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HeadlinePaul Simon in Exeter 1965

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Bodo
Jul-11-2016, 15:28 GMT
Austria

Note: I found this old Word file on my computer again, it is saved in 2001. Tape transcribd from Paul Simon in Exeter 1965



PAUL SIMON TAPE FIND IN EXETER

This is the full commentary of the whole tape.

1. Paul sings: He Was My Brother

“Can everybody hear me if I sing sort of like this, and like this? Well, this is a song called Leaves That Are Green and Doris Henderson recorded this song with John Remborn playing a simple guitar background. Then Paul McNeal went and recorded it with 2 guitars, a bass guitar, drums, a piano, organ, French horn and oboe. And I'm going to do this song with the London Symphonie Orchestra.”

2. Paul sings: Leaves That Are Green

“I used to have for a year or so this tremendous hang-up about digging yourself. I used to think that that was the worst thing you could; digging yourself all the time. Because whenever you did that you never did anything naturally, because you were always thinking ‘Was I cool? Wasn't I cool?’ and it destroyed everything your were doing. So during the depths of this neurotic thing I was like shaving with my eyes closed, you know so I shouldn't see my face, that kind off stuff. During the depths of this depression I was walking along Broadway in New York where intersects with 52nd St there is a drug store that has a plate glass window, a black plate glass window, and you can clearly see your reflection in it. So I was walking along and I had like a jacket and tie on which is relatively unusual for me so, uh, I was walking along and I looked at this window and POW! You know, there I was right in the window. I was shocked I hadn't seen myself in about a year you know, it was a ridiculous thing. So I walked up to the window and I was straighten my tie and I was looking in the window you know, I was really digging myself for a full 30 seconds when this bird come by and shit on me you know. Let me tell you that nothing can turn you off quicker, you can’t even make any graceful movements, you know, like as if you were covering it up, and stuff like that, you can’t do it because you are taken by the shock. You know, you are looking in the mirror and POW! Relative to nothing this is a song called sparrow.”

3. Paul sings: Sparrow

“Well, now that I live in London, uh, coming from New York you can get differences between the two cities. Among the differences is the underground, its different from the New York subway system. So from Hampstead where I am staying in order to get down to the west end of London, uh, I have to get the northern line. I have to catch the northern right down see, and so I memorised this, I go into the tube station on the train POW! Down to the west end its no problem at all. All the other lines are evil to me. I just don't want to know about them, you know. The Bakerloo line, you know, can get stuffed you know. I just don't care about it, just the colour of it turns me off. So anyway, so riding the northern line all the time I was, uh, very curious, uh, a man had been killed trying to get home during one off the rush hours and his name was, I'm sure you will be familiar with this, George Crumpet. See how easy we forget. Well George Crumpet died at Leicester Square you see, and a group of people and myself have a society to perpetrate his name. We used to be the free Oscar Wilde society but we have wiped that out now. And just to solely concentrate on the perpetration of the name of George Crumpet, and this is our anthem.”

4. Paul sings: The Northern Line

[Guitar tuning]
Someone in the audience asks Paul if he wants a swig of cider. A few seconds later you here Paul say “PHEW!”.

“Ah, you see this, this is a E.P that I have made with a friend of mine in New York, but its actually 4 sides that we culled from a L.P that was only released in the states and not here. And if you can see this, this is the New York subway system marked out, that's 5th avenue right there, and we took about 150 pictures. You know in this station around the corner, you can’t see around the corner, but there is a like wall over here you see, you see how mad we look. You know why, we were there about half an hour around this corner taking all these pictures, and after we had finished them were wrapping it up and everything, we looked on the wall and right behind us in very clear print was F*** YOU, So of course CBS-records having no sense of humour, they refused to accept those pictures, So anyway the reason I am bringing this all up is the song I am about to sing is Wendsday Morning 3am, also in this bag are my shirts.”

5. Paul sings: Wednesday Morning 3am

Student: “Can you sing The Clan please?”
Paul: “Oh, I must dispel this nasty rumour that's going around that I wrote The Clan.”
Student: “I thought you wrote it.”
Paul: “No, in fact I don't know all of it to sing, I used to know it…”
Student: “The church is burning.”
Paul: “I will do that one in the second half. This is a song I have not done in a year, I wrote it before then and it's a anti-war song. And about a year ago I decided not to sing anti-war songs anymore, for the simple reason that at sort of this stage in the game it didn't seam to make any sense singing anti-war songs. Because like if you were not convinced at the complete absurdity of the next war should there be one, I don't think that the little song was going to change anybodies mind. But anyway. Anyway when I was at Swansea University about a week ago someone requested the song and I sang it, and singing songs that you have not sung in a while is like meeting old friends, so you have a tendency to, you know, see a lot of it. So I am going to sing it again, its called On The Side Of A Hill.”

6. Paul sings: On The Side Of A Hill.

“Last year in a town called Philladolpia Mississippi, three civil rights workers were killed. They were down there on a boarder registration drive. Two white boys, Andy Goodman and Micheal Schwaner, were shot to death and a third, a Negro, James Cheany, was beaten virtually beyond recognition. You see, I went to school with Andy Goodman and when I read it in the papers and saw the pictures of his parents it hit me double hard, so I'm singing for them. It’s called The Church Is Burning.”

7. Paul sings: The Church Is Burning

8. Paul sings Bleeker Street

[Paul tunes his guitar in]
Student to other students: “Could everyone who is leaving get out as quietly as possible please?”

“There is a series on ITV called ‘Heart Song’. I don't know if any of you have seen it, have you? But any way one of the shows was supposed to be of songs of dissent you see, but I was supposed to do that. I was supposed to do that, I was supposed to be on the show, but they cancelled the show, you see someone chickened out. They didn't want to do songs of dissent, so they, up at ITV the big people up there, said “Well look, we still want to use the kid you know, so lets figure out another show to give him.” So they put their heads together and being geniuses they said: “Great lets give him ‘Ready Steady Go’.” So of course I was thrilled, but its not a complete tragedy, I'm doing ‘Ready Steady Go’. It will give me the chance to tell Cathy McGowan what a nit she is. [Loud cheers and clapping and laughter from the students] You see I shall certainly slip it in the conversation: "Hi Cathy you nit." [More student loud cheers] Hey Shosh dig yourself. I'm supposed to do it on July 16th so, so ah, so anyway the record company said: Well alright, if your doing ‘Ready Steady Go’ lets get a single out.”, they said. So they looked through all the tracks that I have been doing for this LP that I am working on. [Noisy student says wah wah wah] and they said wah wah wah, they said: “Good lets take this one.” And they picked out unquestionably my most neurotic song, a song called I Am A Rock which you may have heard on ‘Five to Ten’. Right, so I shall sing you the song now, which you will see later, you know the 16th, uh on the 16th onwards I suppose I shall have to delete this song from my repertoire having lost its purity due to ‘Ready Steady Go’.”

9. Paul sings: I Am A Rock

About 1min into the song someone makes a noise. Paul stops singing. It goes very quiet, Paul says: “Hey a lot of people want to listen!”. Paul sings the rest of the song.

“When I left England last time to go back to New York, there was a lot of people I had become very friendly with you know, I missed them very much and I missed England very much when I was back home. So I wrote this song to sort of remind me of people and places I have been, its called Kathy’s Song.

10. Paul sings: Kathy’s Song

[Students noise generally]

11. Paul sings: He Was A Most Peculiar Man

[cheers from the students at the end of this song]
Paul: “Well ok, I will finish up with this song…”
Student: “Don't finish up!”
Paul: “Well, if you all jump on your heads and scream ‘one more’, I will do
more.”
[lots of more shouts]
Student: “Give him three!”
Another student: “Give him ten!”
Another student: “Give him some more money, he will go on!”
[lots of laughing]
Paul: “That's the first good idea I've heard.”
Student to other student: “Would the person who made the suggestion please cough up, I will.”
Paul: “This is the most recent song I have written its called Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall, and it deals with what is reality and what is elusion.”

12. Paul sings: Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall

“This is a song called the Sounds Of Silence. It's a song about the inability to communicate. The inability of people to communicate, not only on a intellectual level, but an emotional level as well. You see, you have people who can't love, people who can't touch. Its called The Sounds Of Silence.”

13. Paul sings: The Sounds Of Silence

Students shout: “More! More!”
Student says to Paul: “Would you like some water, by the way?”
Paul: “Yes please.”
[more student talking]
Someone talks: “He also has a lot of bookings to do, he can't do more than two songs. He's got to think of his voice ok. Ok, it will just have to be two more.”
Paul: “This is a song I wrote while I was playing at a club near Oxford. Uh you see, I stayed over the night with a friend of mine. She lives at a farm near Oxford, and we never did get to sleep. We were up the whole night and when morning came we went out in the fields you see. And ah, at dawn we were walking around because it was a particularly groovy day and there was a bird singing, you know. She resided this poem to me: when April come she will, may she will stay, June she will change her tune, July she will fly, August die she must. And I have put it to music.”

14. Paul sings: April Come She Will

“At one time in my life I thought that everything was based on a pattern. And that we couldn't get out of the pattern because, uh well, if you went out of one pattern you simply fell into another pattern. So freedom was an illusionary term, because it didn't exist, because the most important things that have happened we didn't have any control over. Like when you are born or the colour of your skin or growing old or dying. This is called Patterns.

15. Paul sings: Patterns

End


 2 Jupira, Nick Jupira, Nick
[Readers: 1261 ]

Nick
Jul-12-2016, 18:30 GMT
United Kingdom

I always like information about Paul's time in England during the 1960s especially as I am from Widnes where it's credited that the idea for Homeward Bound came about. Any information of the period what songs he was singing in the clubs where he stayed. Who he met and what influenced Paul is of great interest.

Thank you for the transcript. I had the fortune of meeting Geoff Speed who ran the folk club Paul played when he came to Widnes. I ran a guitar club in conjunction with Fender UK and had Geoff come along to a meeting and telll his tale of the time. As mentioned in the biography by Hillary Kingston Geoff explained Paul had no base camp whilst in the area so invited the singer to stay his house whilst he performed locally. Geoff brought a guitar to the meeting that he owned he said Paul showed him Anji by Davey Graham on it. In fact as a result Geoff named his daughter after the instrumental. As a result at the meeting I got to strum the guitar so I can claim I touched a guitar once strummed by my hero.

Geoff Speed used to have a radio folk show on BBC radio Mersyside and was a pleasure to meet. Radio Merseyside in Liverpool also have a presenter called Spencer Leigh who is very knowlageable on the 60s and presents a show about the era and has done a show about Paul during this time. Incidently Spencer wrote a small book about Paul Simon possibly the first book about 1965 I would be interested.

 2 Bodo, Brenda Bodo, Brenda
[Readers: 1152 ]

Brenda
Jul-13-2016, 05:45 GMT
Australia

Thanks Bodo and Nick. There is only the Brentwood Tapes now to hear. They can only be listened to in person at Essex Record Office. Paul promised on the Jools Holland show earlier in the year he would go listen to them when he came to England in the Fall. Hope he remembers. He might give permission for them to be shared to a wider audience.

  [Readers: 1097 ]

Brenda
Jul-13-2016, 06:26 GMT
Australia

Wasn't that the tape that was sold by Robert Brookes to a Japanese buyer. He posted a little info on the recording of it on a You Tube comment on the northern Line .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCat2iIwKfM

  [Readers: 1092 ]

Jupira
Jul-13-2016, 19:59 GMT
Brazil

Love this kind of old stuff!MORE,MORE

  [Readers: 1014 ]

Jupira  
Jul-13-2016, 20:01 GMT
Brazil

Made me feel young as well.I was not born yet and Simon was already there..

  [Readers: 1013 ]

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