Paul Simon: Likeness

Paul Simon is American musician, songwriter and producer. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Paul Simon: 232   quotes 3   likes

“I shoot a thought into the future, and it flies like an arrow, through my lifetime. And beyond.”

Paul Simon

Everything About It Is a Love Song
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)
Context: I shoot a thought into the future, and it flies like an arrow, through my lifetime. And beyond.
If I ever come back as a tree, or a crow, or even the wind-blown dust; find me on the ancient road in the song when the wires are hushed. Hurry on and remember me, as I'll remember you. Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates.
The earth is blue.
And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.

Future

“But all that is changed now.
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars.Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers
In every language spoken.”

Paul Simon

Wartime Prayers
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)
Context: Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations,
Appeals for love, or love's release, in private invocationsBut all that is changed now.
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars.Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers
In every language spoken.
For every family scattered and broken.

God , People , Memory , Change

“I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.”

Paul Simon

Bridge over Troubled Water
Song lyrics, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)
Context: When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

Water , Time

“So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.”

Paul Simon

Interview with Tony Schwartz in Playboy (February 1984) p. 166
Context: I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.

“Some people never say those words "I love you".
It's not their style to be so bold.
Some people never say those words "I love you".
But like a child, they're longing to be told.”

Paul Simon

Something So Right
Song lyrics, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Love , People

“The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover.”

Paul Simon

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
Song lyrics, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)

Way , Lovers , Problem , Help

“Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C.
And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity.
Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone?
God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.”

Paul Simon

Outrageous
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)

Love , God , Flowers , Water

“Moves like a fist through traffic,
Anger and no-one can kill it,
Shoves a little bump to the momentum,
It's just a little lump but you feel it
In the creases and the shadows,
With a rattling deep emotion.
The cool, cool river
Sweeps the wild, wide ocean.”

Paul Simon

The Cool, Cool River
Song lyrics, The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)

Feeling , Anger

“It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor.
Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.
It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.
But I'm tired.”

Paul Simon

Outrageous
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)

Summer

“The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar,
I am following the river down the highway
Through the cradle of the Civil War.”

Paul Simon

Graceland
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

War

“I like them all. … They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. … I have no favorite songs.”

Paul Simon

Pop Chronicles Show 36 - The Rubberization of Soul: The great pop music renaissance. Part 2 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19795/m1/, interview recorded (20 December 1967) http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s

“Well I'm accustomed to a smooth ride,
Or maybe I'm a dog that's lost its bite,
I don't expect to be treated like a fool, no, no,
I don't expect to sleep long nights,
Some people say a lie is just a lie but I say,
Why deny the obvious child?”

Paul Simon

The Obvious Child
Song lyrics, The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)

People , Lie , Dogs , Fools

“"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.”

Paul Simon

The Sound of Silence
Song lyrics, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)

Fools , Silence

“Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself,
How it's strange that some rooms are like cages,
Sonny's yearbook from high school is down from the shelf,
And he idly thumbs through the pages,
Some have died, some have fled from themselves,
On a struggle from here to get there,
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls,
Runs his hands through his thinning brown hair.”

Paul Simon

The Obvious Child
Song lyrics, The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)

School , Thinking

“Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.”

Paul Simon

Song lyrics, Parsley (1966)

Game , Singing

“And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart,
Everybody sees you're blown apart,
Everybody feels the wind blow.”

Paul Simon

Graceland
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

Love , Feeling , Heart