The Men Who Killed Rock and Roll

For some reason, today I have been reflecting on why Simon & Garfunkel are so damn odious.

First, a little history. I grew up garnering my early musical education through a variety of sources. The radio, my Mom, Casey Kasem's American Top 40 every Saturday, record stores, friends, the hip music teacher who loved the Beatles, the babysitter, and the television, such as it was.

I moved to Southern California when I was 13, in 1976. I met new people, record store managers, new radio stations etc. And I read music magazines.

When I was about 16, Rolling Stone published a record guide. It was the first time, in my knowledge, that someone tried to put together a comprehensive guide to the whole musical enchilada. In that first edition, the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave every later work of Simon & Garfunkel 5 stars. That was the highest ranking. I think only "Bookends" got 4 stars.

The critics agree: Simon & Garfunkel are the pinnacle of the art.

Not so fast.

To me, Simon & Garfunkel took all of the form of folk and nascent rock and roll and stripped it of anything resembling sex. No swagger. The only moods they were really capable of expressing were righteous indignation, self-righteousness, self-pity, and a certain type of really chaste longing.

Don't get me wrong, I think Paul Simon is a songwriter of great talent. But compare him to Laura Nyro, a contemporary. She swung. She brought blues and jazz into the mix. She was barrel house, she was a little naughty, and yes, sometimes a little precocious, but she lived in her music. Simon, on the other hand, was as restrained and neutered as any Wally Cox character. You get the impression that if he played a flatted 5th, his audience would start crying. Art would have wet his pants, at the very least.

S & G concerts are a sad hoot to listen to. Garfunkel breathlessly introduces the songs, and clearly he is Simon's biggest fan. He recites how many songs Paul has written. He speaks of Paul as some sort of significant cultural event.

Now, I have seen Paul Simon on TV. He seems genuinely funny and self-effacing. This whole late 60s weirdness had to play a large role in Paul's decision to "break up the act." I mean, to get treated like some sort of deity by your performing partner had to be disconcerting.

But, in terms of an impact on music, S & G introduced a swaggerless intellectual preciousness that has never really gone away. Don Henley and Sting embody that value, and get accolades for it. It's fine to have intellectual pretensions. But rock music and pop music should not be tools by which the self-proclaimed intellectually superior remind us how dumb we are. And if you're going to do that, at the very least, please allow us to dance.