Jesse
Nov-24-2003, 16:44 GMT
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| Just a devoted fan (Katherine) of Paul Simon´s music....
The first thing I remember ? Paul Simon?s music still inspires after all these years.
.......
I Love music. And I love musicians even more. In my 23 years, I?ve had dozens of passionate affairs with both quiet wordsmiths and pretentious performers. I?ve plastered my walls with their faces, I?ve memorized the lyrics to their songs, and I?ve spent more money on their albums than I?d like to think about.
At age 12, I fell for The New Kids on the Block ? in my defense, the relationship was short-lived, and I was quickly seduced by the blatant rebellion and black leather of Glam rock. From there I turned to the generation before me and spent my days memorizing the lyrics to Subterranean Homesick Blues and Friend of the Devil. I?ve since moved on to The Cure, Phish, Crystal Method, Dave Matthews. All kinds of music, all kinds of memories and always an adoration so intense it sometimes made me sick ? for a while. But each musician was forgotten in his own time, taken out of heavy rotation and retired to my Case Logic. All but one. Paul Simon.
Probably my youngest memory, and definitely my fondest, is of weekend mornings, pancakes and Paul. My parents are still together. It?s Saturday. Early. I slowly wrench myself from my bed and walk to the top of the stairs shaking the sleep from my head. The faint sounds of the kitchen ? cupboards being opened and shut, pans clanking, steps taken across the linoleum ? and the scent of Bisquick draws me down the stairs. As I near, I stop and listen to my father whistling, my mother humming, softly, intimately, to Paul Simon?s ?Still Crazy After All These Years.?
This was every Saturday morning of my childhood: Paul Simon and pancakes. For that and for so much more I want to say thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for your lullaby voice, for your storybook lyrics, for your divine sound. And thank you for always being the common denominator.
Thank you for Rhythm Of The Saints and for Concert in Central Park. Thank you for Graceland and for Love Songs and Negotiations. For There Goes Rhymin? Simon and for Hearts And Bones.
Thank you for auditioning for Alice in Wonderland in the 6th grade, without which you might not have discovered a shared interest with Art Garfunkel.
Thank you for your genuine love for New York City. As a midwestern girl, my dreams of the city were created by your poetry: the bodegas and lights on upper Broadway, the fogs rolling in off the East River Bank, the New York City winters. Your words gave New York a romance, a mystery, an excitement I thought it could never live up to.
But you were right. And I?m glad I?m here.
Thank you for ?50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,? ?Tenderness? and ?Cecilia,? songs that illuminated the perfect irony present in many an unfortunate relationship.
And just as I thank you for meeting Art, I thank you for leaving him too. He was Tom to your Jerry, essential to your learning, your growing, your understanding. A better complement couldn?t have been created by Crayola. But had you not left him, you never would have realized your voice, your perspective, your scope.
Thank you for ?You Can Call Me Al.? Not only was it the inspiration for a video with Chevy Chase, it never fails to take me back to K10, a lonely highway in the middle of the United States. A highway where three teenaged girls, crammed into the front seat of a red Honda, barreled along, the song on repeat, screaming phrases like ?cartoon graveyard? and ?bat-faced girl? into the wind and knowing in our hearts there was no way life could ever get any better.
Thank you for your alienation, your exultation, your perceptiveness. It has allowed you to completely understand and deftly communicate the simultaneous pain and pleasure of human existence ? a pain and pleasure I can relive whenever I want just by pressing play.
Thank you for not being too pretentious to sing with Art again. Many singers think they?re above the past ? you embrace it.
Thank you for your new album, for never keeping your music from your audience, for touring again ? though I don?t have a ticket and it seems the concert is sold out. (Read: Any kind soul willing to part with a ticket, feel free to get in touch.)
Last weekend was my mother?s 50th birthday. My gift to her? The Simon and Garfunkel Box set. A compilation of 58 songs. She smiled and thanked me. Got up and put it on. It?d been years since we?d listened together, and I could see her reliving my youth, her marriage, her childhood. I sat while she played song after song for me, pointing out her favorite lines, her favorite riffs. In those moments I felt exultation, and alienation and that feeling of absolute peace and perfection that can only come from familiarity and family. So, lastly Paul, thank you for that.
Katherine Dykstra is an Ironminds contributing writer.
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