sleep and steroids, sleep and steroids, go together like...

Leonard Cohen's songs and John Simon's arrangements.

that first Leonard Cohen album is in the canon, good and proper. and John Simon has immaculate cred, from the first Blood, Sweat and Tears album through the implausible impeccable arrangements on the first two Band albums, and many others.

but here's what Cohen's liner notes on "Songs of Leonard Cohen" say:

NOTES ON THE ALBUM: "The songs and the arrangements were introduced. They felt some affection for one another but because of a blood feud, they were forbidden to marry. Nevertheless, the arrangements wished to throw a party. The songs preferred to retreat behind a veil of satire.

I've produced some projects. I know that when an artist gives you lots of spades, you look to add some diamonds or clubs, some hearts to round out the deck. I also know that if the artist holds all the cards in one suit, you don't need anything else for a grand slam.

there are no dynamics anywhere on Cohen's album. no vocal variance. nothing faster than midtempo; no grooves. Cohen was adamant about having no drums on the LP. no bravura guitar, no song you could unconflictedly call"happy".

"Suzanne" is anything but a dirge; it's more of a kaleidoscope. but the tempo and feel of the music would fit any organist's needs at a final gathering.

Simon hoped to leaven this lot with bells and harps and virgin female background singers singing "bom" in their pure chaste way. Randy Handley used to joke that Simon was a genius indeed, finding three virgins in New York to sing on that record!

I used to joke that I owe My body tone to working out to the "Leonard Cohen Aerobics Tape".

Simon's arrangements continued through time, spirited and full of treats. Cohen's songs continued, essential companions to mapping out one's relationship to life's complexities, and of special help in the country of the darker parts. "Everything that's beautiful is cracked," says the poet, "that's how the light gets in." and at another time, "I have seen the future, and it is hell."

and still no dance hits. consistency. have to admire that. you know what bin to put his albums in.

"One Trick Pony", the movie by Paul Simon, is a gentler attempt, but an attempt throughout, to downplay if not discredit the producer's role in the making of records. like the relationship between steroids and sleep. the pinnacle of the movie, the top of the dramatic arc, is when Simon (Paul) takes the finished master tape of his new highly produced project and unspools it down a street, making it unplayable for all time.

Paul doesn't like relying on someone. I feel like some artists have a hard time needing even their art for recognition, as if their wonderfulness should conquer the world directly, without this messy middle step. Simon's 75/ 25 ...85/15? relationship with Garfunkel...Paul writes the songs, plays the guitar, sings the melody most of the time, has most all the say on studio arrangement...still ended up seeming to chafe the author.

in fact, I saw a letter one time in Rolling Stone that said, "Read the Paul Simon article. It's quite remarkable how Mr. Simon created so much wonderful music in the sixties all by himself. Signed, Art Garfunkel."

sorry Paul...Simon Says, you needed Art. he added to the general aesthetic of the endeavor, his voice added depth and clarity to yours, he interpreted the songs he soloed on definitively. and if anyone is a fan of harmony singing, David Crosby wrote the First Chapter of the Book, The Everly Brothers the Third, The Beatles the Fourth. don't skip any of them. but Art Garfunkel wrote the Second.

and talk to me about a songwriter getting more benefit from production that Paul Simon.

much of the "One Trick Pony" movie is involved with Jonah not wanting to have to sing his first hit, "Soft Parachutes", at a record convention. "I've changed, I've moved on, I'm not there anymore."

aww.

someday, for fun, total up the number of songs James Taylor has written about not wanting to have to sing "Fire and Rain". things are rough all over.

estranged partners aside, Paul Simon was in England in late 1963. he had recorded an acoustic duet album (with bass) for Columbia, but the tracks were kind of sitting in the vault. gospel songs...not bad for two New York Jewish boys (who had had a 50's semi-hit as Tom and Jerry, the Everly-mimicing "Hey, Schoolgirl"). folk traditionals. and a few Simon originals, including "The Sounds of Silence".

a producer in New York heard the latter song, called in bass, drums, and folk rock electric guitar with enough reverb to flood the Lincoln Tunnel, and without Simon's knowledge added the instruments to the song, mixed it, and released it.

suddenly, "...Schuster" became the number two answer to the Match Game final round question, "Simon and ______"

Paul was famous for being something he wasn't...yet...a folk rocker.

I love the acoustic "Wednesday Morning 3a.m." album. and I love the "Sounds of Silence" album that came after. both show huge growth, and something better beginning. but both bear the stretch marks of that growth as well.

the former opens with, "He brought joy joy joy joy joy...into my heart", and ends with leaving out "straight to hell" after "but my words like silent raindrops fell"...some growth there, I daresay.

the "Sounds of Silence" LP attacks the question of, what kind of (hopefully successful) folk rocker am I ? scattershot. there's a nice little acoustic guitar instrumental, written by Davey Graham, that Paul learned faithfully from the playing of Bert Jansch - two seminal British folk style guitarists.

Paul doesn't need anyone..........

immediately following, as if not to try to hide the derivation, is a song musically owing to the feel of the instrumental, called "Somewhere They Can't Find Me". astute musical observers...ok, you'd have to be kind of dense to miss it...will notice the identical lyrics in two of the verses to the song "Wednesday Morning, 3am", from the first album, with a chorus added (with the hope of being a hook)

chorus as follows:

But I've got to creep down the alley way,
Fly down the highway,
Before they come to catch me I'll be gone.
Somewhere they can't find me.

compare also, gentle reader, if you will, the substantial shift in vernacular in the two third verses:

Wednesday Morning 3am:

My life seems unreal,
My crime an illusion,
A scene badly written
In which I must play.
Yet I know as I gaze
At my young love beside me,
The morning is just a few hours away.

Somewhere They Can't Find Me:

Oh my life seems unreal, my crime an illusion,
A scene badly written in which I must play.
And thought it puts me up tight to leave you,
I know it's not right to leave you,
When morning is just a few hours away.

what are we trying to do here, and exactly how hard are we trying to do it?

I can't be too hard on him, because how many people were asking themselves how to turn 60's folk music into 60's folk rock, and stay on the larger payroll?

lots.

with lots of wrong answers. these weren't the only ones by any means.

and not as many answers as correct as, "I Am a Rock" from Sounds of Silence.

I genuinely revere every note on these albums. don't get me wrong.

"I Am a Rock" completely succeeds. but for an answer to "who is a folk rocker in 1965?", it replies, "he is Bob Dylan singing 'Like a Rolling Stone'."

the production is an attempt to copy; no piano, wimpier electric guitarist, a more talented (and less effective) organist, but their phasers were clearly set to "Bob".

it's ok.

no one would say that Simon didn't know which kind of folk rocker he was by the lp "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme".

or just how addicted to production he needed to get.

Roy Halee, the producer whom Simon will still sometimes call upon to this day, was kind of a George Martin for Paul. the exact opposite, from my unknowing perspective, of the guy Phil Ramone, the real life producer, plays in "One Trick Pony". (who I think is, actually Phil Ramone)

I cannot name albums that rely more heavily on production than Paul Simon's. can you say, "Graceland"?

had I ever had a point, I would say I'm digressing.

I think the point is, I'm awake and speed rapping.

but need is how we are brought into relationship with the world. without it, we could all stay hermits and most probably would. need means sharing, and sharing fills us up as well as filling someone else up.

in 4th grade, I had a buddy. he would buy both of our ice creams one day; I would buy them the next.

it took me months to realize neither of us were spending any more or less money; that no one was coming out ahead. because I was blissed on the days I got free ice cream, blissed on the days I treated my buddy.

you gain from sharing. you dry up without doing it.

James, you need that song. it needs you. we need you to need it. it is how we share. yes, there is pressure on you to share your gift. yes, people want to hear the old stuff. yes, if no one wanted to share with you anymore, you would be, I promise, not a bit happier.

Paul, I have a bootleg copy of your "Hearts and Bones" lp with Art Garfunkel's tracks still on them. I saw the tour you did with him where you played those songs live.

before you erased all of Garfunkel's tracks forever, and replaced them with your own.

you needed him. we needed him.

you need the producer. you need your guitar; don't stay allergic to it. there are times to present the subtleties you love so much in your music, to ask the listener to come in to you and hear what you are hearing when you play what you play. and there are times when you should stop playing, and the horn section in "You Can Call Me Al" should blast as hard as it can by itself.

it's good to need. let yourself need.

Leonard, everyone should just leave you alone and let your songs be just and only what they are. make the listener come in...your words do everything possible to draw us in. any good producer follows the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.

I'd be the first one...I would if no one ever had...to say to you, doesn't it ever pique your imagination wondering what a resolutely slow groovin' Leonard Cohen song would be like? I know there are big bang drums on some of the later albums, but not without some duress, it seems...

if it just never speaks to you...do what you do. just write "Hallelujah" every ten years or so, to make people wonder...where has this guy been all my life?

meanwhile, I leave you with a poem that I saw while walking up the staircase at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, which espouses the real point of today's writing:

Serenade

by Kevin Young

I wake to the cracked plate

of moon being thrown

across the room--

that'll fix me

for trying sleep.

Lately even night

has left me--

now even the machine

that makes the rain

has stopped sending

the sun away.

It is late,

or early, depending--

who's to say.

Who's to name

these ragged stars, this

light that waters

down the milky dark

before I down

it myself.

Sleep. I swear

there's no one else--

raise me up

in the near night

&set me like

a tin toy to work,

clanking in the bare

broken bright.