I Know What I Know

I was talking to a friend last week about Social Media, specifically as it relates to releasing art and music. We’ve got the world on speed dial, but it’s cat memes and Saturday nights in Cancun that are selling. I’m more guilty than most. 

On my drive home, I put on “Miracle and Wonder,” the extended conversations between Paul Simon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam. 

Paul Simon begins his career in the 1960’s when every singer-songwriter is fabricating an interesting backstory, changing their name, trying to wedge themselves into the folk narrative. He does none of that, choosing to remain a Jewish boy from Queens, unafraid of being untrue to the times.

Then, instead of making sure his deep love for the blues and doo-wop doesn’t seep into his own sound, he leans into it, refusing to chase what’s hip or expected.

At twenty-two, he writes “The Sound of Silence”. Twenty-two years later, he “peaks” with “Graceland.” The sheer span of his career isn’t luck. It’s his stubborn commitment to be nobody but Paul Simon: the experimental perfectionist. 

I pulled into my driveway, turned off the engine, and sat as the story turned to how he got his lucky break. 

Simon was working for E.B. Marks Music, pitching other people’s songs to producers. He’d just met with the notable Tom Wilson and shown him “The Sound of Silence.”

The following week, he got called into the president’s office. 

“Who wrote this report?” the president asked.  

“I did,” Simon replied.

“No, you didn’t, it’s written too well.”

“I did. I was an English major, you know?” Simon responded, then paused, before adding, “By the way, F*ck you. I quit.”

He walked out, deciding to publish "The Sound of Silence” himself. A few days later, Tom Wilson called him back with a deal from Columbia Records. 

As I climbed the stairs to my front door, I thought about the kind of art that endures, songs like “America”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and “Graceland”.

I slipped my phone into my pocket. 

Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I heard that high, boyish tenor:

“I know what I know

I’ll sing what I said

We come and we go

That’s a thing that I keep in the back of my head.”