Skip to main content

Simon & Garfunkel - "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or, How I Was Robert McNamera'd Into Submission)"

An oddity in the mostly gentle and humor-free ouvre of S & G, this song serves as both great parody and social commentary. The former takes aim at Bob Dylan, who at the time was Paul Simon's chief folk-poet rival (and who would undoubtedly but unfairly receive more serious analysis). So here Simon proves he can do Dylan. The music is organ-tambourine-harmonica driven in the obvious style of Mr.Zimmerman. The title too seems to be a swipe at Dylan's thesaurus-searching style. Translated it means "a random verbal insult."

The lyrics even reference Dylan twice, once condemning someone for confusing Bob Dylan with Dylan Thomas and again in the stolen combo line: "It's alright ma, everybody must get stoned!"

In terms of social commentary, the lyrics turn many of the leading proper nouns of the current youth culture into verbs, including The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Phil Spector, Andy Warhol, Ayn Rand, Lenny Bruce, and even Art Garfunkel. The narrator seems almost put-out to have to pretend to either admire or loathe all of these people. It really hits at the essence of hipsterdom

I must say that though I like this song very much, I like it even more because of where it's placed on the album, right between two great sensitive songs, Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall and For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her. It really breaks the mood, provides a laugh, and best of all, uses Dylan's own tricks against him! (Dylan fired back by covering The Boxer on his worst album, Self-Portrait.)

Album: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966)
Fave Moment: The outro, where Simon shouts "Folk Rock!" followed by "I lost my harmonica Albert."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honoring the Legacy of REO Speedwagon

I suppose I should have known the saga of REO Speedwagon couldn't end with a whimper. Before I get into the latest developments, here's a brief review of what's happened so far: In September 2024 came the announcement that the band was effectively breaking up at the end of the year. Apparently, frontman Kevin Cronin ruled that bassist Bruce Hall was no longer fit to continue touring following back surgery in summer 2024. Hall felt otherwise. Here we learned that REO had essentially become a three-way partnership between Cronin, Hall, and Doughty (who retired from touring in January 2023) following the departure of original members Alan Gratzer and Gary Richrath in 1988. Doughty sided with Hall, so Cronin was outvoted 2-1. No Bruce Hall, no REO Speedwagon. In December 2024 Cronin revealed he would continue performing REO Speedwagon songs with the two musicians who replaced Doughty and Hall, as well as Brian Hitt and Dave Amato (who replaced Gratzer and Richrath), with the on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Joel: 1980 - 1977

When I decided to write about every single Billy Joel studio album I knew had a bit of a leg up in that I'd written reviews of a handful of his records already. What I didn't realize until just now was that those reviews were of albums that had been released consecutively between 1977 and 1980. As I reread those reviews - the most recent of which is 14 years old! - I found that I still stand by them. My writing style has mellowed a bit, and I no longer give grades to albums, but otherwise my opinions then are my opinions now. So here you go... Billy Joel: Glass Houses (1980) Billy Joel: 52nd Street (1978) Billy Joel: The Stranger   (1977)
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Joel: Turnstiles (1976)

Turnstiles is, along with An Innocent Man and The Stranger , in my top three Billy Joel albums. It has pretty much everything you might want from the Piano Man. It has two beloved classics: "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "New York State of Mind." And while I like that they respectively open and close side one, I think these two are the key moments to the album's story, and thus wish they'd been sequenced a bit differently (more on that in a bit). It has virtuosity. The opening to "Angry Young Man," called "Prelude," with its lightning fast hammered piano, is the most obvious display of Billy's growing talents. But it wasn't just him. Turnstiles is the first recorded appearance of the Billy Joel band - Richie Cannata, Liberty DeVitto, Russell Javors, Howie Emerson, and Doug Stegmeyer - and their performances show they were able to handle pretty much anything with aplomb. It has introspection and wisdom. Billy was only 27 years old ...
Post a Comment
Read more