Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Paul Simon is the king!
I love Paul Simon... his lyrics.
Paul Simon started piling up a lot of words, more than the bar could handle, and I stopped!
Steve Howe met Paul Simon and said that Paul was very approving of our version of 'America.'
I remember going up and doing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' with Paul Simon, Santana playing up there with us.
I'm born and raised Long Island. Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Ben Gibbard - melody-driven guys... They shaped me, molded my music.
Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz.
Biggest musical influences would be people like Nina Simone and Tom Waits. A huge amount of writers like Leslie Feist and Paul Simon.
My parents listened to music in our house all the time when we were growing up. It was everything from Dolly Parton to Paul Simon... We packed in everything.
For me, Paul Simon has always been an incredible songwriter, as he writes very complicated songs that sound very simple, and he makes it look so easy when it's not.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of American singer/songwriters, so a lot of Tom Waits, Paul Simon - also Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. And bands like Vampire Weekend.
Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated.
While Paul Simon is revered, I don't think people get how deep he is. I love the guy. He comes from that early street-harmony, first-generation type of rock and rollers. He gets it.
I like pop music, especially Crosby, Nash, Stills and Young, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon - he's broken up with Art Garfunkel hasn't he? - but I can't study while pop music is playing.
I was just reading about Paul Simon in 'Uncut', and it was fascinating. I never think about him much or think about his music or anything, but it's interesting to hear his ideas on stuff.
You see, I read reviews of people like Paul Simon, and they don't talk about the fact that he's looking old or whether he is fashionable; they talk about the music, which is how it should be.
I like songs to mean something as well as sound good, and Paul Simon is a maestro. While Art Garfunkel was a voice and moved on to other things Simon remained the genius lyricist and composer.
There are some good songs, but not the kind of song-writing that I remember, that I like. Springsteen still does it. Paul Simon, and there are also good writers, but that doesn't dominate the charts.
When I was working on 'Night Falls Over Kortedala,' I was listening a lot to 'Graceland,' the Paul Simon record. I really got into the lyrics on that album. The opening line is so brilliant, the way he sets the scene.
Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.
I love Radiohead, which most people don't expect, and I listen to everything from Stevie Wonder to Steely Dan, Carole King, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, Beyonce Knowles, Vampire Weekend, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Burt Bacharach, and Paul Simon.
The way Ben Gibbard paints a picture, you feel like, 'I was there that day with him.' You really feel the way he paints pictures and speaks and talks. It's almost like talk-singing. Paul Simon does that very well as well. He's a huge influence of mine.
I've grown up on American songwriters my whole life - listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine - you know, classic, real songwriters. They've been the lion's share of what I've really focused on as a writer and as influences, too.
A dream set would include songs by other artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and other favorites. More obscure Heart songs like 'Wait For an Answer' and 'Nada One' would be fun, plus fan favorites like 'Love Mistake' and 'Language of Love.' Endless possibilities.
One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.
I'm probably the only one in the world you can name that's worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. 'Fly Me to the Moon' was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. I'm the only one.
One of the disadvantages of poetry over popular music is that if you write a pop song, it naturally gets into people's heads as they listen in the car. You don't have to memorize a Paul Simon song; it's just in your head, and you can sing along. With a poem, you have to will yourself to memorize it.
I grew up listening to an album start to finish, and you don't skip songs. You don't listen to a Paul Simon record and skip a song: you listen to it the same way you would eat a meal... the way the person who prepared that meal for you means for you to experience it. That's how you should do it before you add salt and pepper to it.