Song Stealin' Simon

[me wag]

From WFMU blog:
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Rhymin' Simon: Not Welcome in East L.A.



Jambase via Stereogum ran an interview with Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, recounting his band's experience with Mr. Edie Brickell in the studio for the Graceland sessions. It may not be an exact doppelganger to the Don McLean/Andy Breckman experience, but needless to say "American Pie" and "Boy in the Bubble" both will cause some accelerated reflux in this particular throat from hereon:

JAMBASE: Speaking of doing a lot of different records and working with a lot of amazing songwriters, I own a ton of the records that you've done over the years. One, in particular, I'd like to ask you about is Paul Simon's Graceland. I obsessed over that thing when I was young. Do you have anyrecollections of working on it?

STEVE BERLIN: Oh, I have plenty of recollections of working on that one.I don't know if you heard the stories, but it was not a pleasant deal for us. I mean he [Simon] quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate whenI say -- he stole the songs from us....And you know, going into it, I had an enormous amount of respect for the guy. The early records were amazing, I loved his solo records, and I truly thought he was one of the greatest gifts to American music that there was.
At the time, we were high on the musical food chain. Paul had just come off One Trick Pony and was kind of floundering. People forget, before Graceland, he was viewed as a colossal failure. He was low. So when we were approached to do it, I was a way bigger fan than anybody else in the band. We got approached by Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin who ran our record company [Warner Bros.], and this is the way these guys would talk -- "It would mean a lot to the family if you guys would do this for us." And we thought, "Ok well, it's for the family, so we'll do it." It sounds so unbelievably naïve and ridiculous that that would be enough of a reason to go to the studio with him.

We go into the studio, and he had quite literally nothing. I mean, he had no ideas, no concepts, and said, "Well, let's just jam." We said, "We don't really do that." ... Not by accident, not even at soundcheck. We would always just play a song.
... Paul was a very strange guy. Paul's engineer was even stranger than Paul, and he just seemed to have no clue -- no focus, no design, no real nothing. He had just done a few of the African songs that hadn't become songs yet. Those were literally jams. Or what the world came to know and I don't think really got exposed enough, is that those are actually songs by a lot of those artists that he just approved of. So that's kind of what he was doing. It was very patrician, material sort of viewpoint. Like, because I'm gonna put my stamp on it, they're now my songs. But that's literally how he approached this stuff.
I remember he played me the one he did by John Hart, and I know John Hart, the last song on the record. He goes, "Yeah, I did this in Louisiana with this zy decko guy." And he kept saying it over and over. And I remember having to tell him, "Paul, it's pronounced zydeco. It's not zy decko, it's zydeco." I mean that's how incredibly dilettante he was about this stuff. The guy was clueless.
It was ridiculous. I think David starts playing "The Myth of the Fingerprints," or whatever he ended up calling it. That was one of our songs. That year, that was a song we started working on By Light of The Moon. So that was like an existing Lobos sketch of an idea that we had already started doing. I don't think there were any recordings of it, but we had messed around with it. We knew we were gonna do it. It was gonna turn
into a song. Paul goes, "Hey, what's that?" We start playing what we have of it, and it is exactly what you hear on the record. So we're like, "Oh, ok. We'll share this song."

JAMBASE: Good way to get out of the studio, though...

STEVE BERLIN: Yeah. But it was very clear to us, at the moment, we're thinking he's doing one of our songs. It would be like if he did "Will the Wolf Survive?" Literally. A few months later, the record comes out and says "Words and Music by Paul Simon." We were like, "What the fuck is this?" We tried calling him, and we can't find him. Weeks go by and our managers can't find him. We finally track him down and ask him about oursong, and he goes, "Sue me. See what happens."

JAMBASE: What?! Come on...

STEVE BERLIN: That's what he said. He said, "You don't like it? Sue me. You'll see what happens." We were floored. We had no idea. The record comes out, and he's a big hit. Retroactively, he had to give songwriting credit to all the African guys he stole from that were working on it and everyone seemed to forget. But that's the kind of person he is. He's the world's biggest prick, basically.
So we go back to Lenny and say, "Hey listen, you stuck us in the studio with this fucking idiot for two days. We tried to get out of it, you made us stay in there, and then he steals our song?! What the hell?!" And Lenny's always a politician. He made us forget about it long enough that it went away. But to this day, I do not believe we have gotten paid for it. We certainly didn't get songwriting credit for it. And it remains an enormous bone that sticks in our craw. Had he even given us a millionth of what the song and the record became, I think we would have been - if nothing else - much richer, but much happier about the whole thing.

JAMBASE: Have you guys seen him since then?

STEVE BERLIN: No. Never run into him. I'll tell you, if the guys ever did run into him, I wouldn't want to be him, that's for sure.

[Scott Dolan]

Hahahahaha...................


All the hoopla and controversy surrounding that album will live on forever.

[Root Doctor]

A couple of years afterwards Paul Simon arrived in London, and hung out for some months on the folk scene there. He was similarly impressed on hearing Carthy's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair", and got him to write everything down - then proceeded to copyright it. Simon subsequently used the song as part of the score for the movie The Graduate, which launched his career into the musical stratosphere. A little-known footnote to pop history is that Carthy later sued Simon over this rip-off, and won.

"About 25 years later I read an interview in which he talked about his time in London, and the musicians he'd met and what he'd learned from them - people like Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, and me," says Carthy. "I remember thinking: 'All right; a bit late Paul, but better late than never'. It wasn't my song. But I felt offended because he'd taken what I did and not given any credit."

[Noj]

Wow, so Paul Simon's got a bit of Quincy Jones-itis. I didn't know that.

[Jesse]

In a March 24, 2002, interview with the Associated Press, Lynne McTaggart said, "If somebody takes a third of somebody's book, which is what happened to me, they are lifting out the heart and guts of somebody else's individual expression."

[Gary Sisco]

What an amazing asshole.

I knew there was a good reason to keep on ignoring him.

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Jesse, where'd you get the rare photo of John Adams?

[Jesse]

There's Wikipedia scholarship on everybody!

[Root Doctor]

I hope the Los Lobos guys remember that Simon has his books and poetry to protect him. He's a hard ass.

[Noj]

A blazing case of ledzeppelinydia. I hear it really itches!

[kenny weir]

Sounds like a complete jerk.

But remember: This kind of thing has been going on forever.

Jimmie Davis bought You Are My Sunshine.

Hank Williams' Jambalaya was pretty much a straight rip from Big Texas, which I know as performed by Jimmy Newman, but which I suspect was itself a lift from an earlier cajun tune.

I'm sure you all can think oa many more examples.

Makes you wonder about the rest of Simon's catalogue, though.

Did he get copyright payments for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme and Oregano?

Never liked the bloke or his music, actually ...

[Chris D]

I was just listening to the first solo album. I'm with Berlin on that era.
But ripping off Lobinos? Some of the most upstanding guys, good service going on four decades?

[Scott Dolan]

I don't like much of anything he did before Rhythm Of The Saints, which was the follow-up to Graceland.

So maybe that explains it. Whoever he's stolen his last few albums from are pretty good musicians and song writers.

[Gentle Giant]

I admire and enjoy a lot of Simon's music but I never, ever liked Graceland. Never got into the Ladysmith shit, either. Lines like how he's going to a cinematographer's party are so elitist, it's just not what I'm looking for. I thought Peter Gabriel's So should've taken the Grammy that year. I did like his follow-up, Rhythm of the Saints.

But I've never liked Simon's personality, either. I once saw a special on him and he was going on and on about how he resents the applause Garfunkel receives when he does Bridge Over Troubled Water. He said something like, "And here I am in the wings thinking, 'Author, author.'" Which is totally fucked up, because without Garfunkel singing that song, you'd just have people thinking, "What the fuck does 'sail on silver girl' mean?"

So, yeah, personality-wise, I place Simon and McCartney in a certain category together. But I still think some of his tunes are fabulous, like Duncan and American Tune.

[Scott Dolan]

I still think you'd like Surprise quite a bit.
Rhythm Of The Saints will always be my favorite of his.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I still think you'd like Surprise quite a bit.
Rhythm Of The Saints will always be my favorite of his.

You emailed me a couple of tracks, and I did like them. Still and all, I'd rather hear him in a more acoustic, less techno context.

Simon also has the Mike Love "maybe if I wear a hat all the time no one will know I'm bald" thing going on.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Rhythm Of The Saints will always be my favorite of his.

Uh oh, Scott, we overlap here. What the fuck??

The horn part in "The Cool, Cool River" is maybe my favorite horns use in pop. Those fat notes tailed with the echoed guitar, magic.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

The horn part in "The Cool, Cool River" is maybe my favorite horns use in pop. Those fat notes tailed with the echoed guitar, magic.

Oh man!

You're the only other person I know who picks that particular moment out. Yes, the highlight of the album. The entire mood and pacing of the piece really drives that section home perfectly. Definitely my second favorite tune of his overall behind Hurricane Eye.


GG, if you like ROTS and want to hear him in that type of setting you should check out You're The One.

[Paul B]

Well, jazz is all about taking ideas from others and re-working them (what's the old line about how Bird could have sued most of the players who came after him?). As far as I can tell, Simon took ideas and grooves and whatever and made great songs from them. All the vitriol (like that from Berlin) seems like childish bitterness from lesser talents.

[Jesse]

Make that three for the moment the horns enter and punch that tune up.
I have always, as Hillary would say, "misremembered" the sax as Michael Brecker, but it is in fact Charles Doherty.
Brecker is on something called the Ukati AKAI EWI Synthesizer. Sounds like something Morton Subotonick would play if he was in a funk band.
It's a nice chart, whomever he stole it from.

[Gary Sisco]

I'd rather have one great track of Los Lobos than all of Paul Simon's records past or future. Don't own one. Won't own one.

Los Lobos is the real deal.

[tippy]

I was just listening to Rhythm of the Saints this week. I love this album. It’s the only Simon recording I have. I also love that song “In the Evening” or something like that. Didn’t know anything about Simon’s rep as blatant song stealer.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Noj

A blazing case of ledzeppelinydia. I hear it really itches!

Thanks, Roots. It's good not to forget the band that started its career with an album of 100% ripoff.

[Gary Sisco]

My crew used to joke about it by calling it "Led Zeppelin Plays Willie Dixon." I was already pretty much done with "rock" when LZ came around.

[edpack]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I admire and enjoy a lot of Simon's music but I never, ever liked Graceland. Never got into the Ladysmith shit, either. Lines like how he's going to a cinematographer's party are so elitist, it's just not what I'm looking for. I thought Peter Gabriel's So should've taken the Grammy that year. I did like his follow-up, Rhythm of the Saints.

But I've never liked Simon's personality, either. I once saw a special on him and he was going on and on about how he resents the applause Garfunkel receives when he does Bridge Over Troubled Water. He said something like, "And here I am in the wings thinking, 'Author, author.'" Which is totally fucked up, because without Garfunkel singing that song, you'd just have people thinking, "What the fuck does 'sail on silver girl' mean?"

So, yeah, personality-wise, I place Simon and McCartney in a certain category together. But I still think some of his tunes are fabulous, like Duncan and American Tune.

I think he ripped the melody for "American Tune" too. I believe it's a church hymn.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I'd rather have one great track of Los Lobos than all of Paul Simon's records past or future. Don't own one. Won't own one.

Los Lobos is the real deal.

Um, yeah.

[Derek Taylor]

Everything that’s good, bad & ugly about classic rock wrapped into a 5+ hour footage ribbon. Zep may have been rip off artists in the beginning, but they ROCKED in the process, no question.

Simon’s ego isn’t surprising as he’s always catered to the turtleneck-wearing, chardonnay-sipping set, IMO, esp. in the earlier years. My folks were big S&G fans and followers of Prince Paul by proxy. I liked some of his solo stuff through Graceland, but lost touch around RotS and haven’t really been moved to revisit any of it.

Los Lobos, on the the other hand… “Just Another Band From East L.A.” has to be one of the most modest taglines in the history of music. Evidence too of their residency at the side of the ego spectrum opposite Simon. Those dudes are giants, both on record and in concert.

[Gary Sisco]

I question.

[Derek Taylor]

[Gary Sisco]

I question that they rocked unquestionably.

To me they sound (and sounded) like lumbering dinosaurs, rhythmically. They may have "rocked" but they didn't roll. Which is why I got done with rock.

What I love is rock and roll and it's not a semantic question. There was a real reason for the change of language. Rock and roll swings. Rock does not.

Plant's screeching didn't help much, either.

If I want to hear a Willie Dixon song, I'll listen to Willie Dixon. Willie rocked and rolled.