Have You Heard?
By Doug Robinson, Oct 6, 2006

Still crooning alter all these years

I don’t think I could be much happier with Paul Simon’s new album, Surprise, unless he had personally given me a signed copy for my birthday. It’s refreshing to hear an old dog come up with an album that can be described as cutting-edge with a straight face.

(Does everyone know that crooner Pat Boone donned leather and studs and released a heavy metal album a few years back?)

Simon’s voice isn’t as strong as it once was—you get the feeling that even on the loud songs, he’s singing pretty softly. He rounds the corners off his vocals, which gives them a soft focus. But he still delivers his melodies and his poignant and clever lyrics with the grace of a confident old pro, which makes up for not having the lungs of a 20-year-old.

Surprise is a collaboration of sorts with a rather surprising partner: Brian Eno, an esoteric producer who has worked with Roxy Music, Genesis, Talking Heads and David Bowie. Eno is well known for using odd atmospheric backing tracks to create a sense of strangeness, and he doesn’t disappoint on this album. In some ways, Surprise is Simon’s most adventurous album. Every single song has a distinct sonic stamp, whether it’s crunchy guitars, echoing synthesizers or bubbling rhythm loops. As a result, the album has a subtly high-tech sheen to it that sets it apart from the warm and welcoming ensemble feeling of Graceland. It’s actually more like Paul Simon in his home studio late at night, mixing up a masterpiece with a few talented friends and his computer for his own enjoyment.

Simon’s fascination with the African rhythms that catapulted Graceland to “world music classic” status has apparently dimmed to a dull roar, but these songs are built around anything but standard grooves. Every track feels original and fresh. It doesn’t hurt that he’s using one of the most innovative drummers alive, Steve Gadd, to create intricate percussion arrangements. (Gadd was responsible for the hip and catchy drum intro to Simon’s 1976 hit “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”) There are African polyrhythms darting between the New Orleans second line, techno and funk beats. As a drummer myself, I can enjoy this album strictly from the perspective of percussion.

But as usual, Simon’s words and melodies are the main attractions. To start off, there’s more of the self-deprecating spin that has shown up in his recent work. On the track “Outrageous,” he sings: “Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?” while making mockingly belligerent references to the fact that he’s “painting my hair the color of mud, ok?” He later refers to himself as “an ordinary player in the key of C” and talks about ridding his heart of envy and cleansing his soul of rage before he’s through. 

There’s also plenty of wonderfully cryptic commentary that leaves everything up to the imagination. Here are a couple of my favorite examples: “A teardrop consists of electrolytes and salt. The chemistry of crying is not concerned with blame and fault” and “Who’s that conscience sticking on the sole of my shoe? ’Cause it sure don’t feel like love. How does it feel? Feels like a threat—a voice in your head that you’d rather forget.”

There is a lot of humor, though it’s all black. I like this little couplet: “I got a call from my broker. My broker informed me I was broke. I was dealing my last hand of poker. My cards were as useless as smoke.”’

There is a beautiful love song for his daughter, a sad song about “Wartime Prayers” and lots of reflecting on what life looks like from the vantage point of having seen it all and still not knowing the answers. 

This is a great piece of work from an artist who had his first hit in the early 1960s. Maybe he’s like a shark that must keep swimming or he’ll die—I think of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Randy Newman the same way. The day these artists start resting on their laurels is the day I’ll stop buying their music. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with one final quote from Simon’s “Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean”:



Found a room in the heart of the city, down by the bridge. 

Hot plate and TV and beer in the fridge. 

But I’m easy, I’m open—that’s my gift. I can flow with the traffic, I can drift with the drift. 

Home again? I never think about home.



But then comes a letter from home, the handwriting’s fragile and strange. 

Something unstoppable put into motion—nothing is different, but everything’s changed.



Doug Robinson is a musician who lives in San Miguel and San Diego.