On January 15, 2019, Paul Simon dreamed that he was working on a piece called “Seven Psalms.” He got out of bed and scribbled the phrase— alliterative, ancient-feeling—into a spiral notebook. From then on, Simon periodically woke between 3:30 and 5 A.M. to jot down bits of language. Songwriters often speak about their work as a kind of channelling—the job is to be a steady antenna, prepared to receive strange signals. Some messages are more urgent than others. Simon started trying to make sense of what he was being told.
This month, Simon, who is eightyone, released “Seven Psalms,” his fifteenth solo album. It’s a beautiful, mysterious record, composed of a single, thirty-three-minute acoustic track divided into seven movements. Simon’s soft, neighborly voice has yet to be shredded by age or hard living, and its sustained tenderness makes me feel as though everything is going to be O.K. His long discography contains threads of sorrow (“Hello darkness, my old friend,” the gloomy opening line of “The Sound of Silence,” from 1964, has been adopted as a meme), but just as many moments of levity and gratification. Despite being a songwriting virtuoso, Simon tends toward understatement, and his lack of vocal histrionics can make his music seem unusually (and deceptively) effortless.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 05, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 05, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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TRIPLE FAULT
A meal is never just a meal in a Luca Guadagnino movie; each bite is a prelude to a kiss, every feast a form of foreplay.
NIGHT MUSIC
“Stereophonic” and Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” on Broadway.
LITTLE OLD HER
Is Taylor Swift doing too much?
BEASTLY MATTERS
Where the logic behind the concern for animal welfare begins and ends.
PULSE
He footed off his shoes, the logs balanced on an arm, and tugged the door shut.
TOWER IN FLAMES
What kind of right is academic freedom?
THE BATTLE FOR ATTENTION
How do we hold on to what matters in a distracted age?
ON NATIVE GROUNDS
Deb Haaland faces the cruel history of the agency she now leads.
DESIGN FOR LIVING
Can converting office towers into apartments save empty downtowns from ruin?
HOROSCOPES WRITTEN BY MY MOTHER
Your zodiac alignment this month is governed by Venus, the planet of intuition, something my daughter Bess seems to lack.