Paul Simon Song Quotations

Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.

When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.

Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.

In the clearing stands the boxer, and a fighter by his trade. And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down... or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame "I am leaving! I am leaving" but the fighter still remains.

I like working with sound; sound and rhythm. I like the abstract more than "What does that mean?" Nobody ever says to you, "Why did you use a harmonium?" Or "What is that ringing sound that occurs here?" The questions are always "What does that song mean?" or "What were you trying to say here?"

The abstract music is just more interesting because it doesn't really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it.

I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking.

Most of the time, the songs have jokes in them, little sarcastic things, or purposely kitsch or something. So that's going along with a story, like I do in life, just talking to myself and making fun of stuff and laughing at stuff that's serious. And sometimes it's a good idea to put the laughing into the songs. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's all right just to be serious. But most of the songs have some kind of joke in them.

I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.

I see a correlation between short stories and songs, because of their length and for what they're meant to evoke. Combine certain words with melodies and it all becomes very moving.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

Cecilia was made in a living room on a Sony. It was like a little piece of magical fluff, bur it works. El Condor Pasa a Los Incas record that I love. Bridge is a very strong melodic song.

I like them all. ... They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. ... I have no favorite songs.

Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan, you don't need to be coy, Roy, just get yourself free. Hop on the bus, Gus, you don't need to discuss much, just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free.

Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.

Somewhere in a burst of glory / Sound becomes a song.