Paul Simon – Songs From the Capeman
I was talking a friend the other night and I think I may have found the only other person in the world who likes this album. After the impact made by Graceland, Paul Simon’s career seemed to come to an abrupt halt in rather spectacular fashion when it ran into the brick wall of Rhythm of the Saints. Maybe he slightly over-egged the pudding, maybe he wasn’t disciplined enough after the success of Graceland, maybe he had too many pre-conceived notions of what he wanted to achieve… ach whatever the reason, the album just didn’t click with the public, and that was it from Paul Simon for years.
Rhythm of the Saints didn’t really click with me either, I have to confess, so by the time Songs From the Capeman was released in 1997 I will admit approaching it with some trepidation. It barely made a scratch on the public consciousness, but I actually think this is a great album.
Simon works a lot in an area which is politically sensitive, in that he is often more obviously open to the accusations of cultural colonialism which dog Vampire Weekend. For all the Lion King charicatures of their last album irritated the shit out of me, I think Vampire Weekend tend to draw their influences not from the cultures from which they are accused of pilfering, but from sources once and twice removed, which makes that accusation a little harder to seriously level at the band. Paul Simon, on the other hand, seems to go a lot closer to the source, which if anything is also closer to what could conceivably be described as actual exploitation.
Am I accusing Paul Simon of being exploitative, then? Well, no I’m not. I am not Puerto Rican, and know so little about the place that it’s really not my accusation to make anyway. And besides Simon does, at least from my superficial perspective, seem to genuinely immerse himself in the culture he is working with, and try and approach his work from the perspective of genuine understanding. I could be totally wrong about that, of course.
This album, for example, far from being a tourists’ eye view of some ethnic culture or other, was actually written for a Broadway musical* specifically about the life of Salvador Agron, who was sentenced to death for the murder of two teenagers in a gang fight in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, in 1959. So as well as being a strong and deliberate political statement about racial divides and class culture in the States (as well as many other things), it does seem to me to be a genuinely sensitive attempt to understand, rather than simply mimick. As I said, though, that’s really not my place to say. You can read a little more about it, starting with those Wikipedia links, and then judge for yourself if you are so inclined.
So political bollocks aside, is it any good? Well of course, I think so or I wouldn’t be writing this. There are, admittedly a couple of songs which I find saccharine to the point of physical pain – I Was Born in Puerto Rico springs to mind, and I really squirm at Time is an Ocean – but there’s a shitload of great stuff on here.
The two songs downloadable below, Bernadette, Satin Summer Nights, Trailways Bus, Quality, Killer Wants to Go to College – all of them have a laid back, uninsistent sort of vibe and a nice rhythm. A lot also include the kind of male-female duets which made Calexico’s Roka so incredible. I suppose I’d say that there’s just a lot of warmth about this album. It’s written with sympathy, but doesn’t shy away from the brutality of the situation it describes. There’s no obvious hit, and it’s all perhaps a bit sweary and generally a bit downbeat for radio, so maybe that contributed to it never really capturing the public imagination, but in general I think this is a really underrated record.
Paul Simon – Adios Hermanos
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*Yeah, because Broadway’s never exploitative, superficial or sensationalist, right? Oh.
I loved Graceland when it came out. Still do.
I think the problem Simon had to contend with the subsequent albums is that he almost became a caricature, going to different cultures and making music that sounded on the one hand a bit like it came from that culture, and on the other a bit like Paul Simon.
He was like a musical Alan Whicker.
The albums that followed Graceland were never going to have the same novelty value to the public at large, and Graceland really captured the zeitgeist of that mid-eighties, Live Aid, Mandela, Apartheid fascination with Africa in the west, and became a huge cultural touch stone for it. The alien and less culturally available references on the next two albums were never going to compete with that.
I also think that the african rhythms, melodious guitar technique and vocal support from Ladysmith Black Mambazo compliment Simon’s rhythmic staccato compositional style perfectly; and that’s something he didn’t grasp as firmly on the next two albums.
The litling, swaying latin rhythms he worked immediately after Graceland with just didn’t dovetail as neatly with his songwriting style.
Not that there isn’t good stuff on those albums, this is one of the finest songwriting craftsmen to have ever graced popular music don’t forget, so it’s going to be difficult for him to turn out anything that’s really hopelessly rubbish for very long.
However, I’m just a bit ‘meh’ about these albums.
does anyone else hate graceland with a passion because i think i might be the only one. it makes me cringe.
thanks matthew. i think paul simon is a visionary and these tracks only corroborate that sentiment. sweet post.
I actually understand the cringeing, but the songwriting is exquisite.
And Paul Simon has rarely put in a warmer, more effecting vocal performance.
Graeme said that as Michael dislikes Graceland he basically supports apartheid.
That makes me chuckle whenever I think of it. I quite like this album and its a million times better than You’re the One.
Dylan, Rhythm of the Saints was still very African in influence, was it not? I didn’t think he got into the more Latiny stuff (try and keep up with the technical terms here, people) until much later. I got the impression that RotS was basically just a Graceland too far, and didn’t quite work, whereas this record was a move in a totally different direction.
I’ve always seen Rhythm Of The Saints as more of a South American album, being as he started off working with Brazilian musicians. However, according to the Wikipedia entry for the album, he did start to bring a lot of the Graceland crew in – along with dozens of other ‘world’ musicians – during the project too.
Micheal – I theoretically can’t stand Graceland. The same goes for Vampire Weekend (though I have to admit I’ve heard a couple of their tunes that I liked; not knowing it was them – that’s why it’s a theoretical hatred).
I really don’t understand why Matthew would review this. It’s not like anyone really needs to discover Paul Simon. But it’s his blog to do with as he pleases. However, Paul Simon reeks too much of middle aged professionals who listen to NPR for me to even care about Paul Simon. Will you be reviewing the next album by little known pop stars the Rolling Stones?
Chris, it’s more the fact that for some reason a record by someone that famous seems to have vanished entirely off the radar, despite the recent resurgence in the appreciation of Graceland.
This album has vanished so much even I had forgotten that it existed until a few months ago, when I happened to play an old mixtape.
Basically this blog doesn’t have a mission or a specific job, other than for me to spill out my inner monologue about music, so it just seemed to bubble up as something I’ve been thinking about a bit recently.
Got ya.
The cultural exploitation stuff is interesting though. Did rock and roll, in its infancy, rip off black performers? Is current rap now ripping off rock and roll? Can one culture really rip off or exploit another musically? Is it ok for a musician to rip off or exploit their own culture but not another? Are these even meaningful distinctions? All that stuff; interesting shit.
Well I remember Sascha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker complaining that Arcade Fire were too white, whilst at the same time using the fact that people compared them to Bruce Springsteen as evidence of that fact. When you consider how much black music (but black American music, which has a mixture of white as well as old African influences) influenced Springsteen it quickly becomes obvious what a ludicrous assertion he was making, even before you get to the point of asking whether or not TV on the Radio were a white band or a black one.
Paul Simon, on the other hand, gets a lot closer to a specific culture and then writes music whilst being immersed in that culture, or so it seems at least. I’m reminded a bit of things like Buena Vista Social Club and Damon Albern’s Mali Music project, and I suppose there will always be both a bit of exploitation from the famous person’s perspective and a bit of a halo effect to benefit the culture they happen to end up investigating.
I guess it’s just the balance of the give and the take which make the difference between exploitation and proper cross-cultural collaboration. I don’t know enough about any of the example I mentioned, or indeed this album, to know where on that spectrum they sit though.
That lead guy from Arcade Fire IS pretty pale.
It’s funny, I read somewhere that Jay-Z has become interested in indie rock…and just found this quote by Mr Z: “…what the indie rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring. It felt like us in the beginning…the music that they’re making and the connection they’re making to people is really inspiring. So, I hope that they have a run where they push hip-hop back a little bit, so it will force hip-hop to fight to make better music, because it can happen, because that’s what rap did to rock.”
I don’t quite agree with him but nonetheless…
Anyhow, I think the worst form of eploitation is when the producer or manager exploits the musician. And that’s a black thang as much as a white thang.
I Love this album….possibly my favourite.
Where the fuck has Jay-Z been since 1989?!
Why the fuck has he got a name that sounds like a kitchen cleaning spray?
“Jay-Z cleans even baked-on stains, and polishes to a lemony-fresh shine!”
I don’t care if Paul Simon’s cool or in-fashion, he’s an incredible craftsman and that’s what’s important really. The fact that his music gets judged on the basis that ‘middle aged professionals’ listen to him, says more about the limited insight and experience of those making the judgement than the artist himself.
Dylan – craftsmenship is a good thing to use when buying furniture, but as far as music…I don’t think so.
The fact that you admit to liking music that middle-aged professionals do says just as much about your tastes.
As far as “limited insight and experience” – it’s my vast amount of these that allow me to make such judgements.
If you want mature music that sounds well crafted listen to classical music. And why not judge a musician based on who listens to them; there are so many bands out there and so many reason to like them or not, in the end, it’s just as valid a reason as any other.
Chris,
*yoink!*
Oh, and the exact opposite of everything you said is true..
…which would make my post false, which in turn would make your post true only if my post had been not true, therefore your comment is false.
Get a fucking room you two.
Only if your the cheese Matthew.
“why not judge a musician based on who listens to them; there are so many bands out there and so many reason to like them or not, in the end, it’s just as valid a reason as any other.”
um, as far as I was aware there is one (and only one) reason to ‘like’ an artist or not and that’s if you (yourself) ‘like’ it.
“As far as “limited insight and experience” – it’s my vast amount of these that allow me to make such judgements.”
lordy
relax mr bear, i was just trying to get into dylan’s pants.