In The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford sketches a portrait of a figure who has locked herself into feeling transgressive, even though she’s transgressing norms that society has long since ceased to care about:
She was curiously dated in her manner, and seemed still to be living in the 1920’s. It was as though, at the age of thirty-five, having refused to grow any older, she had pickled herself, both mentally and physically, ignoring the fact that the world was changing and that she was withering fast. She had a short canary-coloured shingle (windswept) and wore trousers with the air of one still flouting the conventions, ignorant that every suburban shopgirl was doing the same. Her conversation, her point of view, the very slang she used, all belonged to the late ’twenties, that period now deader than the dodo.
I mention this paragraph because there was a period in my teenage life where I sort of did the opposite of this move. That is, I went around making fun of things that were in no sense regarded as “groundbreaking” or cutting edge anymore—which had simply become canonical—but I did it as if I was personally yanking off some beat poet’s beret. It was, to use Mitford’s example, like I was finding women in pants and saying oh, you really think you did something here. Sylvia Plath was one such target (as a depressive brunette with glasses, love and hate were the only options available there, and I chose hate). Neon Genesis Evangelion was another (until I actually watched it, at which point unfortunately I loved it).
But also, for some reason, I listened to a lot (and I mean, a lot) of Simon & Garfunkel so I could “make fun of it.” I did this so loudly and so often that eventually my dad—who is, as far as I know, no big fan himself—finally said to me (when I was ragging on “I Am A Rock”): “Yes, this song is self-pitying and overwrought. But sometimes the point of a song isn’t to be smart about a feeling. It’s just to express the feeling.” As corny genius F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, I’ve been turning that one over in my mind ever since.
Are Simon & Garfunkel corny geniuses? Paul Simon was proposed in the comments (which were very interesting by the way—check them out). My gut says no on the duo, but I can’t speak to Simon’s solo work. Unlike Sylvia Plath, who I eventually circled my way around into liking, I still can’t listen to most Simon & Garfunkel songs without sort of kind of wanting to give one or both of them a wedgie. There are certain songs of theirs I will reach for the thinnest possible excuse to make fun of.1
Still, I always think that if something makes me feel aggressive like that, it’s probably because it’s a little close to home. Not that all dislike is rooted in feeling seen, just that this very specific brand of dislike probably is.
And if my problem used to be that Simon & Garfunkel used to feel insufficiently self-aware, my problem now is that they always seem to be leaving themselves an out—like yes, this is a lot, isn’t it, that’s pretty over the top, you’re right, we know. In the video above Paul Simon introduces “I Am Rock” by saying it’s a neurotic song. As opposed to what, I grumble, half the rest of the album? When I’m in my fifties I’ll presumably be ragging on Simon & Garfunkel for new, boutique reasons, even though at that point Sounds of Silence will be… eighty years old.
In any case, this cleverness is why I don’t view them as corny, and also why they annoy me, and also why they resemble me (maybe). Nevertheless, I owe them a roundabout debt. If I hadn’t been so fixated on making fun of “I Am A Rock” I would never have considered the value of expressing a feeling without commentary, even if that feeling is stupid.
Or maybe I would have considered it—but much later, and after (presumably) missing out on lots of Taylor Swift (which you may or may not consider a tragedy).
On that note: if you are TSS reader, and do not pay to subscribe, and cannot afford to subscribe right now, reply to this and I will comp you for a month if you want to be able to join in on the comments for the upcoming album release! I will be putting up an open thread Thursday night.
This post was in fact inspired by the fact that I started making fun of “I Am A Rock” today.
Writers and musicians will have different attitudes about the corniness. Writers will focus on his writing.. he’s a different kind of writer. He’s said himself he chooses words because they sound good and sing well.. prosody I guess.
Bridge over troubled water is the corniest lyric ever but it’s a towering piece of music. S&G could be corny as hell but it almost always sounds beautiful - their harmony singing was divine and Paul is more of a lyricist in the old sense - writing words that fit the tune and the singer’s mouth - in an era when the Dylan/Joni wordiness was becoming more popular.
I urge all to try and listen as a musician - particularly as a singer and feel how magical it feels to sing his songs. His lyrics simply fit, in a way that other singer songwriters’ don’t.
One of my more controversial opinions is that The Graduate would have been a better movie without the S&G soundtrack. The (similar) ending to the original Heartbreak Kid is so much better, not entirely but at least partly because we don’t have to hear Sound of Silence.