Paul Simon's Most Personal Album

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I don't think there was a song on Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," which hit the music stores on this date in 1975, that I didn't like.

I haven't been able to say that about many albums in my life, but I can say it about that one.

I don't know if the songs on it were great, but I know they were unique. I haven't heard all of Paul Simon's albums, but "Still Crazy After All These Years" was the most personal album of his that I have heard.

One, "My Little Town," musically reunited Simon with his old partner, Art Garfunkel, for the first time since their well–publicized breakup five years earlier. There would be several actual reunion attempts in the future, but this was the first thing they had done together since 1970 — even though a song from their 1968 "Bookends" album was released as a single in 1972 to promote a greatest hits album — and would qualify technically as the duo's most recent hit.

"My Little Town" was a substantial hit as well, climbing to #9 on the charts — fueled, no doubt, by the rather rampant speculation that this was a sign that Simon and Garfunkel were getting back together. I suppose it didn't hurt sales that the song was on both Simon's album and Garfunkel's "Breakaway" album, but the truth is that it was never a prelude to a reunion. Well, not an impending one, anyway.

Of course, Simon and Garfunkel did nothing to dispel such talk. Less than two weeks after Simon released his "Still Crazy After All These Years" album, he and Garfunkel appeared together on the second–ever episode of Saturday Night Live and performed three songs together, two hits from the '60s and a rendition of their latest recording, "My Little Town."

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I always related to the lyrics. I was the son of a college professor in what was then a small Arkansas town: "In my little town," Simon wrote, "I never meant nothin', I was just my father's son." I know that feeling well.

Simon said he wrote the song with Garfunkel specifically in mind. So I suppose, in hindsight, the fact that they recorded the song together really had no significance, but the rather half–hearted denials that it was a reunion in the making largely fell on deaf ears.

I have always liked Simon's solo work, but he always seems to sound better when he performs with someone — like Art Garfunkel or, in one of my favorites from this album, the late, great Phoebe Snow singing "Gone at Last." It made it to #23 on the charts.

Once described as "a contralto grounded in a bluesy growl and capable of sweeping over four octaves on the slightest provocation into a gospel–charged upper range," Snow's voice was perfect for the song. It sounded like the kind of music I heard in black churches in the South when I was growing up and my father, a religion professor, took my brother and me to various church services in central Arkansas. It had an energy unlike anything I had ever heard on a Paul Simon album, and I have to believe it never would have achieved the success that it did without Snow's vocal contribution.

She was that good. She was sort of like a bolt from the blue. Her appearance with Simon was about a year after her debut hit, "Poetry Man." I've seen her listed as a background vocalist on the song, but that really isn't true. It was a duet, and, if anything, Snow's vocals eclipsed Simon's.

Listen to it, and you'll see what I mean.

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There was one song from the album that was the public's clear favorite — "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." With its all–star lineup — Snow provided background vocals, as did Patti Austin and Valerie Simpson — it went all the way to #1 on the charts.

I liked it at first, but it became trendy to play around with lyrics and produce parodies. The Muppets covered it, and the Jacksons (previously the Jackson 5) parodied it, but those were legitimate. The ones that bugged me were the ones that made obvious and unamusing plays on words:

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"You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free"

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Before long, there were more parodies than you could shake a stick at. It became something of a cliche.

It was a great album, though, probably my favorite Simon solo album. Except, as I have pointed out, it was far from a solo achievement.

Simon & Garfunkel's First Album

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It should come as no surprise that the Beatles were the most popular recording artists in the 1960s, but Simon & Garfunkel's popularity easily rivaled the Beatles' by the time the decade ended.

Simon & Garfunkel made their debut on this day in 1964 with the release of their "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" album — but widespread acclaim did not come until after they released their second album, "Sounds of Silence," a year and a half later.

Recorded over three daytime sessions in the spring of 1964, "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" offered five original songs and several traditional folk songs, much like the composition of Bob Dylan's debut album.

And, again, like Dylan's album, it offered a glimpse into the future.

It was my mother who introduced me to Simon & Garfunkel when I was just a little boy. Mostly it was the music from the "Sounds of Silence" album, which Mom played frequently — and loudly — on our old stereo. I have no memory of hearing "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" until I was much older, maybe when I was in college.

I don't think there were any hits on the album, nothing that would be recognizable to anyone except the really hard–core Simon & Garfunkel fans.

And Mom was a pretty devoted fan. She probably heard some of the tracks from "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM," which led her to purchase Simon & Garfunkel's second album. I have many memories of her humming along with songs from "Sounds of Silence" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme." Sometimes, when the spirit really moved her, she would belt out the songs with the gusto of Ethel Merman. My brother and I were her audience. We were little, but we would cheer and applaud when she sang Simon & Garfunkel.

I don't recall hearing her sing most of the songs from "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM," though, which is a shame. There were some good songs on that album. Not great songs, but good songs — and, as I say, they gave people a taste of what to expect.

The original Paul Simon songs on the album clearly indicated a folk direction to Simon & Garfunkel's music at the time. I guess the folk genre was always appropriate for Simon & Garfunkel's music, but it was probably most pronounced on "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" with its acoustic guitar presence, but it also had an element the duo's other four studio albums lacked — a banjo.

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Of course, there were glimpses of the hit machine Simon & Garfunkel would become — like the original "The Sound of Silence," which it seems to me was the first Simon & Garfunkel song my mother brought home — in the form of a 45 rpm single.

That wasn't necessarily the version that was on the album that was released 50 years ago today. It might have been the revised (and, in my opinion, inferior) version that was included on the duo's next album — the one that brought them wide recognition.

So perhaps she heard "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" after all. That song was featured more prominently in the album that shared that name.

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I liked other original Paul Simon songs on the album, too. "Bleecker Street" was probably my favorite, but the historian in me appreciated "He Was My Brother," a song that was inspired by the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. One of those workers, Andrew Goodman, had been a classmate of Simon's. The song took certain liberties — for example, it said that the unnamed brother was five years older, when, in fact, Simon was about two years older than Goodman.

It was still a good song — and it was, I believe, Simon & Garfunkel's first foray into topical songwriting. It was also the song that first attracted the attention of Columbia Records.

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A Metaphor for a Generation

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Jonathan (Jack Nicholson): Do you always answer a question with a question?
Susan (Candice Bergen): Do you always date your best friend's girlfriend?

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After "Carnal Knowledge" premiered in New York City on this date in 1971, it became something of a cultural flashpoint.

I guess you have to remember what the times were like — or be told, if you are under a certain age.

It was kind of a tentative time. American society was really only beginning to re–examine itself and the attitudes that had influenced all the previous generations.

All in the Family is usually regarded as the starting point of a new kind of TV programming that, although conceived in the tradition of the sitcom, had a harder edge and was more satirical than anything that had come before.

But that show had only been on the air since January. Social satire would be the hallmark of so much of television (and everything else in the entertainment field) in the 1970s, but it was only emerging in 1971.

The tone was established, though, and all kinds of preconceived societal ideas were being exposed to ridicule so it was only natural that the movies would follow TV's lead.

Before that, prime time TV (and the movies, too, for that matter) was almost exclusively about entertainment with hillbillies, rubes, genies and witches cast in outlandish "fish out of water" situations. After that, it had more of a conscience.

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"Carnal Knowledge" challenged gender roles. It didn't re–define the conversation. But it did get people talking.

To be sure, other movies in those days were doing the same thing. What "Carnal Knowledge" was doing wasn't unique, by any stretch of the imagination.

But there was clearly something about it. As a young boy, I remember hearing the men speak of it and snicker. There was nudity in it, they said. You could see just about everything that Ann–Margret had.

Even All in the Family made jokes about the movie. In one episode, I recall, Archie and Edith were shown returning from the movies, and Edith was apologizing to Archie. She told him she thought it was a religious picture — "Cardinal Knowledge."

Archie complained that there was so much activity in bed that he had to watch much of the movie with his head tilted to one side.

(I have often wished time travel was possible. I'd like to go back to those days with a video tape of "Basic Instinct" and show it to those guys who made the snide remarks. Of course, I would have to bring along a VCR, too, since such things didn't exist in 1971.

(Anyway, if those guys thought Ann–Margret showed everything she had, they should get an eyeful of Sharon Stone. But I digress.)

The images weren't as explicit as they are today so "Carnal Knowledge" often comes across as tame — if not downright boring — to the more worldly eyes of folks in the 21st century.

But why shouldn't they? "Carnal Knowledge" was the first movie to show a condom onscreen. How tame does that seem in 2011?

In 1971, a condom was the kind of thing that simply wasn't discussed outside the bedroom — at least, not in my experience — and about the only place I ever saw them was in the dispensers that were located in gas station men's rooms. But today, if your city is anything like mine, you can find businesses that cater entirely to condom buyers sitting next to fast–food joints and convenience stores.

The story focused on a couple of college buddies (Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel) and the age–old desire of men in that age group to make sexual conquests. Garfunkel becomes attached to an enticing coed (played by 25–year–old Candice Bergen) and pursues a chaste relationship with her, unaware of the fact that his friend has already bedded her — and developed something of an infatuation with her.

But Nicholson and Bergen go their separate ways. Garfunkel and Bergen eventually marry and embark on a rather dysfunctional marriage that eventually falls apart. Nicholson, meanwhile, breezes through a seemingly unending series of purely sexual — and emotionally unsatisfying — relationships until he finally marries his latest mistress, Ann–Margret, who is, as folks used to say, a "fun girl" but desperately, obsessively wishes to be married.

That marriage, too, is doomed, and Nicholson, later in the movie, presents a slideshow to Garfunkel and his newest significant other that bitterly lists the "ballbusters" in his life, going back to his earliest womanizing days. A slide of Bergen pops up, and Nicholson tries to move quickly to the next one, hoping that no one noticed, but it is too late. Garfunkel has already seen it — and put two and two together.

The old friends never discuss the fact that they shared a girl in college but Garfunkel apparently never suspected.

"Knowledge," in this story, was largely about sex — but it meant more than that.

It was set in a time frame that spanned post–World War II and the repressive 1950s into the sexually open 1960s, and it was an examination of the confusion experienced by both sexes as they moved into the 1970s and middle age.

Sometimes I see "Carnal Knowledge" as something of a generational metaphor.

In every generation, it seems to me, there is one aspect of life (at least) that is radically altered from what people were told when they were growing up and leaves them groping for answers.

For the generation that came of age in the mid–20th century (i.e., Nicholson's and Garfunkel's characters), it was gender roles and how they were affected by the social movements of that time.

For the generation that came of age in the late 20th century, perhaps, it has been making the transition to computers after learning to type on old–fashioned typewriters.

Who knows what it will be for those who have come of age (or will come of age) in the early 21st century?

"Carnal Knowledge" was regarded as a sex comedy at the time of its release. I remember a lot of talk about nudity and suggestive language, but when I saw the movie, many years later in college, it was more like a sex tragedy. At least, it seemed that way to me.

Perhaps that was what made it stand out from other movies of the time that had risque reputations.

It is tragic, is it not, to see a generation left on the ash heap of history for one reason or another.