Well, to be fair, the lyrics say "There must be fifty ways..." and maybe thinking up 6 is all the far they could get before desire took its course.

It WAS the 70s.

45 Additional ways to leave your lover.

But there are 50 ways to love your lever.

I contend that Paul Simon is the laziest songwriter ever born.

You're not the only one.

We were forced to sing "Feelin' Groovy" in Sunday School music class today, and it was awful in every way. So I am also Team Garfunkel now.

And those listed in the song are not, in fact, WAYS to leave your lover, except "get on the bus, Gus." The rest are muddled suggestions TO leave. Hrmph.

On a related note, "88 Lines about 44 Women" actually only has 17 lines, and they're about 3 women and a cocker spaniel.

Cortex, are you suggesting that cocker spaniels aren't people?

I would like to favourite plinth's comment.

He was a one trick pony, no?

Also, Jay-Z only enumerates like, 10 problems, which is significantly fewer than the 99 he claims to have.

I wrote a few 'other ways to leave your lover' when I was doing jokes for disc jockeys (everybody did). The only one I remember from that time (because it's my real name, dontchaknow...) was "Start using your legs, Craig."

Oh, wait... I thought of/remembered a few more:
"Call up a taxi, Maxie."
"Book passage on a ship, Kip."
"Rent yourself a new flat, Pat."
"Box up all you can carry, Mary."
"Just LEAVE, Steve."
"Pack your suitcase, Jase."
"Make reservations for a flight, Dwight."
"Put on your sneakers, Beaker..."

but for aggressive methods like on Rosecrans Baldwin's excellent list...
"Shoot first like Han, John."
"Smother him with a pillow, Willow."
"Get out your 45, Clive."
"Leave him face down on the lawn, Dawn."
"Push her off a cliff, Cliff."

and here are some way-too-easy "Move to..." geographical references...
"L.A., Ray", "Baltimore, Eleanor", "Paris, Ferris", "New Zealand, Leland", "Peoria, Gloria", "Fargo, Margo", "Montana or Louisiana, Anna", "Korea, Rhea", "St. Louie, Huey", "Jacksonville, Bill", "Iraq, Mac", "Israel, Ishmael", "Dubuque, Luke", "Maine, Blaine", "Boston, Austin" (please ignore the city named Austin), "Chad, Brad", "North or South Carolina, Dinah", "San Francisco, Briscoe" (which was what I thought happened when Jerry Orbach died), "Atlanta, Tony Banta"... there must be a HUNDRED of those...

or just "Let it end well, Wendell..."

Nothing rhymes with Deborah, so I guess I'm stuck.

Not feeling the Simon hate from Los Lobos. Don't they know how to jam collaboratively? As a musician, I find his expectations for building that album reasonable. Lots of people - David Byrne, Elvis Costello - work the same way. Sorry they gave away a great riff, but they didn't have to.

I don't think Simon's an angel, but he's done some towering work in his lifetime.

I imagine, as session musicians, they do know how to jam collaboratively well beyond what you or I, as musicians, could imagine doing, but as they describe, they were pushed into giving up an entire song by their label and their understandable awe for Simon. I think Simon's later output stinks; against this empty backdrop Graceland is a surprising exception; to me Los Lobos' gripes make sense, as do reports that Simon's collaboration with Ladysmith Black Mambazo was similarly exploitative. Paul Simon's best work is his own, as is Elvis Costello's and David Byrne's. There is no vacuum, and I tend to believe the word of players who were there, especially when they aren't the only ones saying Paul Simon, for all his achievements, is a thief and a bully.

I was going to jump in to defend Paul Simon, but I got myself sidetracked thinking of other examples of the general theme of the post, so here are my contributions:

In the song "21 Questions" by 50 Cent, he does indeed ask 21 questions (there are additional questions in the chorus, but Nate Dogg asks those). I contend that 50 Cent is the most numerically accurate question-asking rapper ever born.

In "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton, she contends that she would walk a thousand miles if she could see the person she misses, but I'll bet she'd really give up after about 20. I contend that Vanessa Carlton is the biggest exaggerator of walking stamina ever born.

I contend that Vanessa Carlton is the biggest exaggerator of walking stamina ever born.

She's tied with The Proclaimers.

Hehe Elsa! At least they had the good sense to divide their thousand-mile walk into two stages of 500.

It does seem smart to break up the hike with a wee little rest.

I think Simon's later output stinks;

I don't, so we might just have to stop at that. I think Rhythm of the Saints and Hearts and Bones were great work. I also followed the Ladysmith Black Mombazo thing pretty closely and have revisited it in lots of discussions through an ethnomusicology/colonialism lens, and though it was certainly complex I don't agree that it was exploitive, and it has certainly changed that group's trajectory as well as music history. Ladysmith Black Mombazo was successful in its own right before Graceland, among an African audience; but in the two decades since that album they have toured Europe and North America with great frequency (eight months a year!), playing to full houses and appreciative audiences who would likely never have encountered their work without the collaboration.

In addition, this musical-borrowing mode is one Simon had experimented with in his work with the Dixie Hummingbirds, in producing Mother & Child Reunion with members of Jimmy Cliff's band and Toots and the Maytals, and the use of the Afro-Cuban drumming pattern "mozambique" on Late in the Evening. Or even just the free draw he and Garfunkel took from New York street-corner singing, the Everly Brothers, and Buddy Holly. I go to bat in a pretty serious way for the ability of musicians and other creative artists to exchange, borrow, reuse, and redevelop music as freely as possible, as they do in vernacular contexts, and it would be hypocritical of me to take this one instance and argue that it was wrong and should never have happened. It's not that it happened, but the way it happened - with poor communication and mismatched expectations, I suspect - that's problematic. And there ended up being some strong money involved, which always complicates issues of authorship and ownership.

Of course Los Lobos' musicianship is far beyond my ability, but I spend a lot of time around musicians and I think most working
musicians would find a couple of these comments unusual and somewhat strange. For instance,

We go into the studio, and he had quite literally nothing. I mean, he had no ideas, no concepts, and said, "Well, let's just jam."

Perfectly normal thing to do for this type of work. Perhaps the label didn't set them up for what was going to happen - sounds like not - so perhaps a case of mismatched expectations. If invited to contribute to a major recording project, wouldn't most people show up either ready to contribute something or ready to explore their way into something?

We said, "We don't really do that." ... Not by accident, not even at soundcheck. We would always just play a song.

...and that's just strange. "We don't really do that?" We don't ever just sit down and screw around with a basic 12-bar blues and improvise? Never, not ever? How does anything ever get written - totally on paper? Someone completes a song and brings it to the group fully formed? Whatever the alternative process is, it's unusual for a band not to be at all willing to just jam, especially at the start of what's billed as a contributory project.

I mean, I'm sympathetic, but it looks like what happened with "The Myth of Fingerprints" is sort of ambiguous. It seems to come down to the basic issue of a writing credit (and the concomitant residuals). Wikipedia gives this response from Simon:

"I just said at this stage I don't care whether the album comes out without Los Lobos on it. I was getting really tired of it—I don't want to get into a public slanging match over this, but this thing keeps coming up. So we finished the recordings. And three months passed, and there was no mention of 'joint writing.' The album came out and we heard nothing. Then six months passed and Graceland had become a hit and the first thing I heard about the problem was when my manager got a lawyer's letter. I was shocked. They sent this thing to my manager, not me. If there was a problem, they could have contacted me direct. They've got my home number; we talked a lot. If you ask me, it was a lawyer's idea. You know, 'The record's a hit, and there's $100,000 in it.' They had nine months from the recordings to talk to me about all this, but I heard nothing. And it's still not sorted out, because they still keep bringing it up—I heard they'd done this interview for you. I don't want to get into a public slanging match with them, because I really like their music." [3]

Is Paul Simon, in person, an asshole? Probably. He's been famous since he was a teenager and probably has a very overinflated sense of his own importance - there seems to be plenty of evidence for that. Did he make a lot of mistakes in the way he coordinated the production of Graceland? Yeah, I would say so. But the type of project he was doing was totally unprecedented. Certainly, David Byrne and Ry Cooder and T Bone Burnett and everyone else who followed in these footsteps did it better and more wisely. I think that Simon kind of clomps around like a gorilla, focused on the product and not really sensitive to the nuances of collaboration, especially cross-cultural collaboration. Music producers have come a long way in this regard - paternalism hasn't beenat all a stranger to the development of a world music scene, recording, folk festivals, or any other place where mixing occurred until pretty recent times. I've seen it evolve even in the last twelve years at the sea music festival I've helped coordinate. Others have learned from this and done better. But there is not enough here to convince me to disparage Simon's entire catalogue or his overall contribution to the development of Western pop music. Like any artist with a 40-year career - and that's a small club - he has won some and lost some in terms of overall project quality, sure. But I think as far as evaluating all of his collaborative work, its successes and failures, that the story is pretty complex, has a larger context that takes in widespread concerns about collaboration and borrowing and the invention of creative work, and is probably not easily reducible to "Simon stole."

Back to the topic, could you really buy all these things if you had a million dollars?

The Coup's "Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO" also falls regrettably short.

Others have learned from this and done better. But there is not enough here to convince me to disparage Simon's entire catalogue or his overall contribution to the development of Western pop music.

Uh, me neither. I was addressing what Steve Berlin said about this particular case, and Paul Simon's apparent use of not merely musical ideas, but an entire start-to-finish song, without giving credit.

There are many things that seem problematic about this session and Simon's approach, as far as Los Lobos is concerned. I go to bat pretty seriously for the rights of musicians to have credit extended to them for their ideas and their work; this doesn't seem to be the case of a free collaborative jam, but a song theft by a big name songwriter who showed up without an idea. I reckon you're right about the mismatched expectations, and obviously this can go in circles; my assessment of Simon's later work isn't really at issue, nor is the tradition of musicans exchanging and borrowing and reusing musical ideas; of course this happens. It is not hypocrisy to describe a different situation in different terms.

I'm sure I've gone on way too long about what I thought was merely an interesting link for people's edification. A hot defense begets a hot defense. Such is, et al.

Paul Simon's apparent use of not merely musical ideas, but an entire start-to-finish song, without giving credit.

Yeah, it's just that I don't think there's sufficient evidence that this is what happened at all. As I said, it's pretty ambiguous. It sounds like there was some breakdown in communication about what the song was - "like an existing Lobos sketch of an idea" that "was gonna turn into a song" -- and about which they say "Oh, ok. We'll share this song" -- and how credit was to appear on the record. We don't seem to know what happened between the recording session and the lawyer letter, and that isn't usual - they might have made assumptions about credit that weren't accurate. Some part of the business of this transaction is just unaccounted for. For me, it's too ambiguous to assign any blame.

It is not hypocrisy to describe a different situation in different terms.

From Simon's point of view, I'm saying, it's not necessarily a "different situation." In his mind, he may have been thinking "Hey, another great jam resulting in a good song coming together." The legal issues came later.

Also, it's not a "hot defense." It's my take on it.

There's some good discussion here among the dross.

Also, it's not a "hot defense." It's my take on it.

Right, right. Including your take on my take on it, hence defense; since that take included characterizations I didn't make, hot.

I introduced Berlin's point of view on Simon as a somewhat informational joke in a joke thread. Best intentions spun to hell. If you want to be right, be well.

in a joke thread...

*cries*

Well, you seem to be getting upset but I want to make it clear that I'm not writing in anger, and while I put together a counterargument I honestly don't think it qualifies as a "hot defense."

You didn't upset me, but I don't think you can characterize all your comments on this topic as a 'somewhat informational joke,' either. Your first link may have been, but when I responded to the link, you elected to respond to that with a comment that first subtly minimized me and my experience and then made a set of rather unpleasant assertions about Simon and what happened and his exploitive nature as a "thief" and "bully" that I thought were fair to counter. You know I have the greatest respect for you and it's probably a bad day of one kind or another, but I don't mean to be a jerk. It's a subject I'm interested in, I was interested to read and research the Los Lobos story, and consider along with what I already know about Simon's history. It's fair for me to have an opinion, and having an opinion isn't "being right." My stance is basically that we don't have a full story and that the whole thing needs to be considered in context. I suspect in reality, as suggested, they probably settled out of court and everyone cried all the way to the bank.

You're right, I subtly minimized you, your experiences, I was unnecessarily cruel to Paul Simon, even though it seemed from your first comment that you were belittling these guys and their beef and I just wanted to say hey, read the interview again, these guys are legit, neither of us was there, neither of us is the kind of musician they are, seriously I should have dropped that too, it is a matter of opinions, but mostly, I'm learning again and again, yeah I'm upset by all this because it's always gonna be me who's mischaracterizing other people, though I never said all my comments were a joke, in fact said just my introductory comment was a joke, clearly it was a stupid one because it was destined to drag me into some kind of bullshit, bad day whatever, I'm sick of being yanked into some argument, it's my fault for being argumentative, thanks for turning the light on, neither of us made our stances very clear at the start but by the end yours is clearer and more consistent, cogent, and by this point the one who says hey look all I was saying was blah blah blah, that is to say me, I'm all knotted up and pinioned and all I can say is I'm sorry and I won't do it again, at least until I untie and unkink and then forget what an ass I made of myself here; I'm not very a very good fit in certain aspects of metachat, I will try to avoid these places in the future, I apologize.

For heaven's sake, it's not a big deal and really doesn't matter. You are an excellent fit for MetaChat, of course, and if you aren't sure of that you can look around and see how many people have told you how happy they are you're here. This is not something to get worked up over, and on the topic of mismatched expectations, from my point of view I am home today and cleaning up all the two-month-old Christmas mess and in the meantime, oh hey, here's a discussion to engage with as I drop by the computer on and off. Perhaps I could have taken a different approach. I will say I really don't enjoy this and don't want to play any more, and drop the matter. I hope you feel better soon.

I see your point, and I agree, let's drop it.

I'm not sick, but thanks for the well-wishes. I hope you get everything cleaned up without too much trouble.

A few years ago, I read an interview with David Hidalgo, in which he said similar things, to whit, jamming for a few days, nothing coming of it, then the next thing he knows, the record coming out.

The only glitchy thing that I see in that narrative is that Hidalgo's background vocals appear throughout the song, so there must have been SOME kernel of a Simon song, unless that was part of the "jam" and Simon stole the lyrics as well as the groove and structure.

I have no opinion either way, other than the very uninformed thought that Graceland must have been good for a number of South African musicians, in terms of exposure and work (touring with Simon).

I was/am a big fan of Simon and Garfunkel, which really was all Simon except Garfunkel's lovely voice, and was very, very disappointed in Paul Simon's output after that, except Graceland, which was awesome. I love Ladysmith, though, and appreciate the way his work with them helped them gain international recognition.

Also, I love both of you, Hugh Janus and Miko, and enjoyed the teeny bit of contentiousness in this thread, which cast some interesting light on Simon's musical career.