POP MUSIC SPECIAL : The Sound of Simon

P aul Simon will emphasize music from “Graceland” and the new “The Rhythm of the Saints” albums on a world tour beginning in December, but he won’t turn his back on his earlier material.

His plan is to devote almost half his time on stage with a 17-piece band to songs from his Simon & Garfunkel years and his pre-”Graceland” solo albums.

Like most songwriters, Simon is reluctant to come up with a list of his 10 best songs. But he agreed during an interview in San Francisco to react to a list of my 10 favorite Simon compositions.--R.H.

“The Sound of Silence”

An acoustic version didn’t attract much attention on the first Simon & Garfunkel album, but producer Tom Wilson added electric guitar, bass and drums to the track and that folk-rock version became a No. 1 single in 1966.

One of my best from the early period. I wrote it when I was 20 or 21 . . . around the time of the Kennedy assassination. I was still living in Queens and I used to sit in the bathroom with the running water in the sink and write because the echo against the tile was nice.

I’d also turn off the lights, which is probably what led to the opening line, “Hello darkness, my old friend.” I was in England when they added electric guitars. I didn’t think it was a particularly great overdub, but I was thankful that the record was getting another shot.

“Homeward Bound”

The follow-up to “The Sound of Silence” reached No. 5 on the charts in 1966.

That’s a song I wrote in Liverpool about my girlfriend Kathy--the Kathy of “Kathy’s Song.” I was probably 23. We used to sing it on the Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour (in 1983) and I hated it because the title seems like such a cliche. And that line about a poet and a one-man band always embarrassed me because originally people thought I was being pretentious . . . calling myself a poet. I really meant it ironically . . . kind of mocking the way that people started to look at songwriters as poets after Dylan.

I finally found a way on the tour to be more comfortable with the song. I told myself that it’s like a snapshot of you when you were 23. It’s not sophisticated, but neither were you at that age. Still, I wouldn’t rate the song very high.

“The Boxer”

A No. 7 single in 1969.

It’s probably the best of my work in the folk style, which wasn’t my first genre. The first songs I wrote were doo-wop songs and I still love to get doo-wop in my records, which is why I had such a good time with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I think the song was mostly a reaction to the criticism we were getting in Simon & Garfunkel. . . . The lines about “He carries the reminders / Of every glove that laid him down / And cut him till he cried out . . . / ‘I am leaving, I am leaving. . . . “

But he doesn’t leave in the song and that’s what the song was about. When we were at the peak of Simon & Garfunkel popularity, people started sniping at us and I was very sensitive about it because when they were sniping at us, I thought they were really sniping at me, because I was writing the songs.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water”

Along with Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” this is probably the most popular ballad of the rock era. The single spent six weeks at No. 1 in 1970 .

I have great affection for that song because it was written in the idiom of Baptist hymns and it ended up being one. One of the strange things about it, though, is that it was the biggest song of the Simon & Garfunkel period and, except for the last verse, I didn’t sing on the record. It was Artie’s song (vocally), which is what I wanted. But it took me a long time before I could actually sing it and I still haven’t sung it very often. I will, though, on the new tour.

“American Tune”

The first song on the list from the post-Simon & Garfunkel days, the record was only a modest hit when released as a single in 1973.

I always think of that as my Nixon sore-loser song. I was writing about what I felt was the end of the ‘60s beliefs . . . that idealism. . . . The lines, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered . . . / I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered.” I like it, but the melody was from Bach . . . which makes the song feel like less of an accomplishment than if I had written both the words and the melody.

“Still Crazy After

All These Years”

The title tune of the 1975 work that won a Grammy for best album, “Still Crazy . . . “ was also a hit single.

That’s one of my favorite songs. . . . Probably the best of the middle period. It’s one of the song titles, like “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” that I see all the time in newspapers and magazines. They’ll do some take-off on it . . . like “Still this after all these years” or “Still that after all these years.” I wrote it while I was living in a hotel after my (first) marriage. I was just sitting by the window, watching cars and people go by . . . just thinking about my life.”

“Hearts and Bones”

The title song from the 1983 album.

“Hearts and Bones” is a very, very personal album . . . very autobiographical. That song is one of several love songs about Carrie (actress Carrie Fisher, Simon’s second wife). So was “Graceland,” some others. In fact, “Hearts and Bones” and “Graceland,” the song, were the same story, just a continuation.

“Rene and Georgette Magritte

With Their Dog After the War”

Also from the “Hearts and Bones” album.

I wrote the song while I was driving by myself in Montana, and I liked the surreal juxtaposition of the Magrittes and the doo-wop groups . . . The Penguins, the Moonglows, the Orioles. It’s one of my favorites, but I was angry at myself for a while after the album failed because I thought the song was just too esoteric . . . that the people who knew about Magritte wouldn’t know about the Penguins, and vice versa.

“The Boy in the Bubble”

From the “Graceland” album.

I love how the track turned out. The line about “these are the days of miracle and wonder” was again supposed to be ironic, though some people didn’t take it that way.

“Graceland”

The title song from the 1986 album.

I resisted the song for months because I had never even been to Graceland and I didn’t want to write a song about Elvis Presley. But it wouldn’t go away, so I thought I had better go to Graceland--and the song just came together.

I drove up Highway 61 to Memphis, through the Mississippi Delta, from Lafayette, La., where I was recording. That’s where the opening comes from: “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.” And it goes, “My traveling companion is 9 years old / The child of my first marriage.” That’s my son, Harper, who was with me. The personal songs are probably the ones that always stick with you the most. The key line, for me, is the one, “Losing love is like a window in your heart.”