Interview with Paul by Tamara Conniff
The sweet young voice singing harmony with Paul Simon on his Golden Globe-nominated song ´Father and Daughter´ from ´The Wild Thornberrys Movie´ is his 10-year-old son, Adrian.
´We were in the car riding along, and I was working on the song, singing,´ Simon says. ´Adrian started singing along, and it was so good that I thought it would be nice to have the feeling of a child´s voice on it -- so I let him sing a couple of different takes to see what he would sing. I liked what he sang. It was a very contemporary kid-pop melody. It´s all his melodies. He sang the harmony. He´s very pleased to have it on there.
Simon says Adrian is a music natural:
He got the full complement of his parents´ DNA. He sings like his mother(Edie Brickell), writes songs, he plays drums and piano.
´Father and Daughter´ pays homage to what Simon calls ´a very special relationship´ he has with his 7-year-old girl, Lulu. ´In a way, with Adrian singing, it balances it out since it´s a song about my daughter. And my youngest, who is 4 1/2 years old, is not -- yet -- concerned with any of it. So everybody´s happy. Everybody will get their turn.´
Simon also took his toughest critics -- his three youngest children -- to see the movie.
´We took the whole family to see it, my mother too,´ Simon says. ´And everybody liked it. It was a lot of fun to do that. The main reason that I took this movie was to be able to bring the whole family. I don´t have to say, ´Well, you can´t see that movie, because it´s too grown-up.´
Simon says he´s delighted that the song is up for a Golden Globe as it´s his first nomination. Simon´s 1968 Grammy-winning score and song for ´The Graduate´ was not nominated for a Golden Globe because he and his then partner Art Garfunkel forgot to fill out and send in the nomination paperwork.
´We were just kids, we didn´t bother to fill out the form that we needed to send in. I just forgot,´ Simon says.
´I was 26 or something and wasn´t paying attention. I never thought it would have won anyway. It didn´t even occur to me.´
Composing an original song for ´The Wild Thornberrys´ is the beginning of much more music from Simon. He´s considering doing more film work and is in the throes of writing a new studio album, his first since 2000´s ´You´re the One.´
´I think that ´Father and Daughter,´ in its sound and its straightforwardness, is not unlike the other things that I´m writing (for the album). I like that, it feels right. I´m trying to be as simple as possible and as clear as I can lyrically and keep the rhythm of it very American. It´s not coming from any other cultural place.´
Simon, an East Coast native, continues to feel the effects Sept. 11 has had on the nation. ´People want a lot of things now, reassurance and some kind of center or vision that seems true and right. Everybody´s searching for that. It´s a very hard time,´ he says.
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