thing.

We can't wait to hear
what you have

coming up next, you know,
in your career.

Well, when it's ready,
I'll come and bring it to you.

We moved down
to Texas a few years ago.

And Edie grew up
in Paris, Texas,

so her cherished memories
are of the country.

And she loved the creek.

She liked to go walking
in the creeks.

So she found a house
in Hill Country,

not far from Austin,

that was right on
this really pretty creek.

It's really quiet,
really peaceful.

I thought, yeah, I'll be happy
spending part of my time there.

Moved my recording studio
down there.

From the beginning
of Seven Psalms,

what I most remember,
he was playing

this beautiful guitar motif
over and over.

And every time he played it,

I felt this very good,
soulful feeling.

And I would walk out
of whatever room I was in

and say, "There it is again."

"That is the most beautiful
guitar piece."

"You've got to do something
with this."

Maybe because
this thing came out of a dream,

you know, I-I had patience.

I had a, I had a lot
of patience with it.

I would start to wake up
two or three times a week

between 3:30 and 500 in the
morning and words would come.

I'd write them down.

And if I tried lo add to them,

like, "Oh, that's a good
verse, I'll write a second verse",

it would stop.

And I said, "Well, whatever
this is, it's... it's just coming."

"It's coming to me,
and that's all."

"I just have to wait."

"And when it comes,
write it down"

"and start to put it together."

I've been thinking
about the great migration.

One by one, they leave the flock

I've been wondering
about their destination

Meadow grass or jagged rock.

The Lord is my engineer.

The Lord is the Earth I ride on.

The Lord is the face
in the atmosphere.

The path I slip and slide on...

And then somehow last October,

I lost the hearing
in my left ear,

and it just went...

It just...
by the end of October,

it was-it was almost gone,
you know.

It threw... it threw me off
because my voice.

Wasn't coming
from the same place.

It wasn't sitting over here.

It was, like, sitting...

Calm and quiet.

Starlit night.

Silver moon.

To smooth the edge of daylight.

And then I began to think,
you know, this whole piece...

And so the story goes

...it was actually

something that I was meant
to grapple with.

And maybe this hearing
was part of the process.

And it was gonna be harder now,

and maybe it was meant
to be harder.

This is a journey
for me to complete.

This whole piece
is really an argument

I'm having with myself
about belief or not.

I think I have to do it...

Let me wild track it.

Okay.

That's not gonna work, is it?

I think it's...
kind of beautiful.

It is?

You know,
it's not, like, a thought

that I actually
even enjoy, you know.

I don't like to think, "Oh,
this is the theme of this."

I like to work
and then discover.

Let me just see
if I want this inversion.

People say,
"Why is it that you always"

"want to change your sound?"

And I'm not thinking
that way at all.

I'm looking for the edge
of what you can hear.

I can just about hear it,
but I can't quite.

But that's the thing I want.

Now, how do you get there,
you Know?

It's a-it's a travel 'cause
it's way on the horizon.

And sometimes you find it

to make something
that has magic, you know.

In 1964, I made a demo
of "The Sound of Silence."

It was just me.
It wasn't with Artie.

And through my connections
in New York,

I played it for Tom Wilson,
who was a producer

at Columbia Records. Very cool.

He also produced Bob Dylan,
"Like a Rolling Stone."

He recorded
Blood, Sweat & Tears.

He recorded Laura Nyro.

He recorded Hugh Masekela,

the Mothers of Invention,

The Lovin' Spoonful.

He made, I mean, hits.

And no one dared.

Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I,
"you do not know."

And I said, "I sing
this song with a friend of mine."

Silence like a cancer grows.

"Could we come in
and audition for you?"

Hear my words
that I might teach you.

He said, "Yeah, sure."

So Artie and I came in
and sang it.

Reach you.

But my words.

Like silent raindrops fell.

And echoed
in the wells of silence...

And they said
they would sign us.

We were very excited
because really, at that time,

you couldn't be at a more prestigious
place than Columbia Records.

Then there was a big debate
about what our name would be

because there was a group
called Art and Paul.

So now Columbia was trying
to figure out names.

And, God, they were awful.

They were really awful.

I mean, one of them
was, uh, The Rye Catchers.

That's kind of how they saw us.

As like, these guys are
kind of, like, Salinger-esque.

Finally, the president
of Columbia Records,

Goddard Lieberson,
stepped in and said,

“No, their name should be
Simon & Garfunkel.”

Which, at the time,
was a pretty radical thing

to have ethnic names.

People still anglicized
their names.

All the Italians changed
their names, you know,

Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell.

Bob Dylan changed his name.

So that was a big deal.

Goddard Lieberson was definitely
making a statement with that.

And so we went in and
we recorded our first album,

Wednesday Morning, 3 AM.

I can hear the soft breathing.

Of the girl that I love.

As she lies here beside me.

Asleep with the night...

And who...

Will take pity in his heart.

And who will feed.

A starving sparrow?

"Not I,"
said the golden wheat...

Okay, we'll take it
and cut it in half.

Right. Also,
when you get to "because a vision,"

start to swing it a little bit.

I don't want to be quite as...

Okay.
...careful about that line.

A little louder, foo.
We're ready.

And the vision
that was planted in my brain.

The record came out,

and "The Sound of Silence"
was on there,

but, uh, Wednesday Morning,
3 A.M. was a flop.

Of silence...

The album didn't sell at all.

I was still in law school
at the time.

Meanwhile,
I was going back and forth

and back and forth to England

after I paid my first visit
there as a tourist.

I was going Christmas break,
spring break.

And Art, he was at
graduate school at Columbia.

So we were sort of
broken up, you know.

I was already decided by then

that I don't want
to be a lawyer.

I want to be a musician
who has lawyers

who work for you
when you need it.

So that was an easy decision
to drop out.

And it was an easy decision

to move to London,
where I loved it.

Sometime in everybody's life,

uh, not necessarily
at a particular age,

um, you're struck
with the feeling

that things are slipping by you.

And you try and grab them.

I was 22 years
when I wrote this song.

I'm 23 now,
but I won't be for long.

Time hurries on.

And the leaves that are green.

Turn to brown...

I started playing...

These weren't clubs
like New York clubs.

These were a room above a pub.

There might be a microphone,
or maybe it wasn't.

Thank you.

This woman Judith Piepe, she
was a refugee from Germany.

Her father was a Communist.

She was Jewish.

She fled during the war.

And she converted
to the Anglican Church.

She came to all the things
that I sang at.

The priest
with whom I did my training

once said,
"If you want to help people,"

"you've got to love them."

"If you can't love them,
don't..."

"Don't attempt to help them."

"If you don't love them,"

"they cannot forgive you
the bread you give them."

She lived down
on the East End of London,

down by the docks, really rough.

She lived in, like,
you know, a flat,

tiny little flat,
and she gave me a room.

And she let me stay there.

She had this little
five-minute BBC Radio show

called Five to Ten, which
went on at five to 10:00.

And it was five minutes,
and she would talk,

you know, do a little bit.

This song by Paul Simon

is an almost clinical
description of isolation.

And then she
would play one of my songs.

Sometimes I write songs,

and after I finish them

and I play them back,
I'm appalled

at the degree of neurosis
that I possess.

Now, this is one
of those type songs.

A sort of a group therapy
without the group involved.

A winter's day.

In a deep and dark December...

I don't usually sing
anti-war songs

for the simple reason
that if, at this point,

there's someone
who is not convinced

of the absurdity of a war,

uh, I don't think that
they will change their mind

because of a song.

When I came
to England last year,

it was not so much
a coming to England

as a leaving of New York.

And then when I went home
in September of '64,

uh, I found that the same
hang-ups that I had in New York,

I came right back to them.

They were,
they were still there.

And I found myself more
and more thinking of England

and relationships
that I had formed.

Kathy Chitty was my girlfriend.

And I met her at the door
of the Brentwood Folk Club

collecting the money that
people paid to come in.

As far as, uh, your
letter went yesterday...

Okay.

That's interesting, uh,
that tape.

That was during the time
when I was going back and forth.

I was back in my parents' house.

I hear the drizzle of the rain.

Like a memory, it falls.

Soft and warm continuing.

Tapping on my roof and walls.

And from the shelter of my mind.

Through the window of my eyes

I gaze beyond
the rain-drenched streets.

To England.

Where my heart lies...

During this whole period
as you're going back and forth,

I got interested
in this Songbook album

which has a picture
of you and Kathy on it.

Yeah, on the cover.

Yeah, but it's you.

- It's not Simon & Garfunkel.
- No.

Writing songs I can't believe.

With words that tear
and strain to rhyme.

I wasn't even
debating whether I was gonna be

a solo artist because
I was living in England,

playing in folk clubs,
doing it by myself.

And the experiment
with Artie singing

was, at that point, a failure.

So you see I have come to doubt.

All that I once held as true

I stand alone without beliefs.

The only truth I know is you.

It was just a unique
period of freedom.

You know, I loved it.
I was 23, 24 years old,

no responsibilities.

And here I am doing
exactly what I want to do.

I know that I am like the rain.

There but for the grace
of you go I.

Oh, sun on my doorstep.

Shocks me to find.

I'm a child again entwined...

It should... not quite.

Uh, I can play that better

- and match it to what's
going on. - Okay.

Are those okay?

Yeah, the last one was great.

Okay, so put that in. Yeah.

I know I'm more... I'm
more in control of it, so...

In your love, in your light.

In your cool summer shade.

The garden keeps
a rose and a thorn.

And once the choice IS made.

All that's left is.

Mending what was torn.

Love is like a braid.

Love is like a braid...

Ah!

Good to see you, baby.

Yeah. How you doing? You know.

Good, good. No complaints.

You are? Yeah.

Thanks for coming.

Man, come on, you know.

Where-where you at?
I'll walk to Hawaii for you.

You tell me.

So, what... what we
talking about, man?

Where we at with the Psalms?

You want to play the whole
thing straight through?

Play everything.
Yeah, don't stop.

Yeah, we won't stop. Okay, good.

Paul and I, we
talked about Seven Psalms.

Just as an idea...

...before he started
working on it, you know.

We're talking about the Bible.

We're talking about, like,
a mystic tradition

of, like, the song
of a troubadour,

the mystic meaning of seven.

You know, on the seventh
day, the Lord rested.

Thinking about
the great migration...

We met years
ago. We did a benefit.

This was in 2002.

I did a terrible arrangement
of "I'll Take Manhattan."

Wasn't a particularly
great musical experience for me.

Man, it was...

He was very cool
about it, though.

He sang and did his thing,
but I didn't help him.

One, two, three.

We didn't become friends then.

We became friends
when he asked me

to do a fundraiser
for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

After that, we started to
collaborate through the years.

Big and fat.

You kind of
re-imagined that song

in the album In the Blue Light.

"Pigs, Sheep, and Wolves," yeah.

Sleeps on straw.

Just as an arranger,
you always want to try

to do what somebody
wants you to do.

He's walking down the street.

And so with this, it
was like it's a New Orleans thing.

He's a half-a-ton of pig meat.

Up in the hills.

Above the farm.

Lives a pack of wolves.

Playing music
is such a spiritual thing

that when you play
with somebody,

most stuff is not spoken,
you know.

You're hearing it.

Hunt till 4:00.

Maybe catch a couple of rodents.

You know, a carnivore.

Sheep in the meadow
nibbling on some clover.

I really pay attention
to what he says musically.

And I often think
when I'm working on something

and I'm changing
a voicing or something,

"Would WYNTON like this?"

Candlelight vigils
and protestin' behavior.

It's animal behavior.

Huh.

It's animal behavior.

Animal behavior.

It's pigs, sheep and wolves...

When I had a chance
to really talk with him

and we just sat down outside
of the context of music,

- we had so much to talk about.
- Like what?

Man, like, uh, being divorced,

having children,
not being married,

race relations
in the United States,

New Orleans and New York,

Elvis Presley and rock and roll,

white and Black folks, politics,

ayahuasca, South American music,

integrating with other
cultures and their music,

being left-handed,

being at your father's rehearsal
that you don't want to be at,

how to pay respect
to a generation before you,

the direction our country
is gonna go in.

What level of participation should
artists have with political issues?

What is it like to travel?

What do you learn from
musicians in other cultures?

What does it take
to write a song?

What do you think
about baroque music?

What is Bach's position
versus Beethoven's position

in European music?

How much music Duke
Ellington wrote in 19627.

What was it like when
Goodman got killed in Mississippi?

Afro-American music and
Anglo-Celtic music, where do they meet?

It goes on and on, man,
and not all agreement.

That's what makes it SO good.

Without friction,
you don't have motion.

The universe was set
with an explosion.

And, man, from that friction,
everything came.

His music is always about that.

About a year
after it came out, in 1965,

radio stations were starting
to get requests

for "The Sound of Silence."

So while I was in England,

Tom Wilson went back
in the studio

and overdubbed
electric instruments and drums

onto the acoustic version of
it with the same musicians

that he used
on the Dylan sessions

when Dylan went electric.

They sent it to me, and I
listened to it, and I said,

"That's okay."

Did you,
or were you initially...

You weren't initially upset?

No, no, I wasn't upset.

The thing about Tom Wilson is,
when he suggested something,

you believed it was good
'cause he was just so cool.

It was like, "Yeah, take
another shot at it, great."

"What have I got to lose?"

Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams,
I walked alone.

Narrow streets of cobblestone.

Neath the halo of a streetlamp

I turn my collar
to the cold and damp.

And it started to become a hit.

My eyes were
stabbed by the flash of a neon light.

That split the night.

And touched the sound.

The record kept climbing.

And Columbia wanted me
to come back to the U. S.

And, like,
a week after I came back,

it went to number one.

And I said to myself, my
life is irrevocably changed.

People talking without speaking.

People hearing without listening.

People writing songs.

That voices never shared.

No one dared.

Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I,
"you do not know."

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words
that I might teach you...

Your music has, uh, become, uh,

it's everywhere, omnipresent.

It's in elevators.
It's in supermarkets.

Now, how do you react,
when you hear it in an elevator

and it's done by the...
I love it in an elevator.

...Milwaukee Strings
or somebody?

What, uh...

I like it in the
elevator. I really do.

I'm not being facetious.

I like to hear it there.

The most fun
of hearing your music

is when you're walking
down the street

and you hear somebody hum it

walking in the opposite
direction. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a tremendous thrill.

It's actually a privilege,
you know, to be...

to be in a position where
people like what you do

and accept what you do, uh,
to such... to that degree.

It's a privilege.

Dee-doo-doo-doo, dee-da-dum.

Doo-dee-da-dum

Dee-dee-dee-dee.

If the straight-out protest song

never made it big commercially
in the pop song field,

a pair of folk rock singers
known collectively

as Simon & Garfunkel succeeded

with a different kind
of comment on society.

Dum...

Paul Simon,
songwriter of the team,

and Art Garfunkel, vocal
and instrumental arranger,

are song makers in a real sense

by virtue of performing
and packaging

their own musical compositions.

Doo-dee-da-dum...

I want the sound like
to be like you put on...

it's like if you had
a hop sack...

What do you call that material
that you wrap, like, flour

in big cases of flour?

And it should be like...

a knife cut right into it
and then the flour spills out.

I won't disturb the slumber.

Of feelings that have died...

These are popular songs

as they are heard and known
by the public

through records
and personal performances.

How are they made?

What goes into the creation
of a popular song?

Can you hold it a second?

I just want to put this on
tape so you can hear it back.

One, two, three, two.

After "Sound
of Silence" was a hit,

we went in
and we recorded the songs

that I had written
when I was in England.

Paul has his hands full
writing the songs.

I, um...

I very rarely do more than
just react to lyrics and music

that Paul comes up with,
although occasionally,

I make a preference
for a lyric change

'cause, uh, 'cause I'm thinking
of the harmony I want to use

and I know that a melodic
change will be better for me.

I was on an existential
kick for a while.

I wrote a song
called "Patterns."

I became concerned with the fact

that our lives were broken
down into so many patterns

that we had no control over.

Uh... the color of your skin,
the fact that you die,

what your name is.

That song should produce
in the listener

a feeling of involvement
and then a catharsis.

Tom Wilson, he left
Columbia, and he went to MGM.

So Roy Halee
became our engineer.

You're rolling.

Here we go. One, two,

a-one, two, three.

And then he
stayed with us from then on.

Roy and Artie and I
made those records.

He had that artistic
temperament.

You know, Roy could take a
control room and get it right.

He was just
a super-skilled technician

who also had a great ear,
you know?

Roy was a wonderful engineer

who thought of sounds

the moment he began
to hear the songs

and thereby became co-producer

because he did more than
Just make clean recordings.

He made creative sound collages.

I think of him as the third
member of our triumvirate.

You know, we're workaholics.

We're rolling on 11.

He would make me do
SO many takes, you know.

This is with
the finger picks now.

Good.

I'd say, "How was that one?
That one's good."

He said, "It is. It's good.
It's-it's good."

I'd say, "Is it not good?"

“No, no, no,
it's-it's a little out of tune

"but really nothing
that you couldn't..."

"All right, I'll do it again."

I made a mistake.
Let's try it again.

What happened? I made a mistake.

Vocally? Deep breath.

Uh... Let's see what this is.

Surprising to me, I didn't
even know that this stuff still existed.

I thought they lost this stuff.

No, they've got
the multitracks of Bridge.

It's pretty amazing
this stuff still exists.

Roy, he really was an innovator.

We kept tumbling into
adventures and discoveries.

"Cecilia"
was just a rhythm track,

about a minute and 15 seconds
and made a loop of it.

We literally made a tape
loop of two or three machines,

kept going round and round.

Celia, you're breaking my heart...

The vocal sound
of Simon & Garfunkel,

Roy invented that, you know?

Oh, Cecilia,
I'm down on my knees...

We'd both sing
into one microphone

close enough to each other
that we could really blend.

Lei's take another.

Play me a little of it back,
and I'll take the tempo again.

He'd
capture that blend a couple of times...

You're
shaking my confidence daily.

Oh, Cecilia.

...to have multiple
tracks that he combined in the mix.

I'm
begging you please to come home.

Oh, Celia.

You're breaking my heart.

You're shaking
my confidence daily...

Soon as you heard
that, it was like, there it is.

Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees

I'm begging you please
to come home.

Come on home.

On "The Boxer," that's the drum

that Roy recorded
in the elevator shaft.

He was up probably
eight stories,

the drummer at the bottom
of the elevator shaft.

Lie-la-lie Lie-la-lie.

Lie-la-lie-la, lie-la-lie,
la-la-lie-la-lie.

Lie-la-lie-la, lie-la-lie...

The horns and the
things that come at the end,

they were recorded
in St. Paul's.

"The Only Living
Boy in New York," the harmonies,

we overdubbed it seven times
inside an echo chamber.

Here I am.

The only living boy in New York.

The only living boy in New York.

When we were
working on "Bridge Over Troubled Water,"

the song, we spent
two or three days

getting the piano part right.

We added the bass,
the strings and drums.

And Roy was the first guy
to take two 8-track machines

and sync them up
and record in 16-track.

But one day when I came in,
he said, "Listen to this."

You're not gonna believe
what's happened here.”

The two machines
were slightly out of sync.

So for the drums...

...instead of hearing...

...you heard...

Like a bridge
over troubled water...

That rhythmic groove
that was at the end

was an accident that he heard

and, like any really
fine musician, he knew,

can use this accident.

"This is great."

He was so excited.

Okay, I'm
gonna put this down on tape now

so you'll hear it
when [ call it back.

We'll keep playing it back
So you get your ideas.

Are you going.

To Scarborough Fair.

Parsley, sage, rosemary.

And thyme.

Remember me.

To one who lives there.

She once was.

A true love of mine.

How'd you get
involved in The Graduate?

How did that come about?

Mike Nichols called.

And he was in the midst
of the film then.

He was almost finished, and
he convinced us to do the music.

And the music was supposed
to be, uh,

mostly original music.

Tracing of
sparrow on snow-crested ground.

Without no seams nor needlework.

Blankets and bedclothes
the child of the mountain.

Then she'll be
a true love of mine...

I went to work on it

and, uh, Mike said
a few months later,

"You know, we've been using
your music as a temp track,"

"but it's so good,
I think we actually want"

"to keep it in the film
just a sit is."

April.

Come she will.

When streams are ripe
and swelled with rain.

May, she will stay.

Resting in my arms again...

Listen to me.

I'm Dr. Smith's brother,
Reverend Smith,

and I'm supposed
to perform the ceremony.

I just got in from Portland,

and I've forgotten
what church, you see?

Oh, well I'm not sure,

but you might try
the First Presbyterian.

That's on Allen Street.
Thank you.

Allen Street, where is it?

Uh, Allen, uh, it's, uh...

The only new song that,
uh, he took was "Mrs. Robinson,"

which was incomplete
at the time of the filming.

Uh, you need any gas, Father?

"Mrs. Robinson"
was made up on the spot.

That was originally
supposed to be, uh...

That was a chase scene,
and they wanted guitar music,

and I was playing... oh, I
didn't know what I was playing.

I was just riffing
on guitar, and I...

I was doing that.

And I had been fooling around
with a song that was, uh...

I was singing...

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

Jesus loves you more
than you will know.

For no particular reason.
I had nothing in mind.

That just came into your head?

Yes, just into my head.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

And then the next line was...

God bless you please,
Mrs. Roosevelt.

Heaven holds a place for those
who pray.

It was Mrs. Roosevelt,

and then he said,
well, we could just...

That would change the
plot of the movie a lot. Yeah.

Since there was nothing but,
uh, that chorus and no words,

and we made it up on the spot,

we sang, uh, uh...

Ba, dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee

Dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee

Dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee,
dee-dee-dee.

Dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee,
dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee

Dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

Jesus loves you more
than you will know.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Stand up tall, Mrs. Robinson.

God in heaven
smiles on those who pray.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

We had a little booth,
and we'd watch.

And, like, when the car
Is slowing down,

I'm playing live to picture.

I ran into Mel Brooks
the other day.

Yeah.

He said I had no idea
how miserable

that song had made his life.

Yeah. His wife is Anne...

is Anne Bancroft. CAVETT:
That's right, his wife, right.

Elaine!

Elaine! I'll take care of him.

He's too late.

So everywhere they went, it's...

Yoo-hoo, Mrs...

Yeah.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

Jesus loves you more
than you will know.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

God bless you please,
Mrs. Robinson.

Heaven holds a place
for those who pray.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hide it in a hiding place
where no one ever goes.

Put it in your pantry
with your cupcakes.

It's a little secret,
just the Robinsons' affair.

Most of all you've got
to hide it from the kids.

Where have you gone,
Joe DiMaggio.

How did Joe DiMaggio
get in there?

Was he playing catch
with Mrs. Roosevelt

in your mind or something or...

Uh...

It's very pleasurable to write

in a stream
of consciousness style.

And, uh, uh, very often,

you find that what's
in your mind is relevant,

although at the moment,
it doesn't seem so.

And so as I was writing,

I had no idea
that I would say that,

but I-I said, "Where have
you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

"A nation turns
its lonely eyes to you."

And, uh, then the next line,
I didn't have,

but I-I made up one,
and I put it in.

And, uh, then I asked myself
later what it meant.

And, uh, I said,
"Well, it means something.

“It'll mean something."

What's
that you say, Mrs. Robinson.

Joltin' Joe has left
and gone away.

Hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey Hey, hey, hey.

"On the other hand,
any transportation"

"and accommodation expenses
relating to your appearance"

"will be borne
by the festival committee."

Slow down, you move too fast.

You got to make the morning last.

Just kicking down
the cobblestones.

Looking for fun
and feelin' groovy.

At Monterey Pop,
we were one of the big acts,

and we closed the first night.

Feelin' groovy.

But we were never part
of any of the movements.

Hello, lamppost.

What you knowing

I come to watch
your flowers growing.

We were not known
as political people.

We were not known
as drug people.

Feelin' groovy.

There was a fair
amount of criticism that thought

we were real square and corny.

Da, da, da, da, feelin' groovy.

Monterey is very groovy, man.

This-this is something, man.

This is-this is
our generation, man.

All you people,
we're all together, man.

It's groovy. Dig yourselves.

None of the
American acts were anything

like the English acts.

Nobody, not the Grateful Dead,
not Janis Joplin.

Whoa, whoa.

Most that anybody
was was hippie.

Nobody'd ever seen anything
like The Who, you know,

smashing their guitars.

I mean, to me,
it made me cringe.

I used to think,
"God, when I was a kid,"

I had to save up so much
to buy a guitar.

"You know,
you're gonna smash it?"

Hendrix, I don't know whether
the fire was part of his act

all the time or not, but
things were getting wilder.

And we felt we should
start to express

what our generation felt.

"Kathy, I'm lost," ” I said.

Though I knew she was sleeping.

"I'm empty and aching,
and I don't know why".

Counting the cars
on the New Jersey Turnpike.

They've all come
to look for America.

All come to look for America.

All come...

Beethoven's, uh,
200th birthday is coming up.

Did you know that? No.

1970 is 200.

Somebody else's 200th birthday
is coming up in not so long.

200th birthday? Yeah.

Who's that? America's.

Think it's gonna make it?

We were offered a
special with AT&T as the sponsor,

and we decided the show
would have a political idea.

I'm empty and
aching and I don't know why...

We didn't go in
there looking for a fight.

We felt we were
expressing the simple truth

of what's going on.

They've
all come to look for America.

As obvious as it is that, uh,
we shouldn't be in Vietnam

or as obvious as it is

that people are starving
in this country, and

until they stop the war,
until they feed the people,

it's the function of people
to point it out

and continually remind us.

But really,
all I remember out of that

was just how naive we were

that we thought everybody
was a liberal.

[ Think, though,
much of what we say,

what we're saying, if not all
of what we're saying,

is extremely obvious.

When you're weary.

Feeling small.

When tears are in your eyes.

I will dry them all.

Oh.

I'm on your side...

During "Bridge Over
Troubled Water,"

which was the first time
it was ever played anywhere,

we showed footage of Kennedy,
of the train and Bobby,

and footage
of Martin Luther King.

And the producer said, "You
can't just have those three."

And we said, "Why?"

And they said,
"Well, they're all Democrats."

And we said, "Really?"

"We think of them
as all assassinated."

Like
a bridge over troubled water.

Why am I going
to make this album?

What's the point of this album?

The world is, uh, crumbling.

The chaos of, what the hell

is the whole thing all about?

Time has changed
all of those songs,

in a very interesting way, loo.

You spin all this stuff around,

and you look at it
from a different perspective.

Like, "Bridge Over
Troubled Water,"

that became another thing
beyond a-a pop song.

Sail on, silver boy.

Sail on by.

Your time has come.

To shine.

All of your dreams
are on their way.

All you gotta do CHORUS:
See how they shine.

See how they shine.

Oh, if you ever
Ever need a friend.

Look around, I'm, whoop.

Sailing behind you.

Sailing right behind.

Oh, like a bridge.

Like a bridge over.

Over troubled water.

I'm gonna be there
to lay me down.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

Oh, oh.

Yes, I do, whoo Whoo.

Yesterday's boy is gone.

Driving through darkness,
searching for.

Your forgiveness.

In sorrow, a beautiful song.

Lives in the heart
and sings for all.

Your forgiveness.

Inside the digital mind.

A homeless soul ponders the code.

Of forgiveness.

On the
word "cold," it's a G chord.

It's "code." C... Oh!

"Ponders the code
of forgiveness."

Code is... code is
absolutely crucial to...

Oh, absolutely, it's
digital code. I get it.

...to what-what's going on
in that verse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, "ponder... ponders
the code of forgiveness."

Okay. Okay.

And I, the last in the line.

Hoping the gates won't be closed.

Before forgiveness...

I feel like
we could probably have,

"And I, the last in the line,"

"hoping the gates
won't be closed"

"before your forgiveness."

There's something
about just the loneliness

of the one instrument
'cause there-there's the guy.

He's just the last in the line.

There's something...
you know, there's some

little emptiness in there
that-that can occur.

- L-Let's play it...
- That's pretty neat.

...and see what that does.

Okay, hold it.

Can you play, uh...
uh, when you play this,

don't make it pretty.

I have my reasons to doubt.

There is a case to be made

2 billion heartbeats and out.

Waving the flag
in the last parade.

What's going on with the song is,

it's just a debate, you know.

"Oh, oh, okay, I believe."

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I
don't believe. I don't..."

Dip your
hand in heaven's waters.

God's imagination.

Dip your hand in heaven's waters.

All of life's abundance
in a drop of condensation

I was just sitting
right next to him,

and he sang the whole thing,
like, right in my ear.

It was very soft.

And then I could hear it,
the symbolism.

How the limitation
of your belief

always tends to be tied
to your conception

of your mortality...

...in the sense that you're
part of a flow of a thing.

It's a sunrise,
and it's a sunset,

transfiguration.

I have my reasons to doubt.

I'm still not sure what I want.

A white light eases the pain.

Two billion heartbeats and out.

Or does it all.

Begin again.

Dip your hand in heaven's
waters Once more.

Dip your hand in heaven
Once more.

It's been such a weird year

because it happened
really precipitously

from October to, like, the
beginning of November, boom.

- Scary.
- It was gone.

But I just kept
thinking, oh, it's fine.

It's gonna come back,
and I'll do this.

I'll do that.
I'll see the doctor.

Do you have the one
where it's inside?

It goes here,
and then it goes here.

Okay. It's on both sides.

Yeah.

It's a... it's a help
in conversation,

but it's not a help
at all in music.

For music, interesting.

It's r... it's real tinny.

I don't know, all of a
sudden, you know, I said,

"Oh, this is not coming back."

And I really fell
into a depression.

And then finally, when I hit
the bottom of the depression,

I said, "You better
get out of bed"

"and work out, man," you know?

I was able to write

with these two little
Bose speakers

attached to my computer.

If I put my head here,

I could-I could still... Wow.

I just have to solve
how to sing,

and |I can't... I
haven't solved it yet.

Yesterday's boy is gone.

Driving through darkness,
searching for.

Your forgiveness.

In sorrow, a beautiful song.

Lives in the heart...

Nope, that's it.

We'll have to grab that
another day.

Once I put these on, these headphones,

all the distortion
that's in the damage,

whatever caused that damage,

I can't get rid of it.
It gets amplified.

When it first happened,
I was working

with a kinesiologist
who had a friend

who was a neuroscientist.

And he invented this piece
of equipment, which is...

You put it on your tongue

because it's closest
to the brain.

And it stimulates
your tongue electrically,

which stimulates
the amygdala and your brain.

And then I would be
listening on earphones

to these hearing tests

so that I was really
focusing on the frequencies

that were gone.

And, uh, when you meditated,
one of the meditations he said

was, pick your absolute
favorite moments

from when you were young
and, you know, in perfect health

and all that, and just
really focus on that

and get that memory
in your head.

And whenever you start
to be depressed or something,

click back on that memory...

...when you just feel like
you're in perfect health

and you could run really fast,

you could do everything.

Time
it was and what a time it was.

It was.

A time of innocence.

A time of confidences.

Long ago it must be.

I have a photograph.

Preserve your memories.

They're all that's left you...

Once you
accept the condition as something other

than a detriment
but as a piece of information

that you have to work around,
then you can use it.

Especially since
this whole album

is about spiritual stuff.

I said, "Maybe this, you know,
wasn't supposed to be so easy."

"Maybe you're supposed
to have an obstacle

“to give you more insight
into what you're saying."

And you do that for 20 minutes.

Basically, what he said was,
with the-with the brain...

You know it with the body,
but the brain's the same thing.

Use it or lose it.

The seeds...

From the gardener's glove...

As WYNTON said to me,

"Hey, it took
Beethoven ten years"

"to get used to it
and figure it out."

Nothing dies of too much love.

He would say,
"Well, you know, it's out of tune."

I said, "Man, but that makes it even
more poignant and more beautiful."

"You should leave
all that in there."

But I know he's not
gonna do that.

The Lord is my engineer.

Or maybe he'll leave
a couple of them in there.

The Lord is the Earth I ride on.

He said, "I
know this is gonna be hard for you",

"but listen, just hearing you,
like, kind of struggle

"with a note to get to it
is very interesting

"and very soulful
in and of itself."”

Said, "I know
you're gonna hear a note

“that's gonna be out of tune,
you're gonna want to fix it."

He said, "Don't do it."

The Lord is a forest ranger.

The Lord is a meal
for the poorest.

Welcome door to the stranger.

Of course,
I'm not paying attention to that at all.

But I understand
what he's saying.

He wasn't saying,
"Don't sing in tune."

He was saying,
“Leave the struggle in there.”

COVID virus is the Lord.

"That's part of the story."

The Lord is the oceans rising.

The Lord is a terrible,
swift sword.

Simple truth surviving.

Do you find the need to bounce

musical ideas off somebody?

Because, I mean, obviously,
I don't know

how you used to work
with Artie Garfunkel,

whether you did do that,

how close a writing
partnership it actually was.

Well, we weren't
a writing partnership.

We didn't... I didn't...
we didn't write together.

So it was always your song,
his song, your song?

No, he never... he didn't
write any of the song...

He didn't write any...
I don't mean... I feel funny.

He didn't write
any of the songs.

I wrote all the Simon &
Garfunkel songs. Oh. Yeah.

No, I didn't need
a partner to write,

but, uh, your question about,
do I-do I find it useful

to bounce musical ideas
off people, yes, I do.

You're gonna...
Da, da, da, da, da.

You're gonna, da, da.

Oh, we're on the...
Stand on the up.

We're still on the four.
Stay on the up.

Da, da, da, da, da.

We're still
on the four chord, but...

Right, melody-wise
stay on that higher note.

Okay. You dropped down to it.

Da, da, da, da.

Feels like it's a dream.

That sounds something to me.

All right, then start
on the lower notes.

Don't, don't... Just let
me get the chords first

before I get the note.

You sing it and get
both parts in your head,

and then I'll learn it.

We had an uneven partnership

because I was writing
all the songs

and basically running
the sessions 'cause I'd say,

"Here's how it goes,
and this is the guitar part,"

"and this is it"

"and you should be
playing that on drums."

"No, the bass
should be doing this."

And Artie'd be
in the control room with Roy.

And he'd say, "Yeah,
that's good. Let's do that."

You know, but it was an
uneven balance of power.

There are times when I'm
singing one of Paul's songs

that I feel the song
is really very personal

and probably shouldn't
be sung by anyone

other than the writer,

but there are other songs
that go beyond one person.

Hello, darkness...

Which is
part of the reason Mike Nichols,

after The Graduate, told him,

"It'll be better for the group

"if you become, like,
a movie star

"and Paul's the writer.

“It'll be more balanced. ""

So he got booked to do Catch-22.

So he wasn't there for half of
Bridge Over Troubled Water.

You're crazy.

You all crazy.

Why are we crazy?

Because you don't
know how to stay alive.

That's the secret of life.

But we have the war to win.

Ah, but America
will lose the war.

Italy will win it.

America is the strongest
nation on Earth.

The American fighting man
is the best trained,

the best equipped,
the best fed...

Tom, get your plane
right on time.

I know your part will go fine.

Fly down to Mexico.

Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da.

And here I am.

The only living boy
in New York...

"Only Living Boy
in New York," I mean, it's...

It's-it's like
a "good luck to you" song.

Right. "Best wishes," you know.

Oh, I
can gather all the news I need.

On the weather report.

Hey, I've got nothing
to do today but smile.

Da-n-do-da-n-do-da-n-do.

Here I am.

The only living boy in New York.

Half of the time, we're gone.

But we don't know where,
and we don't know where.

We were really best friends

up until
Bridge Over Troubled Water.

We had been
traveling so much together,

and we were so forced
to be together

through the power of business,

it began to tell on our
friendship, which was always true.

It began to be abrasive to be
so forced together and tour.

Artie said, "Yeah,
the way it's gonna be is",

“I'm gonna do movies
for six months,

“then I'll come back.

"You'll have written the
songs, and we'll do the..."

"You know, do the album."

And I thought, "Yeah, actually,
no, that's not gonna happen."

“I'm not doing that.”

But wasn't that
kind of already the way

it was working anyway?

No, but we were
always sort of together. Uh-huh.

You know, I'd say,
"Oh, I wrote a new song."

It wasn't like he
came back and he said,

"What's the collection
of songs that you wrote"

"over these last six months?"

As I was writing a song,
I'd say, "Hey, you know",

"what do you think about this?"

You know, the main thing
that we were interested in,

we shared.

If I'm gonna be waiting three
or four months for records to be recorded,

I may as well do a lot
of things with that time.

And when I got the offer
to go down

and play a small cameo part
in Catch-22,

I looked at that as five
or six weeks at the most.

So I'll go down to Mexico
and make this.

I didn't think it was
gonna be a problem.

What then did become a problem

is that they kept me
down there a long time.

The movie ran over.
"You got to come back."

"No, we can't because we have
to shoot this week in Mexico."

And then, "Send down what
you did, and let me listen."

“No, that's no good.”

"You got to change this
and this."”

It was like,
everything got disrupted.

It was a recipe for the
breakup of Simon & Garfunkel.

And here it goes.

/It didn't have the
harmony of the friendship.

That was broken.

When you're weary.

"Bridge Over Troubled Water,"

when we used
to perform it onstage,

Artie would sing the song
and people, like, leapt up.

They gave him a standing
ovation, you know.

And my reaction was,
I wrote that song.

I will dry them all...

Am I the
one who broke up Simon & Garfunkel,

or is Paul the one
who failed to accommodate.

Garfunkel's enriching
of his own career?

It takes two people
to make a group.

It takes two people to be jerks.

Oh, when times get rough.

And friends just can't be found.

Like a bridge.

Or maybe
it was my perfect Freudian trauma

that my mother said to me once,

"You have a good voice, Paul,
but Arthur has a fine voice."

Like a bridge.

Over troubled water

I will lay me down.

This is my oldest friend.

And we experienced anonymity

and then great fame and success.

And those things
have their own pressure.

It was five intense years
of being a hit,

and that's close
to the life span.

I used to think when
Bridge Over Troubled Water was finished,

well, we're really on top
of each other too much,

and the-the grease
in the machinery ain't there,

and it's creaking,
and we could use a break.

And I certainly would love
a little rest.

But after a rest,
I see a wonderful next album.

He didn't see it that way.

Slow down, you move too fast.

You got to make the morning last.

Just kicking down
the cobblestones.

Looking for fun
and feeling groovy.

Ba-da, ba-da.

That was a good friendship.

That was a real
first, like, friendship

of somebody that, like,
got it for me.

Ain't'cha got no rhymes for me?

Doot-in doo-doo, feelin' groovy.

To turn into, like,
a person that I hope I never see again.

That's a long way.

Ba, ba, ba, ba,
ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba,
ba, ba, ba...

Yeah.

How does this hall sound?

It's got a pretty good, uh,
pretty good ring out there.

Boy, it's really interesting.

Do you want to try
the same again? Yep.

I have a very good
feeling about VOCES8.

Talking to the composer
from that group,

it was interesting.

He said,
there are certain sounds

that I picked out that I thought

we might be able to underline.

Let's just hear that.

He was envisioning coloring
those with his instrument,

which is eight voices.

Okay, and here.

/In the New York
folk scene, in the early days,

you know, when Simon &
Garfunkel were just together,

I was friendly with a few people
who were major figures in it,

Dave Van Ronk particular,
I'm thinking.

His record collection was
filled with really interesting music

from everywhere
around the world.

That Music of Bulgaria album,

well that was like a little bit
of a cult hit back in the '60s.

You know, that's when
I first heard it.

It's a choir
recorded in the '50s.

It's so gorgeous,
that you'll fall down.

And they do that...
they do that all the time now,

that minor second rub.

Let's see what happens if
we try to go voices of Bulgaria.

Hey, beautiful.

It sounds good.

Doesn't it? Yeah.

They just gave me a headset,
so I can hear all your comments.

Paul has a way
of looking at everyday life

and making it poetic.

And he doesn't put on
a caricature

in order to express himself,

but that also makes him
vulnerable.

I think it sometimes has
made him misunderstood.

Early on, when I first
started dating him,

somebody warned me.

They said, "Don't date him.
He's arrogant."

And I said,
"Well, how do you know?"

"You don't know him."

It's from the media.

It's from what
this person had read.

And in terms of Art Garfunkel,

they made it seem like
Paul victimized him or...

as opposed to the truth being
that the guy walked away

- to pursue a different kind
of career. - Right.

Everybody looked
at it as, "Oh, no",

"Paul went off
to go and do Paul,"

but that's not what happened.

I/ went to Artie, and I said,

"Are you doing another movie?"

We just finished the album.

We hadn't toured with it

we hadn't done anything with it.

And he said, "Yeah,
I'm doing Mike's next movie.

It's called Carnal Knowledge."

And I said, "Well,
why didn't you tell me?"

And he said, "I thought
you wouldn't finish."

"Bridge Over Troubled Water
if I told you,

so I decided not to tell you."

And I think
that really was the straw

that broke the camel's
recording contract.

I can't see myself
doing this five years from now.

I-I speak of the whole
spiritual sphere.

That whole, that whole, uh,
aspect about my life.

This whole, this entertaining...

...it has nothing
to do with that.

What a dream I had.

Pressed in organdy.

Clothed in crinoline.

Of smoky burgundy.

Softer than the rain...

Like I said, I was telling them

I don't see how Art could...

How can you leave somebody

who makes you sound so good?

I heard cathedral bells.

Tripping down the alleyways.

As I walked on.

Wouldn't you realize

that you're working with...

Well, he didn't know I quit.

I didn't say to him, "I quit."

And I quit.

This whole experience,
the tension in the studio,

if that was what
the relationship was gonna be,

to me, it was like, "Well,
I don't want to be in that."

So I went to Clive Davis,
who was the head

of Columbia Records
art the time, and I said,

“I'm leaving Simon & Garfunkel.

“I'm gonna make a solo record.”

Clive said, "You're making
the biggest mistake "of your life.

"Simon & Garfunkel
is a household name"

"all over the world."

“It's a huge business,
and to break it up.

“Is just a big mistake.”

Were you trying
to prove something?

Or you just, you just were
tired of-of the relationship?

No, no, I wasn't
trying to prove anything.

I just was consumed

with writing music
and making records.

And my wife Peggy said,
"Hey, you write the songs."

"What should you
be worried about?"

And that's how
I began my solo career.

One of the things that
I was able to leave

was the obligation
to write a song for a duo.

That was liberating.

And on
Bridge Over Troubled Water,

I was already making the album

with a wider palette of sounds.

I heard this group Los Incas,
and they played this song.

"El Condor Pasa," a very famous

Peruvian folk song,
which I loved.

! said, "Why don't we
Just buy that track",

"and I'll write a song to that."

"We won't be able
to reproduce that track."

“It's already perfect.”

I'd rather
be a sparrow than a snail.

Yes, I would.

If I could, I surely would.

That's really
the first time that I did World music,

you know?

I'd
rather be a hammer than a nail.

Yes, I would.

If I only could,
I surely would...

If you
really want a certain sound,

you have to go to people
who play that sound.

You can't ask somebody to write

in somebody else's handwriting.

Any moment now, there's
gonna be a fierce outbreak of ska.

And ska is the new beat from
the West Indies, from Jamaica.

0-0-7

Ska was a big deal
in '63, '64 in England.

And now rude boys a go wail.

I always liked
music on the upbeat.

Oh, oh.

Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail.

A Shanty Town.

Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail...

So when I made
the first solo album,

and I was trying
o make a ska record,

I understood if I want
to get that sound,

I gotta go to Jamaica.

My favorite record at
the time was a song called.

"Vietnam" by Jimmy Cliff.

Hey, Vietnam, Vietnam

Vietnam, Vietnam.

So I contacted
the producer of that album

and asked if I could come
to Jamaica and record.

And he said yeah,
and he set it up.

And I went down
with this song partly written.

And I said to the musicians,
here, this is my song.

I want to make a ska record.

They said,
"Well, we don't play ska."

And I said, "Well,
what do you mean..."

"What do you mean
you don't play ska?"

And they said,
"You know, it's reggae, man."

Johnson in the room a-fret.

Uncle say he must
hold up him head.

Auntie say, "She no fi foolish"

“Like there's not time
for his wedding day”.

It is no wonder...

So I said,
"Really, what's reggae?"

I'd never heard of reggae.

That band turned out to be
Toots and the Maytals.

So they played.
I said, "Well, that's great."

"Well, let's do it reggae."

No, I
would not give you false hope.

On this strange and mournful day.

But the mother and child reunion.

Is only a motion away.

Oh, little darling of mine.

I can't for the life of me.

Remember a sadder day.

I know they said let it be.

But it just don't
work out that way.

And the course
of a lifetime runs.

Over and over again.

No, I would not give you
false hope, no.

On this strange and mournful day.

But the mother and child reunion.

It's only a motion away.

Oh, little darling of mine.

The reason that
I go to these places

is that you can tell
a song story

with any context, you know.

So the context
could be Peruvian.

The context could be reggae.

In such a mysterious way

I was just telling the same
stories that, you know,

a love affair, a marriage.

Over and over again.

But I would not give you
false hope, no.

On this strange
and mournful day...

That's really how
these things evolve.

I kept meeting musicians
from different parts of the world.

I heard something
that I really liked,

and then I went to find out
what it was and where it was.

And it was just
a very interesting path.

When I was young.

I carried my guitar.

Down to the crossroads.

And over the seas.

Now those old roads.

Are a trail of volcanoes.

Exploding with refugees.

It seems to me.

We're all walking
down the same road.

To wherever it ends.

On
An artistic level, I really was

kind of always growing and alive

and looking for a group
to express who I am.

I wanted to find some
other area of expression

besides just making albums.

Live from New York,
it's Saturday Night!

We'll be back...

We'll be back
in a moment with a...

Oh, my goodness.

I'm really sorry.
The bees number is cut.

What? Ah, shucks.

It didn't work last week.
It's cut. I'm sorry.

Okay.

That's very... We'll be back.

I didn't
want him for the first show

because I didn't know...

how the first show
would turn out.

But I thought, he'd be
good for the second show.

Comedy, it's all rhythm
and timing,

and so for musicians,
it's easy to connect.

We had the summer
to work on that show.

And he was working all summer
on Still Crazy, you know.

So he'd go to the studio,
and we'd meet for dinner,

or he had a place
out in Bridgehampton,

and one weekend,
I went out there.

We got there at night.

And we talked for...
you know, late.

Here's a song I'm working on.

I haven't got it finished.
I'll show you.

I'll go up to the point
where I've stopped.

(YEARS PLAYING ON GUITAR) Okay.

I met my
old lover on the street last night.

She seems so glad
to see me I just smiled.

And we talked
about some old times.

And we drank ourselves
some beers.

Still crazy
after all these years.

Oh, still crazy
after all these years.

We were always
kind of talking about

what we would do on his show.

I thought, I'm gonna open cold

with him singing "Still Crazy."”

Now [ sit by my
window and I watch the cars.

I fear I'll do some damage
one fine day.

But I would not be convicted.

By a jury of my peers.

Still crazy
after all these years.

A lot of people
didn't recognize him.

He's seldom on television.

Very few rock and roll people
were on television

because the sound was so bad.

Still crazy.

After all these years.

From Saturday
Night News Headquarters,

this is "Weekend Update
with Chevy Chase."

Big news on the sports
scene is, of course,

the one-on-one match-up

with Connie Hawkins
of the Atlanta Hawks

and Paul Simon,
acoustic guitarist.

For an on the spot report,
let's go now to Marv Albert.

I'm Marv Albert.

And in just a moment,
the one-on-one confrontation

upcoming between
the Hawk, Connie Hawkins,

one-time Harlem Globetrotter,

one of the most exciting
players in the NBA,

as a member
of the Atlanta Hawks.

And the Hawk will be opposed
by Paul Simon.

Paul, what is your game plan
for the Hawk?

Well...

I'm spotting him a one foot,
four inch height advantage.

And I have to be honest,

that's gonna be
a factor in this game.

He's got me on speed
and shooting ability,

uh, but I just have
to play my game

as I-as I usually play it,

and I mean, I've gotta
stay with my strengths.

Basically,
singing and songwriting.

The mama pajama
rolled out of bed.

And she ran
to the police station.

When the papa found out.

He began to shout.

And he started the investigation.

It's against the law.

I can't play basketball.

If you take
an individual shot of me,

it looks like
I can take a jump shot.

And you see it goes in.

You say, "Oh,
he could play basketball."

It must have taken, like,
an hour and a half

for me to score ten.

I mean, I could stand up
next to the basket

with nobody around me

and just try and make a layup,
and I won't.

Whoa, in a couple
of days they come and take me away.

But the press let the story leak.

Now when the radical priest
come to get me released.

We was all
on the cover of Newsweek.

And I'm on my way

I don't know where I'm going

I'm on my way.

I'm taking my time,
but I don't know where.

Goodbye to Rosie,
the Queen of Corona.

See me and Julio
down by the schoolyard.

See me and Julio
down by the schoolyard...

In
Restless dreams I walked alone.

Narrow streets of cobblestone.

Neath the halo of a streetlamp

I turned my collar
to the cold and damp.

When my eyes
were stabbed by the...

Chuck, you don't even
know the lyrics.

Well, I'm really...

I'm learning them
as we're going.

Well, Chuck, this is
live television.

This is not the time
to be learning.

How do you think I feel?
I mean, I feel terrible.

It's all right saying
it now, isn't it?

I mean, I've come all
this way. It was $3,000.

That was the deal. I
understand, but I mean,

it was just
one of those mix-ups.

I mean, it's
generally, I mean...

Hi, George.
Hi, Paul. How are you?

Hi, LORNE.
We better get started.

LORNE got George
as a musical guest

'cause I was the host.

...in the future, you know.

I know, I mean,
but if you don't...

if you don't go on tonight...
You went back on your word.

I know, but if you don't go
on tonight, it'll break his heart.

I mean, it must be...

see, I thought that
you would understand that

if it was, you know,
$3,000 for four people,

that it would just be
$750 for one.

As far as I'm concerned, I mean,

you could have the full $3,000.

It's the network. Well,
$750 is pretty chintzy.

So George and I
had a day of rehearsal

to get the songs down.

Bye-bye, love.

Bye-bye, happiness.

Hello, loneliness...

You know, we had the
same taste in early rock and roll.

I'm through with romance

I'm through with love.

I'm through with counting.

The stars above.

I liked what
George was thinking.

He was more mystical,

willing to go off
to that kind of thing.

Ladies and gentlemen,
my friend George Harrison.

Here comes the sun.

Doo-doo-doo-doo.

Here comes the sun.

And I say it's all right.

We're talking tonight with Mr. Paul Simon.

He's head of the Eastern
Seaboard chapter of

the Independent Truckers
Association of America.

And, uh, Mr. Simon, the gypsy
trucker's a hard-working man,

and I want to ask you, sir.
You push a rig 24 hours a day.

How the hell do you do it, sir?

Let me just start off
by saying that

I am not an independent trucker.

I mean, uh,
I never drove a truck.

My name is Paul Simon, but I...

I'm a songwriter.
I'm not a trucker.

Little darling.

The smiles returning
to the faces.

Little darling.

It seems like years
since it's been here.

Here comes the sun.

Doo-doo-doo-doo.

Here comes the sun.

And I say it's all right.

It's obvious to me
that you-you don't know who

or what I am.

I've never even seen your show.

I know what you are.

So I'll just be saying
good night then.

Uh, yeah, good night.

Well, sir, fine, if that's the
way you feel, I can respect that.

I can respect
any man's opinions.

I guess what we've seen there

is a little bit
of the anger of the '60s...

He had the people
from Columbia Records

coming over to listen
to Still Crazy.

This is summer of '75.

And he said, "Stay for this."

And he played the album
with the big speakers.

The problem is
all inside your head she said to me.

The answer is easy
if you take it logically

I'd like to help you
in your struggle to be free.

There must be 50 ways
to leave your lover...

When you've been
as successful as he's been,

you're always worried you'll
never get back to that level.

Furthermore, I hope my meaning.

Won't be lost or misconstrued.

But I'll repeat myself.

At the risk of being crude.

There must be...

But you're betting
on your own taste

and intuition
and that you can pull it off.

Fifty ways to leave your lover.

You just slip out the back, Jack.

Make a new plan, Stan.

Don't need to be coy, Roy.

Just listen to me.

Hop on the bus, Gus.

No need to discuss much.

Just drop off the key, Lee.

And get yourself free...

It isn't so much doubt
as just a real kind of level

of nerve and courage
and foolhardiness

'cause he's never satisfied.

If you have
the kind of brain he has,

your eye goes to what's wrong.

And you take very little
pleasure in what's right

because there's still
the part that's wrong.

Once more.

It's a very tortuous route,

but it is just the hand
he was dealt.

I mean, essentially, what we do

is we keep going over
the whole thing.

Let me hear
the guitar for a second.

Let me hear the-the
chromelodeon again.

You play them
over and over and again,

and then you finally, you say,

"You know what, I never
really liked this part."

"It's okay."
"I like this part over here.”

"I don't like this part.”
"That part's okay."

You know, until finally,
I can't stand that part.

That's almost right, just
a touch more to the right.

One of my favorite phrases is,

"The ear goes to the irritant."

Home, home.

Sun on my doorstep.

Shocks me to find.

I'm a child again entwined.

He always says,
"The ear goes to the irritant."

So if something irritates him,

he's gonna work on it till
he gets it the way he wants it.

But the essence
of what's in there,

he wakes up, and it's there.

So the working on it is
the part that he needs to do

to justify being given that.

And he should work harder,
as hard as he wants on it.

And some people will say,
"Well, it's too perfect."

There's no such thing as that.

There's no such thing.

Okay.

There was a lot in there.

For a lot of people,

like if I play a piece for you,

I say, "Listen to this."

You're not gonna be
able to read that.

Well, when you first sit down,

before you hear it,
your mind says,

"I hope this is good." You know?

"I hope I don't have to come
up with some bullshit compliment

"after it's over,"
'cause I'm not gonna say,

"Well, I don't like that."
You know?

"I know I'm gonna say I like it,

but it would be a lot better
if I really liked it."

So, uh...

so when-when the listener
first sits down,

they have a certain expectation.

You try and time your piece
in such a way

that you're making the
descent into the dream...

effortless.

Like, I'll do that here,
and then on the third song,

I really break the mood.

You know, I lulled
you successfully,

hopefully, into a dream,
but I need your consciousness.

So I'm gonna wake you up
a little bit.

Good morning, Mr. Indignation.

Looks like you haven't
slept all night.

In my professional opinion.

Go back to bed
and turn off your light.

I'm not a doctor or a preacher.

I've no particular guiding star.

In my professional opinion.

I'm no more satisfied
than you are.

So what in the world
are we whispering for?

Everyone's naked,
and there's nothing to hide.

Gonna carry my grievances
down to the shore.

And wash them away
in the tumbling tide.

"Everybody is naked."

"There's nothing to hide."

Just the thought of it,

because we always
have our mask on.

"Why are we whispering?"

You always hear people say,

“I'm old enough
to speak my mind.”

He's talking about age,
he's talking about us.

Why are we whispering?

All that really matters.

Is the one who became us.

Anointed and gamed us
with his opinion.

The thing
that sums the song up is, like,

"All that really matters is
the one who became us,"

"anointed, and gamed us
with an opinion."

What do you mean, "Gamed us"?

"Gamed us with his opinions"?

Wh-What you trying
to tell me, brother?

See, now I'm getting
into blues territory.

Things that are not
right and wrong.

You know,
in "My Professional Opinion,"

I like the way
he talks to the critic.

In his professional opinion,
y'all all wrong.

Well, are we on?

Thank you, Mother. Thank you.

Hello, I'm John.

I used to play
with my partner Paul.

I'm, uh, I'm Paul.

I used to play
with my partner Art.

I'm Andy.

I used to play
with my partner Claudine.

Ah, ho, ho.

Touching.

Shall we get on
with it? Let's do it.

Yes, okay.

For Record of the Year,
the winner is...

Isn't it exciting?

Oh, two Grammys.

"I Honestly Love You,"
Olivia Newton-John,

producer John Farrar.

Jolly good, jolly good.

Accepting the award
for Olivia Newton-John

is Art Garfunkel.

Which one of you is Ringo?

I... I thought I told
you to wait in the car.

Are you ever getting
back together again?

Are you guys getting
back together again?

No.

It's terrible, isn't it?

Still writing, Paul?

Trying my hand
at a little acting, Art.

There's a period when
you're reckoning with fame.

Was that something that
was weighing on you at all?

No, I sort of liked it at first.

At first, it was fun.

I mean, it's... it's about
as unreal as you can get.

Right.

And then inevitably,
it turns into a thing

that you wish you... you really
don't, don't want to be there.

Um...

Yeah.

It's a... Well,
I've said it a lot.

You know, man,
it's just a poison, fame.

Just a poison.

A little bit of it makes you
strengthened, you know.

Get a lot of it, kill you.
Mm, mm.

Paraphernalia.

Never hides your broken bones.

And I don't know why.

You'd want to try.

Mm, mm, mm.

It's plain to see
you're on your own.

Ooh

I ain't blind, no.

Some folks are crazy.

Others walk that borderline.

Watch what you're doing...

Every time anyone has, you know,

a big success
in the music business,

they get a great
following of people

who really worship them,
no doubt about it.

Do you like that feeling
of being possibly

the hero or the leader
of a lot of people?

I'm not really conscious
of that feeling.

Don't you get that?

No, not really.
I don't, I don't think that.

People write about that.

They say that that happens.

I don't think really.

Ooh.

Spare your heart.

Everything put together.

Sooner or later it falls apart.

And there's nothing to it.

Nothing to it.

You can cry.

And you can lie...

I wonder if it's hard
when somebody like yourself

makes so much success, you know,

and makes all that money
and become part of a world

of riding around in
limousines and having people

asking for your autograph
and all that.

Do you ever find it hard
to get back

to the things that
inspired you at first?

Well, your world changes.

And what you write about
changes, I suppose.

It's not very interesting

to write a song
about a limousine.

No. I'd-I'd avoid that.

Many's the time
I've been mistaken.

And many times confused.

Yes, and I've often
felt forsaken.

And certainly misused.

Oh, but I'm all right

I'm all right

I'm just weary to my bones.

Still, you don't expect
to be bright and bon vivant.

So far away from home.

So far away from home.

And I don't know a soul
who's not been battered

I don't have a friend
who feels at ease.

I don't know a dream
that's not been shattered.

Or driven to its knees.

Oh, but it's all right.

It's all right.

For we've lived so well so long.

Still, when I think of
the road we're traveling on

I wonder what's gone wrong

I can't help but wonder.

What's gone wrong.

And I dreamed I was dying.

I dreamed that
my soul rose unexpectedly.

And looking back down at me.

Smiled reassuringly.

And I dreamed I was flying.

And high up above my eyes
could clearly see.

The Statue of Liberty.

Sailing away to sea.

And I dreamed I was flying.

Oh, we come on the ship
they called the Mayflower.

We come on the ship
that sailed the moon.

We come in the age's
most uncertain hours.

And sing an American tune.

Oh, and it's all right.

It's all right, it's all right.

You can't be forever blessed.

Still, tomorrow's gonna be
another working day.

And I'm trying to get some rest.

That's all I'm trying
to get some rest.

You put out
records and, uh, you talk to the people

that you want to talk to.

And the other people
aren't listening anyway,

which is the bullshit
of the whole thing.

They'd say,
"We're not interested."

“In your political opinions
or your view of society.

"Just sing."

“Like, that's what you do.
You sing, right?

“Don't do anything else.”

On and off,
there's a burden with that.

I mean, do you feel, like, an
overwhelming responsibility

if somebody comes up and says,
'Bridge Over Troubled Water'

"changed my life,
and I'm moving in"

or something like that?

Uh...

Uh, I think that there's a...

h-there's a pressure
when I write

that has made it more difficult
to write in-in recent years.

Case in point is,
I wrote and performed

and starred in a movie
called One-Trick Pony.

I derived
tremendous satisfaction

from writing the screenplay,
then writing the music to it,

and performing in it.

Sometimes an artist does
a piece of work,

and the work makes you stretch
as an artist,

which you must do.

He's a one-trick pony.

One trick is all
that horse can do.

He does one trick only.

It's the principal source
of his revenue.

One-Trick Pony comes after.

Still Crazy After
All These Years.

And with Still Crazy
After All These Years,

it being a number-one album

and winning the Grammy
for Best Album,

I felt if I had
anything to prove

about leaving Simon &
Garfunkel, I had proved it.

And now I was looking for
another challenge, you know?

- Move over just a little.
- Action.

Uh... Well...

I think it's very
important for you

to make the right record
at this time.

This song is called
"Ace in the Hole."

It's been going over really well in
the clubs that we've been playing.

Some people say music,

that's the ace in the hole.

Just your ordinary
rhythm and blues.

Your basic rock and roll.

It's about a-a musician

who's kind of, like,
in the middle.

He's not at the top
of his profession

and not at the bottom.

But you got to admit
that music is sweet.

He's
in the middle of his career,

and he's traveling
in the middle of the country

and throughout the Midwest.

And he's in the middle
of his 30s.

So he's someone
who's right in the middle

and what the problems are
when you reach that point

in your life and your career.

It's a great day for
baseball here at Yankee Stadium.

The New York Yankees take on
the Boston Red Sox.

First batter
for the Yankees will be...

Reggie Jackson!

Reggie Jackson
just entering second grade

at the little red schoolhouse
down in Greenwich Village.

Okay, and the pitch.

Reg swings. It's swung on.
That could be out of here.

It's big trouble.
Reggie takes off!

Obviously,
one's going to keep drawing

these autobiographical links.
You almost can't help it.

For example, in the film,

you have a six-year-old son
played by an actor,

and in reality,
you have a six-year-old son.

Did you see all the cameras?

You didn't see me.
You just got here, huh?

Yeah.

Are you living in a camper?

No, just staying here
for the afternoon.

You know I'm in that hotel room.

You remember. Oh, yeah.

That aspect of the film
is slightly autobiographical.

I mean, the fact
that I have a child.

And some of the activities
that we do in the film

are things that
I've done with my son.

Now you look just like yourself.

Mark. Marker.

That's great.
I really like that.

Why don't you come on in?
We'll listen to the playback.

Jonah, I have some ideas
I'd like to talk to you about.

The electric piano
that Clarence is playing

on the bridge, there's
a beautiful thing there.

I think we could have some
strings in there, you know.

Nice, nice, nice, heavy
kind of string section there.

Texturally, it'd be beautiful.

I think it's worth
the time and the money

to go in and book a session.

Aw, come on.
It'll tear your heart out.

In the case of One-Trick Pony,

I had tried to stretch.

And during the process
of the work,

I was very happy,

as happy as I ever get
when I'm working,

which is probably
the happiest I ever am.

And so the work was
very enriching for me.

But the aftereffect of it
produced the opposite effect

because it was not
the popular success

that I had been accustomed to
up until that point.

For a long time,
I felt very, very guilty

about it, very bad, as if I...

As if I had done something
wrong, you know?

Is there a sense
of embarrassment, almost?

Do you think, what have
I done here to myself?

Not to myself. I felt that

I had let a lot of people down.

I thought I must have made
some terrible error.

Because One-Trick Pony
was a flop,

when they asked me to do
a concert in Central Park,

I thought, well,
I just had this big flop.

Maybe I should ask Artie

to come and sing
some songs on this.

It's Central Park. We'll have
to do more than 15 minutes.

We'll have to do, like,
you know, maybe half the show,

and then I said,
well if we do half the show,

that means I'm gonna have
to open for Simon & Garfunkel.

We're right on the
edge of feedback here.

Which, I don't want to do that.

So let's just make it all
Simon & Garfunkel.

I was all over it, of course.

We figured out
three different looks

'cause you're doing
close to two hours.

So it was afternoon,
twilight, and evening.

Tonight I'll sing my songs again

I'll play the game and pretend.

Mm, mm.

But all my words come back to me.

In shades of mediocrity.

Like emptiness in harmony

I need someone to comfort me.

Homeward bound

I wish I was.

Homeward bound.

Home, where my thoughts escaping.

Home, when my music's playing.

Home, where my love lies
waiting silently for me.

I/ don't think we had any idea

how many people would show up.

New York was dangerous,
you know,

completely on its ass.

And it was sort of
a bold thing to do.

And it was a very
New York City event

because they're both
from Queens.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Simon & Garfunkel.

I knew we had something

and that it was a very cool
thing to be doing.

Well, it's great to do
a neighborhood concert.

About half a
million people showed up.

I hope everybody can hear us.

I hope that that sound is good.

I actually felt nervous.

I'm used to going up on stage,

but even though
we had played arenas,

we never played
anything that big.

The yearning for them together

was the biggest thing that
either of them had ever done.

I am just a poor boy.

And my story's seldom told

I have squandered.

I have squandered my resistance.

For a pocket full of mumbles.

Such are promises.

All lies and jest.

Still a man hears
what he wants to hear.

And disregards the rest.

Mm.

When I left my home
and my family

I was no more than a boy.

In the company of strangers.

In the quiet of the railway
station running scared.

Laying low I'm seeking out
the poorer quarters.

Where the ragged people go.

Looking for the places
only they would know.

Lie-la-lie.

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

Lie-la-lie.

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie,
lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

Well, I-I hope you can hear me.

I'd like to sing a new song.

I've recorded this song,

and I've never
performed it before.

So this is the first time.

"Late Great Johnny Ace,"

it's about John Lennon.

It's about...

Kennedy.

Kennedy and Johnny Ace.

Yeah, all gunshot.
All the gun violence.

This is pretty soon
after Lennon had been shot.

I was in the control room.

The camera work
and all that was great.

And then suddenly it happened.

When a stranger
came up and asked me.

If I had heard
John Lennon had died.

And the two of us went
to this bar.

And we stayed to close the place

I saw across 11 or 12 cameras,

a guy running to the stage.

I saw him get
on the stage, you know,

out of the corner of my eye.

The thing that's interesting
about it is, like,

my band, they're ready
to jump in

and, like, Artie is
sitting on the end.

He didn't jump up and...

No.

I gotta talk to you, Paul.

I gotta talk to you.
I gotta talk to you.

And every song we played.

Was for the late great
Johnny Ace, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I asked them both after
what they were thinking,

and Artie's thought was,
"Oh, I can't believe"

"this guy's ruining
Paul's song."

And Paul's thought was, "I can't
believe this guy is ruining my song."

Because they performed
throughout the '60s,

neither thought, I'm gonna die.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you from
the bottom of our hearts.

Thank you.
You made us feel great.

After the concert
in Central Park

with Simon & Garfunkel,
it was so big, such a big hit.

And then sort of forced us into,

or forced me into putting
the group back together again

and doing a tour.

I'm like a swimmer standing
on the edge of the pool

who's been looking
at the water now

for a couple of weeks,
dying to get in.

I'm very, very excited.

I always like singing
with Artie.

Could you turn
a tad to your left?

I tell you, I just can't
get along with the guy.

Very difficult. No, I'm kidding.

We were famously antagonistic,

but I thought, you know what,

I'm gonna put all that aside

and just have a good
reunited tour with Artie.

Here's another new song
called "Think Too Much."

Did Art Garfunkel
ever get on your nerves?

Oh, he always gets on my nerves.

He was...
I shouldn't say always,

but periodically,

we get on each other's nerves.

When I say periodically,
I mean if we're together,

then every day, probably.

They say that the right side.

Has to work hard, all right.

We both did it.

Maybe I think
too much for my own good.

Some people say so.

Other people say no, no.

The fact is you don't
think as much as you could.

Huh, yeah.

I had a childhood that
was mercifully brief.

I grew up in
a state of disbelief.

I've known Art since
I'm ten years old.

So I think we've developed
our own style of disagreement,

you know.

It's a very subtle way of
irritating the other person.

Thinking about God, yeah.

Maybe I think too much.

Because the tour was a hit,

we said, well, the record that I
was working on, Hearts and Bones,

that will be
a Simon & Garfunkel record.

Maybe I think too much.

117 years you were split up,

went your separate ways.

Was it difficult for you
after the split?

I don't remember it
as difficult,

as much as that it was exciting

to do your individual work.

Thank you.

I went into it knowing
that it probably wouldn't be

as popular
or as hugely successful

as Simon & Garfunkel was, but...

That's what I expected.

And it wasn't,
but it was exciting

and artistically
fulfilling for me.

I liked it.

Listen, tell
me about the reunion concert.

The way we used to
work was I would write a song,

and we would work out
the harmonies

and sing them together.

We were friends.
We were hanging out.

But by the time we were
doing Hearts and Bones,

Artie's idea was
give me the songs,

and I'm gonna go to Switzerland

and walk and make up
the harmonies.

It was a recapitulation of,
he's in Mexico making a movie.

Well, now he wanted to smoke
and walk through Switzerland

and make up harmonies
to these songs.

And then
he would send them back,

and we would look at it
and say, "What is that?"

"What is this?"

It didn't sound like
the old Simon & Garfunkel.

Old friends.

And I
just said, I can't work this way.

Old friends.

Sat on their park bench
like bookends.

The newspaper blown
through the grass.

Falls on the round toes.

Of the high shoes
of the old friends.

The breakup that
occurred after Catch-22

was never repaired.

There was just a bandage
put over it.

But the bandage was such
a luxurious bandage,

the concert in Central Park.

Lost in their overcoats
waiting for the sun.

We forgot that
essentially, we were done as a team.

Will you
split up after the tour again, Art?

No, I mean, I don't think
that when the tour is over,

we'll say that that completes
what we set out to do.

So we both have thought
that we'll possibly

do more together after this.

Then I decided that
I'm not gonna do it.

So now I have to make
an announcement.

Hearts and Bones,
it's not gonna be

a Simon & Garfunkel album.

Everybody was disappointed.

So that record
was kind of cursed

before it could really
even get off the ground.

Some of the songs
I took into a wonderful place

because of what I can do
with the harmony

and how I can rearrange things.

Paul was clamping
me down, saying,

“I don't want to do that.

"You forget, Artie, you're
making a serious statement"

"when you do that."

"I don't want to make that
statement on these songs."

The statement I was making was,

these songs are about to become
much more attractive and appealing

because the visceral appeal
is going way up.

So I was about to do that
to all the songs.

And Paul...
Paul called me one day.

I was in New England.

He said, "Artie,
I'm wiping all your tapes."

“I'm wiping your harmonies
off all the album.”

"Oh, you are, Paul?"

"And I'm marrying
Carrie Fisher on Tuesday."

"Want to come to the wedding?"

Ladies and
gentlemen, Carrie Fisher.

I felt a little
awkward coming out

in my Princess Leia costume,

'cause it might seem like
I'm exploiting Star Wars.

But you know,
I went along with it

because you know,
if I came out as myself,

who would recognize me?

And Obi-Wan said,
look, the costume...

In the middle of
that reunion tour, I got married.

I married Carrie Fisher.

Thank you all for joining us
on our honeymoon.

We couldn't have done it
without you.

If you want to write
a song about the moon.

Walk along the craters
of the afternoon.

Were you the
groomsman at the wedding?

Best man. Best man.

Yeah,
which is the preferred role.

So the
shadows are deep and the light is alien.

For the engagement,
we went to Greece.

Paul had chartered a boat.

I was seasick for three days
at the rail praying for death.

Other than that,
it was a really fun time.

And for the honeymoon,
we went to Egypt,

went up the Nile.

The
laughing boy, he laughed so hard.

He fell down from his place.

The laughing girl,
she laughs so hard.

The tears rolled down her face.

There were lots
of things that were

remarkable about the time.

But also, it's two people
at career peaks,

and that's always complicated.

All of it was kind of whirlwind.

Carrie was in
a complete fame bubble

because Star Wars.

Carrie was much more
show business-orientated.

I went along with that.

That's the world that
she grew up with.

She was used to I,
used to a lot of press

and things like that.

It wasn't intimidating
or anything.

She knew how to manipulate it
and make it work for her.

She was really good at it.

And I wasn't.

In the '70s,
Paul went on to forge

a very successful career.

That's true, but in the '80s,

Paul took some lumps.

He made an album,
and it flopped.

He made a movie,
and that flopped as well.

And then he married
Carrie Fisher,

and six months later,
the marriage flopped, too.

You know, I mean,
what was I thinking?

You know, I mean,

certainly not thinking
about life, you know,

that you actually, like,
have to, like, stop.

Marriage is very...
it's a hard thing to do,

you need to concentrate on.

Not everything can
happen at once.

Not everything is a media event.

All kinds of mistakes
on top of mistakes

on top of mistakes.

I realized that, like,
I could become exhausted by...

I could actually exhaust myself

with... from emotional upheaval.

Did you ever have trouble
facing a day then?

Do you ever think that,
oh, man...

The worst. The worst.

One and one-half wandering Jews.

Free to wander
wherever they choose.

Are traveling together
in the Sangre de Cristo.

The blood of Christ
mountains of Mexico.

On the last leg of the journey.

They started a long time ago.

The arc of a love affair.

Rainbows in the high desert air.

Mountain passes
slipping into stones.

Hearts and bones.

Hearts and bones.

Was marriage
the wrong thing to do?

Yes. Why?

We were much better.

Well, because I think
if you look at me,

at the most, you could think
I'm an interesting girlfriend.

But a wife?

I think you're gonna be
disappointed.

Poor Paul, he had to put up
with a lot with me.

I think ultimately
I fell under the heading,

"Good anecdote, bad reality."

I was really good for material.

But when it came
to day-to-day living,

I was a little more
than he could take.

Tell me why.

Why won't you love me
for who I am, where I am.

Why don't
you love me for who I am, where I am?

You said, 'cause
that's not the way the world is, baby.

That's not the way it is.

This is how I love you, baby.

I
Remember somebody reviewing it.

He said, boy, I sure wouldn't
want to be around Paul Simon.

He seems like
a real cold guy, you know.

It's a song, you know?

It's a song.

That's not
my official philosophy.

I'm telling a story.

One and one-half wandering Jews.

Return to their natural coasts.

To resume old acquaintances.

And step out occasionally.

And speculate who had been
damaged the most.

Easy time will determine.

If these consolations
will be their reward.

The arc of a love affair.

Waiting to be restored.

You have had two marriages now.

Do you feel that marriage is
out of the question

in the future?

No, I think if you fall in love,

you're probably gonna
get married.

So as many times as that
ever happens to you in life.

For lucky people,
it happens once.

Mm-hmm.

But other lucky people,
it keeps happening.

Hey, Siri, call Edie.

Hello.

Hi, what you doing?

I'm playing "Mystery Train."

I love it.

Okay, are you ready for me?

We are. Are you sure?

Okay. SIMON: Okay, great.

Just kidding, just go on inside.

Hello. SIMON: There she is.

We're being filmed right now.

Oh, we're being filmed.
I'm not gonna say anything.

Oh, yeah, that's right.
I forgot.

Except hello.
Yeah, that's right.

When I was 16,
and I had an older friend,

and I was flipping
through her albums.

And I came across
this beautiful face.

And I had shivers down
the back of my neck.

And I said, look at this guy.

And she said,
you don't know Paul Simon?

You'll love his music, too.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians.

When you were on
Saturday Night Live

the first time,
did you have that same vibe?

I did. He shocked me.

I was all prepared,
because we'd been playing

that song for two years.

I'm not aware of too many things

I know what I know.

If you know what I mean.

They said,
just follow the red dots on the camera.

When you see the red light
come on, look at that camera.

Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box.

And I'm
doing all this, feeling pretty confident.

Getting through it.

And then I look at
the center camera red light,

and there's Paul Simon
standing right next to it.

And everyone else is
recessed in the shadows.

And he is standing out
like a hologram.

It was like being
awakened from a dream

into another dream.

I didn't mean to distract her,

nor did I think for a moment

that she would be paying
any attention to me at all.

What I am is what I am.

I lost it. I forgot the song.

So by the end of the song,
I'm repeating myself.

Oh, what you are.

What I am is what I am
is what I am.

And you can
see me spin around to say, oh, my...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
to the band.

When I came off of the stage,
he introduced himself.

And even then,
we got shushed by LORNE

because "Weekend Update"
had started,

and we're over there talking.

And now, "Weekend Update"

with anchorperson Dennis Miller.

Then Paul said,
we'll speak at the after-party.

I don't know who
asked first, "How old are you?"

The both of us were shocked
at the answers, you know?

It was like a moment
where we thought,

"Well, there goes a good idea."

But then she said, “I'm
coming back to New York.

“In a few weeks to play a club.”

And I said,
"Oh, I'll come down."

She said, "Oh, great." So I did.

Then I went down
to visit her in Dallas.

I got off the plane.

There she was in this
yellow 1972 pickup truck.

I guess that was our first,
you know, big date.

We hit it off.

There was a...
a sweet attraction.

Here you go.

La, la, Ia, Ia, Ia, la.

Hey, but uh...

The timing kept
changing on this.

So I do want to make sure that
I drop in at the right place.

And we'll give you
three or four takes.

I never met anybody like Edie.

She's very interested
in the mystery,

the big mystery about life.

You can never solve the mystery,

and that's what's
so great about it.

You don't want to solve it.

But you try to plug into it.

And I follow
what she's thinking,

and I follow her instincts.

Paul inspires you to feel

and think something
for yourself.

He opens his palms and says,
"What are we gonna do?"

A change of mood.

A summer storm erased
the sunny skies.

Two hapless hitchhikers
were signaling us.

As we were cruising by.

Not in the mood.

For idle chat.

Or hitchhike company.

Nevertheless, we brought them on.

As highway courtesy.

Hurry, get yourselves.

Inside the truck.

We're just going up a ways.

The rain should turn
to mist with any luck.

And you can find a place to stay.

The woman spoke.

Her voice a blend
of regional perfumes.

We have no destination.

The moon and stars provide us.

With our rooms.

My boy and me.

We're refugees of sorts.

From my hometown.

They don't like different there.

They would have moved us down.

He doesn't talk much anymore.

Just to the voices in his head.

The boy just gazed
down at the floor.

And nodded once or twice.

At what she said.

The sacred harp.

That David played
to make his songs of praise.

We long to hear those strings.

That set his heart ablaze.

There's something...
there's something that...

There's something...
there's something

unsatisfying about that.

In the idea, not the execution.

Uh...

Let's play it again
and see whether

we can follow the...

The-the tumbling of the...
of the guitar, the guitar.

Yeah, don't want it
to be too neat.

It's beautiful.

Sorry.

Hi, Jeff.

I'm just walking off the stage.

I had my worst cough night
last night that I've had yet.

Really, I mean,
that thing, it literally,

like, knocked me to my knees.

I just... I just...

It was unbelievable.

But I feel great in the day,

but God,
I'm afraid of the nights.

Yeah, I'll call you... yeah.

Okay, I will.

They're backwards.

That's okay.

Whoa, whoa, yeah.

Let's do this other part,

just begin with the word "home."

This record is gonna
be so special.

I almost teared up
for a minute up there.

I can understand. At
one, it almost made me cry now.

It's beautiful, Paul.

Lord, they tell me.

Of an uncloudy day.

You know, this reminds me...

of how I felt for...
at times in South Africa

when I said, it actually works.

After Hearts And Bones came out,

and that was not a hit album,
I remember reading somewhere

where they said
that's probably the end

of Paul Simon's career.

You won't be hearing
from Paul Simon anymore.

Emaweni webaba.

Silale maweni.

Webaba...

There's a Yeats line
I use sometimes

which is, "The foul rag
and bone shop of the heart."

As an artist,
you always go back to that...

To your heart
and what you believe in

and what you want to create.

And that's what he did.

Those were tough years
where you're going through,

who am I?

And I think he figured
it out, you know.

And after that comes Graceland.

Sing.

Homeless, homeless.

Moonlight sleeping
on a midnight lake.

Homeless, homeless.

Nobody was paying
any attention to me,

which was fine
because up until then,

there was always somebody
looking over my shoulder

lo see what the hit was.

So I really didn't mind that
they're leaving me alone

because I want to go
and follow the music.

It was around that time I was
building a house in Montauk,

Long Island.

And while I drove out,
I would listen to this tape

that a friend had given me.

And after a couple of weeks
of driving back and forth

to the house
and listening to the tape,

I think, what is this tape?

This is my favorite tape.

It didn't have a label, didn't
have any information on it,

just said, "Accordion
Jive Hits Volume II."

And that led me to asking
the people at Warner Brothers

to trace them for me.

They traced it to South Africa.

I began to listen
to different styles

of South African music.

I picked three groups
that I liked a lot,

and I asked if it was possible
to record with them.

You're not using this, right?

And in early 1985,
I set off to begin this.

Going in, I wouldn't
have been surprised

if the idea just didn't work.

It took a day or two
until I finally

got with the best
of the musicians

over there,
really talented musicians,

and boom.

There was
an excellent guitarist.

He started to play
a kind of strumming

that was really nice.

And I said, I really like that.

And he said, well,
I'm just trying to imitate

the way country people strum.

So we kept trading
information from Sun Records

to South African music.

And it kept melding
into these songs.

I was working with Roy Halee,

the engineer who did
all of Simon & Garfunkel.

And you know,
he was a close friend.

And the musicians,
their attitude at first

was kind of, you know,

this white guy wants
to pay us triple scale,

you know, yeah, hell, sure.

But then they'd come
into the control room

and listen to it,
and they'd go, oh, wow.

Then they start to like,
let me do an overdub on that.

Let me fix that, you know.

Everybody got excited,
and so did I,

because this is what
it sounded like,

not in my imagination,
but in the speakers.

The whole idea
of intermingling the cultures,

the musical cultures.

It was a concept
of getting good grooves

and coming back
and then rewriting it.

There was nothing
really written.

All of Paul's albums,
anything I ever did

with Paul or anybody,
songs were written.

To be able to go into the studio

with a guy like Paul
and have him say,

"Hey, I got this great thing
for you guys to hear.

Wait till you hear this,”
and you hear "Mrs. Robinson."

I mean, there it is.

Here, we go in and there's
an idea, you know, a concept.

That album was recorded
in five different studios

around the world.

One in South Africa,
the Hit Factory in New York,

the CBS Studios in L.A.

A little studio
in Crowley, Louisiana,

where I recorded the zydeco.

Abbey Road Studio in London,

and there we recorded
Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Somebody sing.

Somebody sing
Hello, hello, hello.

Roy made all of that sound like

it was one piece
to bring coherence

to all these different-sounding
musicians and locations.

- So it's everything,
so like... - Okay, great,

so let's go to
"Boy in the Bubble."

I just want to show
what's going on.

Let's play just what was from
South Africa without anything on it.

The bass part is
definitely African.

Bakithi, that was
his fretless bass.

That instrument,
it's so distinctive.

It's so powerful.

It's a great bass part.

And if we just listen
to the accordion by itself...

That accordion sound,

there's a Synclavier,

a keyboard synthesizer
underneath it.

Take it out.

That's what makes the thing
sound so big.

Nobody, for the most part,
really knew

what African music sounded like.

And this was the first track
on the record.

We were really saying,
like, this thing

is big, from another place.

On "I Know What I Know,"
I was trying to make up

words that would sound
something like what the women

were singing in Shangaan.

Let's go, let me go.

Like a thing
in the back of my head

I know what I know

I'll sing what I have said.

We come and we go.

It's a thing that I keep
in the back of my head.

Whoop, whoop.

For the song "Graceland,"
I started with a drum track

that belongs
to a whole other song.

I wasn't interested
in the accordion,

but I liked the drum track

because it sounded like
Sun Records.

High hat doing that.

When I brought it home
and I was trying to write to it,

I would sing these lines
about Graceland, Graceland.

And I would say,
of course, I'm going

to get rid of the Graceland part

because I mean,
what's Graceland got to do

with South Africa
or anything like that?

But then I couldn't replace it
with anything.

I was always singing that.

And finally, I said,
"I don't know.

"Maybe I'm supposed to go
to Graceland. I've never been.

"Maybe I'm supposed
to go on a trip

"and see what I'm
writing about." So I did.

The
Mississippi Delta was shining.

Like a national guitar.

The song started to,
you know, write itself.

I am following the river
down the highway.

Through the cradle
of the Civil War.

I'm going to Graceland,
Graceland

Memphis, Tennessee.

And eventually became about
this father and son journey

to mend a broken heart.

Poor boys and pilgrims
with families.

And we are going to Graceland.

My traveling companion
is nine years old.

He is the child
of my first marriage.

But I have reason to believe.

We both will be
received in Graceland.

And Graceland
became more like a metaphor

than an actual destination.

She
comes back to tell me she's gone.

As if I didn't know that.

As if I didn't know my own bed.

As if I'd never noticed.

The way she brushed
her hair from her forehead.

And she said losing love.

Is like a window in your heart.

Everybody sees
you're blown apart.

Everybody sees the wind blow.

I'm going to Graceland,
Memphis, Tennessee

I'm going to Graceland.

And the album of the year is...

That was happy.

Graceland.

And my traveling companions.

Are ghosts and empty sockets

I'm looking at ghosts
and empties.

But I have reason to believe.

We all will be
received in Graceland.

Paul Simon's
Graceland is a big success,

with more than
a million copies sold.

But it's also controversial

because Simon recorded
the album in South Africa

with Black musicians.

And critics say,
he should have had nothing

to do with a racist country.

I hope I can adequately
express my deep admiration

and love for the singers
and musicians

from South Africa who worked
with me on Graceland.

They live, along with
other South African artists

and their countrymen,
under one of the most

repressive regimes
on the planet today.

And still, they are able
to produce music

of great power
and nuance and joy.

And I find that
just extraordinary.

And they have my great
respect and love.

Thank you.

Even now
with all the success of the record,

how troubled are you
by the charge

that you've violated
the UN boycott?

In some way gone against
the anti-apartheid movement?

Well, I mean,
I wouldn't like there to be

any misunderstanding
of what I've done.

You know, let's face it. The
cultural boycott is aimed at cutting off

nourishment to the white
South African community.

And they've never
addressed the subject

of what would happen
if somebody went

to work with the Black
artistic community

because nobody had
done that before.

Nevertheless, you could be open

to the charge
of cultural slumming.

To say it's slumming
is to imply that...

that we, the Americans,
we live uptown,

and everybody else Is downtown.

Or we live downtown,
and everybody else is uptown.

However way you want to call it.

Who's the slum?

I mean, this is music
we're talking about here.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Hugh Masekela.

Queen of South African music,
Mama Afrika, Miriam Makeba.

I asked Hugh Masekela

and Miriam Makeba
to join on tour.

Hugh and Miriam were both
exiled from South Africa.

They were impressive figures.

You know, a white guy
from the United States,

I never could have defended

the whole Graceland idea
politically.

I could defend it musically,
but I wouldn't have been

able to defend it politically.

They would have
just dismissed me.

It just seems that it could have

very strong repercussions

being a part of this tour.

But strong repercussions
from where?

From South Africa.

It's an individual choice
as South Africans.

Am I going to sit and say,

"Okay, I want to be safe
while my cousin, my child,"

"my mother, my grandmother,
and others"

"are being shot at every day?"

Those who do not want
to participate in the tour

have the chance to say "No,
I am not participating."

But so far, fortunately,

everyone has said
they are going to do it

because they know
the seriousness

of the problems we have at home.

She could shut
anybody down any way, Miriam.

It's not a person
you want to tangle with.

I would say the truth...

And Hugh could give you a really

precise, insightful vision.

People have ignored
our situation

for a long time,
and they've only, like...

They've only seen it from
a political point of view.

So it was great that
somebody could be moved

by our music so much.

That in spite of all opposition,

he went and sought out
South Africans, and said,

"I want to be with you
and sing with you,"

"just as a human being,
you know,"

"because your music moves me."

The closest we could get
to South Africa

was Harare, Zimbabwe.

I'm not sure if anybody really
anticipated that it would

become what it was,

which was a completely
integrated audience.

That would have been illegal
in South Africa.

Many South Africans came
across the border

lo see the concert,
and many Zimbabweans also.

So you had a big audience
of Black and white together.

No problems, everybody
having a good time.

Thanks to the
Graceland tour, we are here.

But I hope and wish that
someday, we South Africans

will be able to
invite Paul Simon

to Johannesburg
in a free South Africa!

It was a slow day.

And the sun was beating.

On the soldiers
by the side of the road.

There was a bright light.

Shattering a shop window.

The bomb in the baby
carriages wired to the radio.

And these are the days
of miracle and wonder.

This is the long-distance call.

The way the camera
follows us in slo-mo.

The way we look
to us all, oh, yeah.

The way we look
to a distant constellation.

That's dying
in a corner of the sky.

These are the days
of miracle and wonder.

Don't cry, baby,
don't cry, don't cry.

These are the days
of miracle and wonder.

This is the long-distance call.

He gave everybody
a chance to prove himself.

Believing in ourselves,
believing in the music,

and at the same time,

being thankful for taking it out

and making it world-known.

If you'll be my bodyguard

I can be your long-lost pal.

Yeah, I can call you Betty.

And Betty, when you call me,
you can call me Al.

Call me Al.

We finished the song,
and the people kept cheering

and applauding, you know?

I kept waiting to go
into the next song,

and then Ray PHIRI said,

they want you to do it again.

I said, yeah, "I know,
but we're gonna do this."

And he said, "No,
you don't understand."

"They want you to do it again."

And then we did it again.

Man walks down the street.

And says, why am I
soft in the middle now.

Why am I soft in the middle of.

The rest of my life is so hard

I need a photo opportunity

I want a shot of redemption.

Don't want to end up a cartoon.

In a cartoon graveyard

Bonedigger, Bonedigger.

Dogs in the moonlight.

Far away in my well-lit door

Mr. Beerbelly, Beerbelly.

Get these mutts away from me.

You know, I don't find
this stuff amusing anymore.

If you'll be my bodyguard

I can be your long-lost pal.

Yeah, I can call you Betty.

And Betty, when you call me.

And the show had the added gold

of having the best
of Hugh's repertoire.

Incredible performance,
and Miriam,

she had a big international hit

with a song called "Pata Pata."

Pata Pata is the name of a dance.

We did down Johannesburg way.

Everybody starts to move.

As soon as Pata Pata
begins to play.

I didn't know what to say

about being South Africa's
most famous exile.

I think that
when you're in exile,

you're in exile,
whether famous or not.

Exile is painful.

All of these years that
they've tried to separate me

from the people at home,

there's nothing that can
come between us.

I'm also happy that
the people at home

have decided that they are
not going to sit down

and take apartheid
just lying down.

And I am saying thank you
to my people.

We will get there,
and I shall go home.

In early memory.

Sounds of music.

Were ringing round
my grandmother's door

I said take this child.

From the Township of Mufulo.

Give them wings
to fly through harmony.

She won't bother you no more.

This is the story of how
we begin to remember.

This is the powerful
pulsing of love in the vein.

After the dream of falling
and calling your name out.

These are the roots of rhythm.

And the roots of rhythm remain.

It happened.

This idea actually happened,

and when we played
together, it was great.

And people liked it everywhere.

Black people and white people,
everybody liked it.

And I think for all
of the South Africans,

who had just lived in
just darkness, it was great.

People say she's crazy.

She got diamonds
on the soles of her shoes.

Well, that's one way
to lose these walking blues.

Diamonds on the soles
of your shoes.

She is physically forgotten.

But then she slipped into
my pocket with my car keys.

She said you've taken me for
granted because I please you.

Wearing these diamonds.

And I could say ooh, ooh, ooh.

As if everybody knows
what I'm talking about.

As if everybody here.

Would know exactly
what I was talking about.

The statement that it made was,

listen to how rich
this culture is.

Look at these people.
They're so great.

Now can you imagine them

under the boot heel
of apartheid?

It became real.

It was real people.

I think people became
more impassioned

in their indignation against
the regime in South Africa

and in support
of South African culture.

Ooh, hey.

Cha, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na.

Cha, na, na, na, na.

Well
"Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"

is really like a
"Township Jive" kind of song.

Cha, na, na, na, na...

But there was
a connection between

the West African
and the South African.

The track turns
from South African rhythm

into West African rhythm.

And that West African drumming

is really what led me to
"The Rhythm of the Saints."

It was just following the trail.

It sort of started with,
there was a club in New York

called SOB, Sounds of Brazil.

It still exists.

They used to just be
Brazilian music.

And I ran into
Eddie Palmieri there.

He came over to me,
and he said, "You know",

"what are you gonna do now?
You've done Graceland,"

"what are you gonna do?"

He said, "Well, you can't just
do one African album."

"South Africa, that's where
the great voices are."

"Now you've got to go
to West Africa"

"where the great drumming is."

"And then follow the drumming
in the African diaspora."

And while I was,
you know, thinking,

that's what I'm gonna do,

Quincy Jones
called me up and he said,

"Do you know Milton Nascimento?"

"He would like
to record with you,"

and I said, "Yeah, I'd love to."

So after the thing is
over, I say, "Hey, you know what",

"if I come down to Brazil,

"would you introduce me
to drummers?

And he said, "Yeah, sure",

“I'll put you in contact
with my producer.”

We went down to Brazil,

and I hear these drums
on the street.

It's Olodum practicing.

And I said, wow, that's great.

Why don't we record that?

We could just go
into a courtyard,

and we'll hang the mics.

And you know,
we'll just let it run.

So we did.

I probably had that for a year

before I listened to it again.

And then I started to chop it up

into what became the basis
for "The Obvious Child."

Well, I'm accustomed
to a smooth ride.

Or maybe I'm a dog
who's lost its bite

I don't expect to be
treated like a fool no more

I don't expect to sleep
through the night.

Some people say
a lie is just a lie.

But I say why deny
the obvious child?

Why deny the obvious child?

And in remembering a road sign

I am remembering
a girl when I was young.

And we said these songs are true.

These days are ours.

These tears are free and hey now.

The cross is in the ballpark.

The cross is in the ballpark.

Had a lot of fun.

We had a lot of money.

We had a little son.

And thought we'd call him Sonny.

Sonny gets married
and moves away

Sonny has a baby
and bills to pay

Sonny gets sunnier day
by day by day by day.

You'll see in a lot
of these sessions,

it's just sort of following
a... "Wow, that's great."

"Where does that come from?"

"Oh, over there.
Oh, you can't record there."

People would say, no, that
would be very difficult to do.

I'd say, "Okay,
So it's very difficult."

"There we go.

"We're gonna do something
very difficult now.

“It's possible."

Worst that happens
is we don't get it.

But you never know what you're
gonna find along the way.

I believe in the future.

We shall suffer no more.

Maybe not in my lifetime.

But in yours, I feel sure.

Song dogs barking
at the break of dawn.

Lightning pushes the edges
of a thunderstorm.

And these streets.

Quiet as a sleeping army.

Send their battered dreams.

To heaven, to heaven.

For the mother's restless son.

Who is a witness to.

Who is a warrior.

Who denies his urge
to break and run.

Who says hard times,
I'm used to them.

The speeding planet burns

I'm used to them.

My life's so calm
and it disappears.

And sometimes even music.

Cannot substitute for tears.

Sometimes even music.

Cannot substitute for tears, oh.

Every record he did,
everything he did,

it was always a different
challenge for him

with the same understanding:

love,

family,

loss,

rebirth,

struggle,

ambiguity,

the infectious joyous beat,

and the story that will
lead you to have a realization

about people
of different traditions,

and not the reduction of feeling

but the expansion of feeling.

And ultimately the integration
of life and death.

Thank you so much, so much.

Have a sweet and peaceful night.

Good night.

I got a little bit...

You know I love you, man.

You know? Shit. I
know, I love you too, man.

Damn.

Thanks for... thanks...

Thanks. You know. Man, come on.

Never thank me.
It's a blessing for me.

You're allowed
to say thanks, you know?

No. Not to me.

I didn't have
any lyrics to the last song,

but I played the whole piece
for WYNTON.

And when we got up to that,
I said,

"That's the end of the piece,
you know."

And he said, "Wow." He
said, "I'll tell you what I feel.

"By the time we got up
to that, I feel like

I really don't want to die.”

And that's sort of
what gave me, "Wait."

Wait.

I'm not ready

I'm just packing my gear.

Wait.

My hand's steady.

My mind is still clear.

I hear the ghost songs I own.

Jumpin' and jivin' and moanin'

Through a heartbroken microphone.

Wait.

Life is a meteor.

Let your eyes roam.

Heaven is beautiful.

It's almost like home.

Children, get ready.

It's time to come home.

Music comes
out of you from where you don't know.

I want to believe in.

A dreamless transition.

Wait.

It speaks this language
where it doesn't have to be precise.

I don't want to be near.

My dark intuition.

To say a thing
that you don't have to think about,

is it so?

I/ need you here by my side.

If that was my
criteria and everything had to be so,

it had to be true, what I said,

just might as well give up
from the start.

My beautiful mystery guide.

Wait.

It can't be done.

Life is a meteor.

Let your eyes roam.

Heaven is beautiful.

It's almost like home.

Children, get ready.

It's time to come home.

What I've
tried to learn, after all of these years,

is that when you find
a thing that produces

a feeling of peace or joy,
try and extend it.

Try and hold on to it.

Amen.

It's like bliss.
It's like there's no more.

It's a mystery.

It's a big mystery.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

Come to talk with you again.

Because a vision softly creeping.

I've got to watch out
for that frequency.

Left
its seeds while I was sleeping.

And the vision.

That was planted in my brain.

Guitar needs to come up.

Still remains.

Within the sound of silence.

Restless dreams I walked alone.

Narrow streets of cobblestone.

Neath a halo of a street lamp.

I turn my collar
to the cold and the damp.

When my eyes were stabbed.

By the flash of a neon light.

That split the night.

And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw

10,000 people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking.

People hearing without listening.

People writing songs.

That voices never share.

No one dared.

Disturb the sound.

Of silence.

Yeah, I'm good.

Whoo!