Sone voice isn’t as clear as it was in the early days of Simon and Garfunkel, even at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, but all sorts of bells and related rattling instruments ring out on Paul Simon’s new album, including Almglocken, as well as Gongs, Hadphoon, Hadjira, Gamelan” as well as ominous “Cloud Chamber Bowls”, which consist of large, cut glass bottles. We got it: It’s about meditative sounds that come from all over the world. The one who sings claims that he is neither a doctor nor a preacher, but you could imagine both, especially since the album is called “Seven Psalms” (Sony) and alludes to the psalmodizing King David.
Paul Simon has dared to make the step from American folk to world music in very different ways; here it is of course not as style-defining as on his albums “Graceland” or “The Rhythm of the Saints”, but only serves as a basis for the otherwise economical-traditional combination of western lyre (still well plucked by the now 81-year-old) and his singing, sometimes supplemented by that of his wife, Edie Brickell. The album lists seven pieces, but has only one track that lasts thirty-three minutes: this also speaks for a musical meditation. Some consider it a meditation on death. The very first lines can actually be understood: “I’ve been thinking about the great migration” it says, and a link to other legacy albums such as Leonard Cohen’s “You Want it Darker” seems to be closing.
The Great Migration
But that might be a bit premature. The “great migration,” as will become clear in the following text, could also refer to herds of animals in search of fresh grass, it is also a technical term for the movement of black people northward in the United States during the 20th century, and they could also stand for refugee movements of the present. After all, Paul Simon has often sung about “refugees” and “homeless”, and now these terms are appearing again. It doesn’t seem to be about the fate of a single person, but that of the planet.
Some of the lyrics are based on biblical psalms: they vary the text figure “The Lord is . . .” in a sometimes surprising, possibly also satirical way. “The Lord is a puff of smoke / The Lord is my personal joke” it says, and: “The Lord is my record producer”. It’s not in the Bible, and certainly not: “The Covid virus is the Lord”. Does the singer tend to conspiracy theories?
It’s not easy to say what the message is and what the role is, because the verses and sometimes very catchy song passages combine to form a long poem with different voices. Simon, too, would have every right to claim the much-cited Walt Whitman dictum “I contain multitudes” for himself. One of the voices in the sarcastic media review “My professional Opinion” suggests that the poet and medicine man of the American song, who supposedly got the idea for all this from a dream, hasn’t lost his sense of humor; another calls out imploringly: “Wait! I’m not ready, I’m just packing my car”. That leaves some room for interpretation, but in any case has unmistakable gospel echoes, when at the end all children are promised heaven, especially those who didn’t have one on earth.
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