“So Beautiful or So What,” by Paul Simon

Few pop music fans seem to realize that Paul Simon’s 2011 album, So Beautiful or So What, might very well be his best album ever. That’s right. I said it: best album ever. Seriously. Ever. But unfortunately, because it didn’t come out in 1977, and because its singles were up against the high school crap of LMFAO and Katy Perry that dominated the airwaves last year, the album went largely without notice (save for the ENTIRETY of the music critic community, who unanimously listed the album in their top ten album lists for that year). Hosting themes that reflect a man finding life “terribly strange” at seventy, So Beautiful asks questions for the angels about love, mortality, and God. And from listening to the brief album (under 40 minutes of music), one answer to these questions tap at the listener’s ear: love. Seriously, Mr. Simon? “Love?” Huh.

Simple, conventional, and persistent, Simon’s message is singular; he’s a real love-monger on this stunning album. In the tune, “Dazzling Blue,” he pays tender tribute to his marriage to (the remarkable!) Edie Brickell, and in the song, “Rewrite,” he paints a portrait of an American war veteran, who “hasn’t got a brain cell left since Vietnam,” pleading with God for a “rewrite” of his life since the war, “…Help me, help me, help me, help me – THANK YOU! I had no idea that you were there.” In the beleaguered veteran’s rewrite, love makes an appearance and ultimately redeems his life. The veteran outlines his do-over:

I'll eliminate the pages where the father has a breakdown

And he has to leave the family, but he really meant no harm.

Gonna substitute a car chase and a race across the rooftops

When the father saves the children, and he holds them in his arms…

The word “love” permeates the album, prominent in the songs titles or mentioned within the verses (or at least alluded to) on every song. On So Beautiful or So What, it’s all love, all the time. In the world Simon describes on So Beautiful, love is the mortar holding the bricks together, love is the foundation providing strength to the walls, love is the cement filling the empty holes as the musician reminds us to carefully consider our frame of reference: “Life is what you make of it,” he sings, it’s “so beautiful or so what?” I’ll take “beautiful,” thank you...

Death and growing older is another central theme on this exceptional album, and the topic is not a new one for Simon. In his mid 20’s, he reverently wrote about the prospect of growing older. In fact, Simon loosely dedicated an entire side of vinyl (side one) of the classic 1968 Simon and Garfunkel album, Bookends, to the cycle of life, most notably in the sweetly morose, “Old Friends,” in which his vocal muse and “frenemy,” Art Garfunkel sang, “Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench, quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy…” and on the side one closer, “Bookends Theme,”

Time it was, and what a time it was;

A time of innocence, a time of confidences;

Long ago, it must be…I have a photograph;

Preserve your memories;

They're all that's left you…

Musings from a young and gifted musician, romanticizing the inevitability of growing older (and exquisitely so). Are such solemn romanticisms fleeting naivety? Are they the privilege of youth? I’m starting to suspect so, as more recently, seventy year-old Simon writes of mutability from a much more dispassionate and droll, albeit musical perspective, sometimes chuckling about the prospect of passing from this mortal coil, and sometimes taking on the voice of God, Himself, pontificating on the state of humanity, on ugly politics and talk-show hosts, on the sad state of popular music, and on the origin of life, itself. Simon sings “as God,”

Big Bang. That’s a joke that I made up once

When I had eons to kill,

You know, most folks, they don’t get when I’m joking;

Maybe someday they will…

And then, of course, there’s Music. Perhaps the world’s biggest music fan, Simon has said that he picked up a guitar for the first time, because he wanted to be Elvis. And following suit, Simon almost always includes musical imagery in his more recent deliberations on nostalgia, death and the afterlife (to wit, in the early 1980’s, Simon referenced everyone from John Lennon to the “Late-Great Johnny Ace,” as well as his evocation of the treasured do-wop groups of his youth, and he also recalled Buddy Holly in the early 2000’s, and on this album, he echoed early rock-and-roll nonsense lyrics on “The Afterlife”). Simon has contemplated mutability throughout his career, but since his 40s, Simon has replaced the sentimental heartache of his youthful ruminations with humor, irony, and derision.

I suspect there’s much to be learned from this philosophical approach, and I’ve been listening to Simon’s So Beautiful or So What almost non-stop for the past few weeks. I find it wholly comforting and relevant, especially as I've recently learned a beloved family member is facing his last months, and by all accounts, he’s addressing the prospect with characteristic humor, grace, and boldness – similar to Simon’s most recent reflections. It’s humbling, his courage. I wish I had it. Maybe it comes with one’s built-in character or personality; maybe some are just born heroic, or maybe it comes from years of hard-won wisdom. Either way, at 41, I don’t have it yet. I wonder if I ever will…

"Close To You," by Carpenters

Some of the greatest albums in the Rock-and-Roll canon were recorded in the early 1970s. To wit, “What’s Going On?” by Marvin Gaye, “Tapestry,” by Carole King, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” by Simon and Garfunkel, “Dark Side Of The Moon,” by Pink Floyd, and classic recordings by David Bowie, Elton John, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Nick Drake, and James Taylor, to name just a few. One of my favorites from the era, and a remarkably influential Polaroid from that period of popular music, was the second album by the brother-sister duo from Downey, California: Carpenters, Close To You. “Rollingstone” magazine lists the album as one of the “Best 500 albums” of all time - in the top 200 no less! It's also listed in the 2005 book, "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die," which inspired the moniker for this blog. And while not the artistic pinnacle of the duo’s career (that would be two albums later, the 1972 classic, A Song For You), it was one of Carpenters best sellers and the album that launched their highly successful, but ultimately tragic career.

The Carpenter family moved from New Haven, Connecticut to Downey, California in the early 1960’s for a job opportunity for Dad Carpenter and to be closer to Los Angeles, where Richard could be closer to the nexus of the music industry. At that time, Richard was the sole musician in the family, while Karen mostly tagged along behind her big brother, tapping the drum kit grudgingly purchased for her by her parents ("girls don’t play the drums"). It wasn’t until later, when recording demos in a friend’s garage studio that, on a whim, Richard put Karen on the microphone, and he realized his little sister could sing. Karen reportedly wasn’t convinced of her remarkable gift until sometime later, with some close friends suggesting she always thought of herself as a “drummer who sang.”

After a few years of gigging around the L.A. music scene, sending demos to and getting rejections from every major recording studio in the industry, the siblings landed a short-lived recording contract with RCA (the prize for winning the Hollywood Bowl “Battle of the Bands,” contest in 1966). The songs recorded with RCA never saw the light of day, however, and the band was released from their contract, as RCA execs felt the duo were not commercial enough. A few years later, their demo landed in the cassette player of Herb Albert, popular musician and co-founder of A&M Records, and he signed the duo in 1969. Their first album, Offering, was less-than-meteoric (although well-worth seeking out), but yielded their first chart single, a startling re-imagination of The Beatles’ classic, “Ticket to Ride.”

After the single and album finished a brief run on the charts, A&M decided to give the duo one more chance, but this time by releasing a final, make-or-break single. Essentially at their label’s mercy, Richard and Karen agreed to record a saccharine Burt Bacharach song, which had been released numerous times in the previous decade to little success. But Herb Albert felt it would be right for Karen’s voice, and frankly, while not thrilled to do so, the siblings had no choice and recorded that tune with over-the-top lyrics (“On the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream-come-true, so they sprinkled moon dust in your hair and golden starlight in your eyes of blue.”). After the recording session for “(They Long To Be) Close To You,” Herb Albert and Richard Carpenter sat on the stoop in the A&M parking lot, discussing the potential for the single. Carpenter predicted, “It will either be a #1 hit or the biggest stiff the label has ever recorded.” “Close To You” became Carpenters’ first #1 single, remaining in the top position for a month and catapulting the siblings into instant fame and a whirlwind of recording and promotional activity.

And this is how the Close To You album was born, amidst a flurry of activity in the wake of the “overnight success” of the Bacharach single. A&M wanted to leverage the success of the monster hit song, while Richard and Karen were just grateful to still have a recording contract. But having gone through most of their original material on their first album, Richard was left with the task of finding new songs for the follow-up album. Serendipity intervened. As “Close To You” rose on the charts, Richard saw a bank commercial on late night television. He couldn’t help but notice the background song, written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, about a young couple just getting started, and he wondered if the jingle existed as a complete song. It didn’t, but when Williams and Nichols were contacted about a full-song, they happily obliged, finishing “We’ve Only Just Begun” by adding another verse and submitting it for recording.

The rest of the Close To You album was recorded in like manner: hurriedly, between promotional engagements and concerts, but the results were astonishing, for an album thrown-together in the duos precious free time between gigs. Including a mix of Carpenter-penned originals with Bacharach and Roger Nichols and Paul Williams songs and another Lennon-McCartney cover, the album was probably the last “rock” effort the duo produced, as they spent the remainder of the early seventies focusing on their sublime hit pop singles. Speaking of hit singles, I’ve always held that, while containing two of the duo’s best-known songs, the album could have spawned even more hits, including the Carpenter original, “Maybe It’s You,” and the Bacharach cover of the Shirelles’ 1961 top-ten hit, “Baby It’s You.” The siblings’ demonstrate their lesser-appreciated rock-and-roll leanings with the Beatles’ “Help!” and the grandiose album closer, the spellbinding Carpenter original, “Another Song.”

The album was a monster, selling millions of copies and launching the duo into the chaos that would be the next five years of hits, constant touring, and television appearances. In hindsight, it was too much. I’ve often wondered what might have been, had the duo taken the remainder of the 1970s off after their hits compilation around the middle of the decade. But sadly, they got caught up in the star-maker machinery, unwisely chasing horrid 1970’s pop culture trends, and essentially losing focus. And while the hits never stopped (in fact, the duo enjoyed top 40 hits on every album released during Karen’s lifetime, up to their final hit single, “Touch Me When We’re Dancing,” #16 in 1981), their albums in the latter part of the decade, while always delivering one or two gems (mostly due to Karen’s creamy, alabaster voice), were largely forgettable efforts. But Close To You reflects a moment when the siblings were young and optimistic. They'd only just begun to do their thing, and the album accidentally became an early 1970’s classic.

Rickie Lee Jones, by Rickie Lee Jones

In the words of the inimitable John Lennon, “the 70’s were a drag, man.” The decade began with the ongoing debacle that was the Vietnam War, student shootings at Kent State, the escalating “Cold War” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and “Watergate,” the first televised U.S. Presidential transgression (not counting this one). And the decade clumsily fumbled forward, not ending any better than it had begun, with a major U.S. economic recession, panicky lines at gas stations, a U.S. hostage situation in Iran, and, as a strategic move in the aforementioned “Cold War,” the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.

In fact, much North American popular culture of the day reflected the overarching malaise that accompanied the close of that turbulent decade, from the maudlin theme music of popular television shows, like this one, to the bummed-out storylines for top films of the era. Even top 40 radio got up on the wrong side of the bed in the latter part of the decade with downer themes, like “Heart of Glass,” “I Will Survive,” and the deliciously-depressing, “Dust In The Wind.”

But suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, Rickie Lee Jones sauntered through the side door with a cool and inspired sorta jazz when she walked onto the Saturday Night Live music stage in the spring of 1979 and won America’s heart, singing her #4 pop hit, “Chuck E’s In Love.” That surprisingly spry, little hit record, nestled next to bleak pop songs and nervously edgy disco sounds that dominated the radio then, playfully hinted at a spirit of hope that inevitably accompanies the dawn of a new decade (Again, said John Lennon: “It can’t get no worse”).

And Rickie Lee Jones self-titled debut was the quintessential album for that moment in U.S. History, perfectly describing the sadness of the nation, mingled with childlike excitement for the new decade ahead. When music fans hit the stores to pick up the LP that spring and summer, they discovered an album that accurately reflected their frustration and disappointment, but that also gave them permission to smile again. Featuring an all-star cast of musicians, including Dr. John, Michael McDonald, Randy Newman, and Tom Scott, who provided the stupendous horns, vis-a’-vis Joni Mitchell’s sublime, Court and Spark five years earlier. Rickie Lee Jones debut is a jazzy, pop savvy, funky, little joint.

Jones seasoned her debut with sassy, swinging sucker-licks, like “Young Blood,” “Danny’s All-Star Joint,” and “Weasel and The White Boys Cool,” which provide perfect moments of levity, while, “Night Train,” the might-have-been hit single, paints an impressionist portrait of bohemian life, where eight balls, dark alleys, and riding the city train fills the days and nights of young turks, carving out recognizable niches for themselves in unfamiliar territory. The album, itself, is of a piece, perfectly describing the coming-of-age process in the big city, where the sidewalk ahead holds more doubts than opportunities, and the only thing to which the young musician can cling is to her memories and to her burgeoning talent.

While having its share of cheerful moments, the album remains, overall, a morose affair. The melancholy, “On Saturday Afternoons In 1963,” finds the twenty-something Jones waxing nostalgic about childhood spent laughing the afternoons away and reflecting on the treasure of old friends. The album closes with two somber songs: the aching melancholy of “Company,” a devastating breakup song, and the achingly lonely “After Hours (Twelve Bars Past Midnight),” where the singer sits alone at the piano, literally closing down the lonely bar, tiredly flipping down the light switch as she says “goodnight” to the ravaged decade and hails a cab home.

"Hearts and Bones," by Paul Simon

Paul Simon is a marvel. He has written and performed legendary song after legendary song over the past 40-plus years, while putting out startlingly few actual solo albums in the process: only ten original albums in that timeframe, including two soundtrack albums. That’s approximately one album every four years…way too few for such an iconic and consistently significant musician. Paul Simon’s albums continue to be compelling and progressive, moving forward without getting lost in embarrassing fads and experimentalization.

From these precious few albums, many Simon songs have worked their way into the pantheon of rock and roll classics. First, there’s the unequalled output from his partnership with Art Garfunkel, and beyond that, there’s his remarkable run of hits from the 1970’s, including, “Mother And Child Reunion,” “Loves Me Like A Rock,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” and the tongue-in-cheek break-up song, “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.” And for those who were paying attention, there was Simon’s thrilling mid-80’s “comeback,” Graceland, which featured the top 40 hit, “You Can Call Me Al,” ubiquitous in the spring and summer of 1987, due in part, no doubt, to the silly Chevy Chase cameo in the video, followed by the amazing and almost as big, “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.” Sadly, though, few remember one of Simon’s very best albums, 1983’s riveting and poignant, Hearts and Bones. It’s overlooked partly, because it came after his 1970’s solo heyday and before his aforementioned mid-80’s world music resurgence. It was also ignored because it came out the year Thriller ruled the world and forever changed the tide of pop music, closing the coffin on too many 1970’s pop icons.

The overarching theme of Hearts and Bones is all love, all the time, and in the Simon tradition, the album approaches the topic from a melancholy perspective. For example, Simon’s heart is literally allergic to the women he loves in “Allergies,” the lead track and the only near top-40 hit from the album. Next, Simon mournfully ponders the past and future of love with his soon-to-be ex-wife, Carrie Fisher, in the heartsick title track, and later in the album, he thinks way too much about shaping perfect love in the companion songs, “Think Too Much (a) and (b),” where he sings, “But maybe I think too much, and I ought to just hold her, stop trying to mold her…” The former was released as a single in early 1984 and failed miserably in the wake of heinous radio hits from that year, like “Flashdance” (What A Feeling!), “Ghostbusters,” and “Islands In The Stream.”

In other places, Hearts and Bones looks into its crystal ball to forecast living and loving in the new millennium, like on “When Numbers Get Serious,” where Simon foretells the pending internet age of quick results, online dating, and web-based, virtual relationships with extraordinary accuracy. “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War” is a beautiful tribute to both the abstract artist, Rene' Magritte, and Simon’s beloved vocal groups of the doo-wop era: The Penguins, The Moonglows, etc. My favorite song on this classic Simon album, however, is the haunting, “The Late-Great Johnny Ace,” which discusses the (then) recent and horrific death of John Lennon, juxtaposing the tragedy with the death of early rocker, Johnny Ace, by self-inflicted gun shot to the head. Simon introduced the song at the Central Park concert in 1981 and was nearly assaulted on stage near the end of the song, apparently by an angered/crazed Lennon fan, who was quickly pulled away from Simon just inches before the attack: a strange response to a song, where Simon’s genuine love for Lennon is palpably displayed. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say...

Originally, Paul Simon had other intentions for this magnificent album about love and loss. It was initially meant to repair an old friendship, reportedly to be the long-awaited Simon and Garfunkel reunion album (which is never going to actually happen, by the way; it's not, so stop hoping for it already...) to follow their highly acclaimed reunion concerts two years before. Early on, the album was also going to be titled, “Think To Much,” but after thinking too much, old conflicts resurfaced between the duo, and they parted ways once again. Simon erased Garfunkel’s vocals, turned further inward, and made a stunningly personal album which autopsied friendships, current events, the future, and love affairs that ultimately come to regretful ends, finally and fittingly naming this one Hearts and Bones.

"Days of Future Passed," by The Moody Blues

This album never makes it to any “best albums of all time” lists, and I’ve always wondered... why is it not cool to like Days of Future Passed? Maybe it’s the ostentatious, John Lennon-esque “I’m-saying-the-opposite-so-I’m-profound” title, or possibly it’s the over-the-top spoken interludes which bookend the album, with their “heavy,” faux philosophical lyrics seemingly out of the mouth of Ra, or possibly, it’s the very concept of the album itself: moving the listener from morning into night in a seven part song cycle, with the London Festival Orchestra providing classical music interludes between the pop songs. Or it might be the album artwork, with its Technicolor, two-way, psychedelic face being orbited by various symbols and images from the album, which I absolutely love. In fact, I love everything about Days of Future Passed, and I return to it regularly for a nostalgic spin on my well-worn iPod.

In fact, my first memory of hearing the Moody Blues classic 1967 album goes like this: I was no more than three years old and my family was still living in the farmhouse my parents used to rent in Kewanee before moving to Neponset, Illinois in 1974. In my memory, I heard “Nights In White Satin” streaming from the upstairs bedroom of my older brother, Roger. I remember pulling my tiny, diapered self up the stairs, one step at a time, to check out where those sumptuous sounds might be coming from. Every time I hear “Tuesday Afternoon” or “Nights In White Satin” on the radio, I return to that memory.

My brother, Jay, suggests that Days Of Future Passed isn’t even the Moody Blues’ best album. He and another family member, Aunt Debby, insist that On The Threshold Of A Dream is the best Moody Blues album. They were there, so they should know, but Days seems to be the one most remembered. Possibly due to it containing two of the band’s most renowned and well-loved hit singles, “Tuesday Afternoon,” #24 in 1968, and “Nights In White Satin,” #2 in 1972.

To be honest, other than their fluke top ten hit from 1986, “Your Wildest Dreams,” Days Of Future Passed is all I really know of the Moody Blues. And it doesn’t matter that the album hasn’t made it to any rock critics “best of” lists; fans of pop music have spoken. It’s been over 40 years since Days release, and the album continues to sell to new generations of fans. In fact, the Moody Blues are still bringing the album’s pageantry and summer of love wonderment to the masses, playing the entire Days album for fans in the only awesome way it knows how - with full symphony orchestra.