Exclusive Interview with Paul Simon

You changed the lyric live to “blowing the room away not with lead but with rhythm guitar.” 

Yeah. It’s hard to for me to say I play lead guitar when I don’t.

“Werewolf” is a funny and edgy opener. Like “You Can Call Me Al” and others of your songs, it starts as a joke and then broadens. 

Yeah, the first line of the record is a joke.

Leading to, “she killed him; sushi knife.” Which is all about the delivery, and your comic timing. 

I’ll bet I did that line 50 times to try and get the joke in. If you don’t toss it off in the right way, it’s not actually funny.

Then that passage, “the fact is most obits are mixed reviews/ life is a lottery, a lot of people lose …” 

Nobody’s picked up yet that I’m using the word “lot” twice. That’s why it’s a lottery, because a lot of people lose.

“In A Parade” has a beautiful repeating litany in which you discuss the guy’s diagnosis, and even his meds. 

Yeah, I went to the hospital. We left the street angel; we took him away in an ambulance. So first I thought, “Well, I’ll pick up the song in the ambulance.” Well, maybe not. Maybe it’ll be like the ambulance is coming into the ER.

So I went to the ER room to record some ambient sound. I spoke to the doctor dealing with people out of touch with reality. I asked, “What do you give them?” She said “Seroquel.”

Seroquel sounds like an ancient jewel.

Yes. And it has a partial rhyme with “angel.” It really works.

The guy says he can’t talk, because he’s in a parade. Which seems like the essence of modern times. Just enough time to say you don’t have enough time.

Yeah, I know. And it’s a perfect loony line. It’s delusional. He’s not in a parade. “I can’t talk now/ I’m in a parade” is hilarious and delusional at the same time.

And real. Life feels like that. 

Of course. That’s where the delusion comes from.