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toki71
Oct-12-2010, 00:56 GMT
Unknown

I have just finished the book (I got it from iBooks): not as bad as I thought. It is not crap, in spite of the mistakes and the countless times the author mentions Bob Dylan.

Marc Elliot is not a complete fool, he nows quite a lot about Paul and loves many of his songs. He certainly isn´t a die-hard fan of everything Paul has ever done - he tries to stay fairly objective I think.

It covers Paul´s musical and personal life - sometimes very detailed - sometimes blurry. The author has his own interpretations of some of Paul´s decisions, but that´s OK; e.g. he states, that Paul left Kathy Chitty for the music - which only they know - and that Paul made tactical mistakes at the staging of "The Capeman" which is what I think, too.
The autor gives subjective comments of some of the songs, sometimes many lines (e.g. for "Ren?nd ..."), sometimes just one line ("Cars Are Cars, was filler";)

I was bored when the author writes about his personal life, but that expresses how important Paul´s music is for him.

The factual errors are a real distraction but not as frequent as you might think. Real errors that can´t be ignored are:
"Kodachrome" as start of his solo career -> it was on his second (American) solo album;
no PS songs on the soundtrack of "Shampoo" except "Feeling Groovy" -> in fact Paul was playing guitar and humming parts of "Silent Eyes" in the movie;
.. wrong years! ...
several captions of the photos are wrong, mainly the years

But the obvious mistakes really should be corrected! And the author could take parts of this book to write a biography about his Bobness;

still: 3/5 points

neongoddess
Oct-12-2010, 02:13 GMT
USA - United Staates America

Thanks for the review, toki71. I didn´t think the book had been released yet?

Ian
Oct-12-2010, 02:30 GMT
USA - United Staates America

Thanks Toki71,interesting,but I don´t think it´ll change my mind about buying the book though. I can´t get the impression out of my head that he is a (very)casual fan,who has fleshed out his knowledge on his victim by making a few visits to Wikipedia to amass his facts. For example,did he thank a long list of people who agreed to personal interviews,undertaken specifically for this book? I mean the time devoted to his personal life may be interesting for some,but I´d prefer interviews with Paul´s musical ´family´ over the years,like Mark Stewart,Steve Gadd,Baghiti Khumalo etc,etc. There´s still a great book to be written about Paul Simon hopefully. As I said,I wouldn´t buy this book,but if it shows up at the local library I´ll gladly read it. It´d have to be worth that much.

Bodo
Oct-12-2010, 12:23 GMT
Austria

Thanks Toki.
I think I will do it like Ian...if a used / cheap version appears somewhere I maybe pick it up.

I do not want to hear personal oppinions about songs, and what they meant for his life (the author). I guess Paul himself should tell us these stories, the songs mean something else for everyone...so I do not need, what we already have in the forum (the chance to see what 100 different people think about one song). At least you know everyone thinks something else about a song, so what Mr. Eliot writes is not the ultimative truth for everyone ;-)


I for example think that Cars Are Cars is much more of a filler - Paul never wrote any ´filler´ songs. He even played that song live on stage. And cars do mean a lot in his life (I believe in the future, I may live in my car..., slipped into my pocket with my car keys,....) ...

Ian
Oct-12-2010, 13:32 GMT
USA - United Staates America

You know Bodo,I had never thought about Paul´s affinity with automobiles. Apart from the two songs you mentioned,he undertook an interview in a car for the 1987 Omnibus documentary and he said last year that when he was in Australia in 1983,he hired a car and did some driving/touring around some part of the country. He also took the actual trip to Presley´s Graceland that inspired the song,in a car. This next bit I´m hoping someone may remember-there was an article in a music magazine,either post Graceland,or post Rhythm Of The Saints that reported that Paul Simon,Marrianne Faithful,and Malcolm McClaren(sp) were working on a project together and one of the songs vocals were recorded in a snow-covered car,apparently for acoustic reasons. Does anyone else recall this odd piece of news?

Baylee
Oct-14-2010, 01:00 GMT
USA - United Staates America

Are there any new pictures-or information that fans might not already know about Paul?

Suzi
Oct-14-2010, 09:09 GMT
USA - United Staates America

They realised it early. I recived my copy from Amazon yesterday a.m.

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