Rhymin’ Simon back with ‘You’re the One’

Edna Gundersen

Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2000 | 10:26 a.m.

NEW YORK -- The opening verse on Paul Simon's new album lays down an agenda while raising a question:

"Somewhere in a burst of glory, sound becomes a song/I'm bound to tell a story, that's where I belong."

"You're the One," due today, delivers character-driven sagas full of wit and optimism, the first batch of Simonized pop since 1990's "The Rhythm of the Saints."

Simon, who again crafts the wry tales and catchy melodies that define a hit-heavy career spanning 40-plus years, indeed belongs to a rare breed of enduring and evolving singer/songwriters hatched in rock's fertile heyday. But where does he belong in a Y2K marketplace rife with mushy teen pop and angry rap-rock?

"I don't know where I fit in," Simon, 58, says matter-of-factly. "I don't expect anybody other than the usual core fans who are on my trip. I want that audience to say, 'Oh, I like that. He's working, he's thinking, he's not repeating himself or taking me for granted.' "

Entertainment consumers are so fractionalized today that "you can find a cable channel that's just about your sweater," he jokes. "I know my group is out there."

Simon didn't plot "You're the One" with hits in mind. Parked on a chair amid the exotic art and antique furnishings in his Brill Building office, he says: "I never asked myself, 'What is the hit going to be?' In fact, I thought, 'It's very unlikely I'm going to write a hit single.' Instead, I tried to write an album."

You can call him simple Simon. Determined to avoid anything "too complicated or too strange," he fashioned an uncluttered and accessible sound without sacrificing sophistication.

The strategy meant imposing discipline on such ambitious longtime sidemen as guitarist Vincent Nguini, bassist Bakithi Kumalo, and percussionists Jamey Haddad, Steve Shehan and Steve Gadd (members of the 10-piece band Simon assembled for his lauded '99 tour with Bob Dylan).

"When you have three master drummers, of course they are fascinated with keeping things complicated," says Simon, looking boyish in jeans, an olive shirt and a baseball cap. "I kept saying, 'I don't care if it's complicated as long as it sounds simple.' If it's not interesting immediately, I don't think anybody's going to listen to me. I don't think anybody's going to listen to my whole generation if they don't say something very clear and very entertaining."

After rejecting a continuation of Brazilian or Latin rhythms, Simon settled on an "American drum-kit sound" that became the foundation of a series of guitar duets. The lyrics, ranging from the tragicomic "Darling Lorraine" and cautionary "The Teacher" to the reflective "Quiet" and poetic "Hurricane Eye."

Simplicity didn't preclude serious topics. In the playful parable "Pigs, Sheep and Wolves," Simon tackles capital punishment through a barnyard homicide.

"I'm not sure if the death penalty is a good or bad idea," he says. "But if you're going to have a death penalty, make sure you kill the right person."

The song's puckish lingo was inspired by hide-and-seek games he plays with his 2-year-old son, the youngest of his three children with Edie Brickell, the singer he wed in 1992.

"Old," a wise and whimsical history lesson that puts aging in perspective, conveys Simon's frustration with pop culture's youth fixation. The benefits of longevity are voided by "a marketplace almost entirely skewed toward teens. Look at the culture -- it's eating enormously, but it's undernourished."

He says: "In terms of quality of work, experience is an advantage. But when the whole culture changes its value system, as ours has been doing, you can evolve in a way that's appropriate for your age and still wind up an artifact."

Though Simon says he'd relish robust album sales that would ensure future recordings, he won't forfeit principles for profit.

"I'm evolving in a way that seems natural to me," he says. "I don't want a hit if it has nothing to do with my beliefs or values, because the only reward I'll get is money. And fame, which is a penalty."

As is infamy, Simon's reward for composing the short-lived "Capeman," a musical based on Puerto Rican immigrant Salvador Agron, convicted of a gang-related murder in New York in 1959. Simon embraced the challenge of creating a musical language for the play. It closed in 1998 after drawing savage reviews.

"Had I known I was headed for so much strife, maybe I would have said, 'Never mind,' but I've been fascinated by the story since I was 14 or 15," Simon says. "Sometimes you get so involved in the minutiae of the work, you don't notice it's not interesting. A certain denial takes over. When I made "Hearts and Bones" (1983), I allowed myself to be convinced that songs I didn't like very much were good because people around me liked them. That's a mistake."