TOM PUTNAM: Good evening. I‘m Tom Putnam, Director of …/media/assets/Education and Public... · TOM PUTNAM: Good evening. I‘m Tom Putnam, ... I have often remarked that an Irish

LYRICS AS LITERATURE

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TOM PUTNAM: Good evening. I‘m Tom Putnam, Director of the John F. Kennedy

Presidential Library and Museum, and on behalf of Tom McNaught, Executive Director of the

Kennedy Library, and Foundation and all of my Library and Foundation colleagues, I welcome

you and thank you for coming. Let me begin by acknowledging the generous underwriters of the

Library Forums, including lead sponsor, Bank of America, Boston Capital, The Lowell Institute,

Raytheon, The Boston Foundation, and our media partners, the Boston Globe, WBUR and

NECN.

The country celebrated the 50th

anniversary of the inauguration of President Kennedy last month,

marking what Robert Frost, the first poet ever to be invited to participate in an inaugural

ceremony called at the time, ―A golden age of poetry and power of which this noon day is the

beginning hour.‖

Among the many things JFK and Frost shared in common was a high respect for the arts.

President Kennedy once quipped, ―There is a story that some years ago an interested mother

wrote to a principal of a school, ‗Don‘t teach my boy poetry. He is going to run for Congress.‘‖

Kennedy continued, ―I‘ve never taken the view that the world of politics and the world of poetry

are so far apart. In fact, if more politicians knew more poetry and more poets knew more politics,

I‘m convinced the world would be a better place in which to live.‖

After the death of Robert Frost in 1963, JFK spoke about the importance of the arts at the

dedication of a library named in Frost‘s honor at Amherst College. Let‘s watch a brief excerpt

with apologies for a brief skip from the original video.

[VIDEO TAPE]

[Applause]


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The speech goes on. Quote: ―It is hardly an accident that Robert Frost coupled poetry and power

for he saw poetry as a means of saving power from itself.‖ One of my favorite documents in this

Library is the typewritten draft of that speech that includes the next line, ―When power

inebriates, poetry invokes sobriety,‖ which the president edited in his dashing handwriting,

―When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.‖ As a wordsmith, John Kennedy was no slouch. The

full line reads, ―When power corrupts, poetry cleanses for art establishes the basic human truths

which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment.‖

And so we gather here this evening to celebrate the poets and lyricists among us, whose artistry

reveals the truths and touchstones of our time. How honored we are to have with us this evening

Bill Flanagan, Paul Muldoon and Paul Simon.

[Applause]

We are proud to partner in this effort with PEN New England. This Library is also home to the

Ernest Hemingway collection and we often collaborate with our PEN colleagues on literary

programming including the PEN Hemingway Award given annually to an author for best work

of first fiction. And before I welcome to the stage PEN New England‘s chair Richard Hoffman to

set the scene and introduce our moderator, I hope you will allow me a brief remembrance,

evocative perhaps of the personal connection that brought many of you here this evening.

I have often remarked that an Irish Catholic home where I grew up, the images of the Kennedy

brothers were as prominent as the religious icons on our family room walls. My parents did their

best to pass along to their children the religious foundation and cultural affiliations that informed

their lives. Yet what bound us together as a family more than politics or religion was the music

that animated our home.

For my father the barber shop tunes of his youth saw his family through the Depression and him

and his brother through World War II. With a special appreciation for musical harmony, when

my older siblings brought home the records of Simon and Garfunkel, my dad appropriated them


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as his own. Once famously playing ―The Bridge Over Troubled Waters,‖ album continuously for

an entire weekend while wallpapering our den. [Laughter]

After singing along to the title song, I recall him pronouncing, ―Now that should be our national

anthem.‖ [Laughter] So when we hear those songs now, it is like meeting some old friends. And

whether they remind us of our childhood or the loss of the two Kennedy brothers who did so

much to shape our world, the lyrics still resonate. ―Time it was, and what a time it was, it was a

time of innocence, a time of confidences.‖ And we follow the songs bidding, preserving the

photographs and memories that have been left to us in family scrapbooks, archives and

museums. And pause, at moments like this to honor a man who has contributed to our spirit and

our self comprehension and express appreciation for the gift of his music that so deeply touches

our lives.

[Applause]

RICHARD HOFFMAN: Thank you, Tom. It takes a brave man to get up here and speak after

JFK. And thanks to the JFK Library for hosting us this evening. I‘m not even going to try to

hide how elated I am. I‘m almost giddy to be in the company of three of the most accomplished

artists of our time. And I‘m aware of looking out at the whole, beautiful throng of you who came

out this evening, all decked out and beaming with anticipation, that you are being polite and you

wish that for God‘s sake I would hurry this up and get on with the program. [Laughter] And I

will. I promise I will.

I want to point out that there will be people moving through the aisles with index cards,

gathering questions from you that will be passed up to the front as part of the discussion. And in

just a moment I‘m going to call on Bill Flanagan to get us started. But first, I want to say we‘ve

been talking for a long time at PEN New England about lyrics as literature- that is, as language

that helps us articulate our humanity and come to terms with our lives. After all, behind the

music, before the music, there is a writer turning a phrase, tuning a phrase, trying to put the best

words in the best order, as Coleridge described the poet‘s work.


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We‘re an organization devoted to writers and writings so, of course, we wanted to have this

conversation. But we wanted to be sure to do it right, and we needed the right person to do it.

Enter, Bill Flanagan, a writer whose love of music, keen understanding of the creative process

and warm and generous spirit, make him that person. Music critic, scholar, editor, producer,

mentor to scores of musicians and songwriters, Bill is the author of two works of non-fiction and

three novels, and of which A&R was, at least until recently, widely acclaimed as the best rock

and roll novel ever written.

Curt Anderson, author of Turn of the Century called A&R ―ferocious satire with a moral

compass.‖ Adam F. Duritz of Counting Crows called it a ―Straight up, high fidelity ride.‖ And

Kirkis Reviews said, ―Flanagan‘s music industry was a legitimate metaphor for the way we live

now.‖ I say that A&R was, until recently was the best rock and roll novel ever written because

his latest novel, Evening’s Empire is now the best rock and roll novel ever written.

To be honest, Bill is a lot more than moderator tonight. He is the guy who pulled all of this

together for us. Without him we wouldn‘t be gathered here. And on behalf of PEN New England

and all of us here, I want to offer our profound gratitude, Bill. And so please, help me welcome

Bill Flanagan.

[Applause]

BILL FLANAGAN: Very nice. I‘m so glad that some of my relatives were here. Hey, Paul

Muldoon is creeping up on me. Here is Paul Simon.

[Applause]

My moment of glory is over. I know we have had a double album of introductions already and

very, very graciously. But I want you to bear this in mind as the evening progresses. Between

these two Pauls we have a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, a Kennedy Center Honors, the T.S. Eliot


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prize, 442 Grammys, including a Life Time Achievement (well, that is a slight exaggeration), but

Life Time Achievement—let‘s just face it, he just wrecked it for everybody else—the presidency

of the UK‘s Poetry Society, very prestigious, the Library of Congress Gershwin prize for Popular

Song, professorships at Oxford and Princeton. And between them two inductions into the Rock

and Roll Hall of Fame.

So I leave it to you to sort out whose accolades are whose. But, you know—

[Applause]

Not since [Applause] Pierre Salinger dined alone—I have to—and I apologize because we have

been having so much fun that I didn‘t really organize my questions very well so we may leap

around. But I was just thinking, Paul Simon, that when we were watching that beautiful film of

JFK‘s speech that the first time that the world heard ―Bridge Over Troubled Water,‖ was over

footage of the funeral trains, wasn‘t it?‖

PAUL SIMON: Yes, that‘s so.

BILL FLANAGAN: Can you explain how that happened for us?

PAUL SIMON: Simon and Garfunkel did a television special in 1969, I think, and we used—it

was the first time that ―Bridge over Troubled Waters, was played and it was before the album

was released. And the footage was over the trains, the funeral trains for John and Bobby

Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And the special was soundly defeated in the ratings that night

by Peggy Fleming. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: You‘ve got to give the people what they want, man.

PAUL SIMON: And our sponsor that night was Bell Telephone and they withdrew as sponsor.

And they said that they thought that our positions were too political. And we were so naïve, Artie


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and I, and we said, ―What? Like what?‖ And they said, ―Well, the footage of the Kennedys and

Martin Luther King.‖ And we said, ―Well, what‘s wrong with that?‖ And they said, ―Well,

they‘re all Democrats.‖ [Laughter] ―Oh, is that what you think they have in common?‖

BILL FLANAGAN: Well, you could have put Lincoln in there and taken care of GOP.

PAUL SIMON: Now you tell me. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: Paul Muldoon, you grew up—you are just young enough, just old enough

to have been influenced, I assume by Paul Simon and Boy Dylan and Leonard Cohen as well as

the poets in the poetry anthologies. Is that fair?

PAUL MULDOON: Absolutely. And, you know, when we were hearing earlier on about

―Bridge over Troubled Waters,‖ being played until the needle wore through and the record, the

disc was operating on a memory of itself, somehow, that was certainly true for me as a student in

Belfast. And that particular disc was one that we played in our student flat, apartment round the

clock, while we were conscious, [Laughter] which as most of the time. But I think the notion

of—you know, we‘ve heard this phrase so many times of music having to do with the sound

track of our lives and . . . (inaudible) Paul Simon is a great song in which you refer to hearing the

Everly Brothers I think for the first time. You know, I think I myself am almost 60, belong to

that generation where pop music, rock and roll was truly part of the fabric of our lives. It wasn‘t

even part of the sound track. It was just part of our lives.

And one took it in one‘s stride in the way that one took John Donne or Dylan Thomas or Emily

Dickinson in one‘s stride, in one‘s attempt to make sense of one‘s life.

BILL FLANAGAN: Paul, being probably the only pop songwriters who ever got Emily

Dickinson into a Top 20 song, Top 30 song.


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PAUL SIMON: I‘ve conveniently forgotten that. [Simultaneous conversation] the editing

process. But you know what is so interesting to me is that you grew up in world where you had

access to poetry and it was part of the culture. It was not a part of our culture- my particular

childhood, although both my parents were college-educated and my father was a musician and

went on later in life to get his Ph.D. in linguistics. But, no, I didn‘t start reading poetry until I

was in college. But it wasn‘t a part of what you hear that‘s really important. Because, you know,

Marianne Moore‘s, line: ―Poetry—

PAUL MULDOON: ―I, too, dislike it.‖

PAUL SIMON: --I, too, dislike it.‖ Well, my first reaction to poetry was, I don't know, ―I don‘t

like this.‖ Nobody explained what a possible avenue would be to access that. You are very

fortunate that you had both worlds in your culture, in your life.

PAUL MULDOON: Well, again, that was a student culture. I think part of the problem is that

however marvelous Marianne Moore might be, and she is truly marvelous, it is a little difficult to

persuade a group of 19 or 20 year olds, even those who are studying English to play her round

the clock. And however wonderful she might be, and she is a terrific reader of her own work

also, it is not, frankly, quite so palatable as to listen to that extraordinary combination of words

and music, which gets us in a way that, frankly, even the greatest poetry has difficulty in

reaching our cores.

So it has partly got to do—most of us dislike it because we are not used to it. We haven‘t been

exposed to it as [simultaneous conversation]

PAUL SIMON: At what age—so what age where you aware that it was a really important part

of your culture?

PAUL MULDOON: Well, I think, even as a kid, in the Irish culture, there is a particular

relationship between the poem and the song. You know, Yeats, of course, if one looks right


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through his work and sees that many of the poems are, indeed, songs. Right the way through the

Irish song tradition, many of the songs are poems and vice versa. There was no distinction

between the two. So I think that may have been a component of what was going on.

Though I think it would be a mistake, really, for me to suggest that, as opposed to what might be

happening in this country, that the Irish are sitting around reading poems and listening to poetry

in a way that is very special. I don‘t think that is quite the case. But there is probably a little bit

more of the history of being open to the idea of a poem in its various manifestations. A line for

the notion that the term poem may include a great deal more than whatever one might find on the

page there as a student having it beaten into one.

And I think, actually, one of the glories of this era that our sense of what a poem is, is expanding.

It should always have been quite expansive. But I think actually a notion that a poem may occur

as a song lyric, for example, as a hip hop lyric, as a country lyric, as a rock lyric, perhaps not so

often, but there is always a chance. And that that is actually part of one tradition, is something I

think that one might learn from that background that I‘m describing. Trying to do slightly

different things but part of the same tradition.

PAUL SIMON: I see what you mean. I was thinking, when you said that—well, first of all,

poetry and Irish poets, that was really the world that you belonged to. Your DNA comes from

that. My exposure to music, since I had no interest in my father‘s era of music- was what came

from the radio. So there was no indigenous queen‘s music [Laughter] that I was drawing upon.

So I heard, I mean very fortunately, I heard what was, in essence, world music, later on they

called Graceland world music. But the music that I heard as an adolescent, a pre-adolescent was

really world music.

You would hear doo-wop groups. That was true. They literally did sing on the corners. But that

music related to Gospel quartets, which of course I had no experience, didn‘t know anything

about. And Gospel quartets relates to call and response. So you were heading back to Africa.

With that- country music, like the Everly Brothers, that‘s Appalachian and that goes back to


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England and to Scotland and to Ireland and to—absolutely [Laughter]. And, you know, the same

is true with, let‘s see, the Louisiana music, which I used to be a big fan of music that came from

Louisiana without knowing, actually, that it came from Louisiana.

But really, what I was in love with was the syncopation of that music. That music came from,

you know, the Africa Diaspora up to Brazil and Cuba into Louisiana. And all of this music was

played on the radio, the AM radio that I heard in a way that is very similar to the way our kids

listen to an iPod on shuffle. It‘s so different. You hear Ray Charles and then you hear Johnny

Cash. And then you hear some group of – Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers. And then you hear

Fats Domino and then the Everly Brothers. And you are hearing so many different worlds.

But of those worlds, it‘s the sound and the subtext that we understood. We inferred the meaning

from that. It wasn‘t in the lyrics. Because the first set of lyrics in the, of early rock and roll were

virtually nonsense syllables. You know, wo-ba-baluchi-ba, and be-bop-a-loo-la and womp- bop-

a-looma-a-womp-bam-boom. Some of it is beautiful. ―I‘m like a one-eye cat peeping in a

seafood store,‖ from ―Shake, Rattle and Roll.‖

But as listeners, as kids, being exposed to words, what I learned was the meaning is not in the

words; the meaning is in the sound. Then we understood that, of course, it was about sex, drugs

and rock and roll. That‘s what it was about. But that was unspoken. But we were not exposed to

the, you know, people who had a great gift of language until we went into a school environment

and, you know, to this say, most of us get uncomfortable when September rolls around thinking

that we might have to go back to school, you know.

PAUL MULDOON: I think that the sex, drugs and rock and roll component often was one that

even we in Ireland, or particularly we in Ireland were very conscious of.

BILL FLANAGAN: It was sins and damnation.


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PAUL MULDOON: Well, that‘s the thing. There was another component of this was, I mean

apart from my poetic description of poetry in the air and all the rest of it. What was in the air

was, of course, rock and roll on the various radio stations including the pirate radio stations.

PAUL SIMON: Yes.

PAUL MULDOON: That is something that I remember vividly as a kid, lying in bed at night

under the blankets, listening to the transistor radio with this music that one truly wasn‘t meant to

be listening to. So there was that component, too, which I think the element of danger about it

actually was one of its attractions, too. There was a certain amount in the air. But the really

interesting stuff was just about banned.

PAUL SIMON: John Lennon told me that hearing the pirate radio, I guess it was Radio

Caroline. So that was coming from where, in the Channel?

PAUL MULDOON: A boat anchored—well, we were never entirely sure, which was one of

the alluring aspects of it, too. It could be anywhere, somewhere out beyond the three mile limit.

And that was part of the mystique and the danger of it.

PAUL SIMON: He remembers that it was so far away that it would come in and out [hums]

like this in a sort of a wave. And he tried to put that sound into the Beatles.

BILL FLANAGAN: Oh, so ―Strawberry Fields.‖

PAUL SIMON: That‘s how he heard this. And I still am trying to correctly access Bo Diddley

and ―Mystery Train.‖ And it‘s just those sounds. They become so powerful, the sound. But the

poet, of course, skipping subjects, a little bit, the poet has to create that same power without the

sound and all with the words. So how do you do that?


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PAUL MULDOON: Inadequately, I‘m sure. I mean certainly the song is-- of course, the poem,

brings its own music with it. And somehow determines how it wants to be performed in the

world, without that other component. And somehow that song lyric is actually missing

something, something vital that needs to be bodied out. Or that‘s already there and the lyric, as

you say, is often just an addendum to it.

I‘m struck, actually, you mention the Everly Brothers. You know, a lyric like ―Wake up little

Susie,‖ contains, I mean, just a world, a picture.

BILL FLANAGAN: Chuck Berry said that was one of his favorite—he thought that was one of

the greatest lyrics ever written, ―Wake up little Susie,‖ because it so compactly, gave you a

scene, a story, the characters. And, you know, as they would say in English class, you know, here

is the challenge. Here is the obstacle.

PAUL MULDOON: A dilemma.

BILL FLANAGAN: A dilemma. A dilemma. And Chuck ought to know. You know, he was—

Paul, do you remember—

PAUL SIMON: He was a poet.

BILL FLANAGAN: He was a poet. [Simultaneous conversation]

PAUL SIMON: His imagery is – The ease of the language with the melody, it is effortless. He

was sort of the first guy that I really studied. But his imagery is incredible, ―As I was motivatin‘

over the hill/ I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville.‖ So clear.

BILL FLANAGAN: He‘s motivatin‘ over the hill. That‘s what‘s fantastic.

PAUL SIMON: Great picture. Great picture.


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PAUL MULDOON: What‘s wonderful about that is that one may still hear him. One may still

hear a founding father of the genre.

BILL FLANAGAN: He‘s still here.

PAUL MULDOON: As one may the Everly‘s.

PAUL SIMON: Indeed, that‘s true, although they don‘t speak.

PAUL MULDOON: That‘s not the worst thing. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: Certainly, although you were writing songs and, in fact, had a hit when

you were 15, with ―Hey Schoolgirl,‖ the moment when we became aware of Simon and

Garfunkel, of your writing, ―The Sounds of Silence,‖ and ―I Am a Rock,‖ and all that, was the

moment when rock began to be conscious of itself as having a poetic mission. I mean, tell me

how you came to that because the sort of writing that you began doing there was vastly different

from the Everly‘s or Be Bop A Lula.

PAUL SIMON: Well, I think what happened is just that we weren‘t 13, 14, 15 and so by the

time I was 17 or 18 or 19 I was completely bored with what was going on with pop music and

rock and roll. I stopped listening to it. And I mean at a certain point when you realize that it

wasn‘t poetry when they said, ―I believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows.‖

The first time I heard it I thought, ―Wow! I believe…,‖ I was very moved by it. I was probably

12 or something.

BILL FLANAGAN: It got you in the door. It got you in the door.

PAUL SIMON: So we just grew up and the whole generation seemed to grow up. And I mean

the guy who really led it was Bob Dylan, who started to write about grown up subject matter


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other than ―Let‘s dance together,‖ or ―I wish I could marry you some day,‖ or something. And he

was drawing upon, you know, the left wing music that came out of the union songs and that kind

of folk music that the Weavers brought into popularity.

And when you found out about the Weavers, then you found out about the black list, and it was

the real world and it was suffering. It was suffering, that‘s what it was because America in the

fifties was, anyway, the world that I was in, was just a typical, middle class world was in a, really

a euphoric state. We just won the Second World War. And we were the only nation left standing.

Everybody thought that there was nothing to worry about. There was an enormous amount of

optimism. And whatever the repression was for my age, whatever the sexual repression or

whatever, as I said, that was the subtext of the music. We sort of felt that it was not so terribly

repressive.

And when it got popular enough for corporations to invest in it and to start to build the artists,

when there were Fabians and Frankie Avalons and that kind of corporate thing, well, then we

stopped listening because it wasn‘t interesting. And it didn‘t get real again until it was not

corporate with the Beatles or—well, Dylan, of course, he was Columbia Records. But, anyway,

he wasn‘t coming from that place.

And so, at the age of 21, or 20 or something like that, the brightest, or the bright kids wanted to

be that. And so, they began to listen. And music became, you know, became eclectic, particularly

at a folk music. When I start to be interested in what was called folk music, I stopped playing

electric guitar. I started to play acoustic guitar. I listened to music from other countries, other

cultures. And we were off.

And when rock and roll acknowledged that and started to incorporate that, when the English rock

scene incorporated folk and when folk rock came from that, well, then, the whole genre got—it

started to get closer to people who were trying to say something about their lives. And, of course,

with a whole bunch of juvenilia to be thrown out. Eventually, some of the songs were quite

extraordinary and real. And I think that‘s how it began. And the description of Dylan as a poet


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and the choice of his pseudonym, I think that‘s what turned people to be serious about how to

write songs.

BILL FLANAGAN: Well, then, and there must have been a moment when you turned around

and said, ―Boy! Every‖—I was – ‖Sound of Silence,‖ which had only been out for about two

years was on the syllabus of my high school English class. I‘m sure it was a way to kind of get

the kids with it. ―We‘re going to bring them in with Paul Simon. Then we‘re going to lay the

hard stuff on them.‖ [Laughter] But, I mean, surely you, as a writer, began to say, ―Well, okay. If

people are paying this much attention to the words, then I‘m going to begin to look into it.‖

I mean at some point you did begin writing - I want to be careful of the word poetic - but very

thoughtful and very lyrics that weren‘t really like anything anyone else had done in pop music.

PAUL SIMON: Well, ―The Sound of Silence‖ is interesting on this level. I just wrote a forward

to a book by Bernie Williams, the baseball player, Bernie Williams.

BILL FLANAGAN: Yeah.

PAUL SIMON: He plays for the Yankees. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: I hear it is just for the money, though. [Laughter]

PAUL SIMON: And his book is about the similarities between elite athletes and musicians.

He‘s an excellent musician, Bernie. He is a really good guitarist and studied classical guitar. And

that is what he was setting out to be when he started to get scholarships for- athletic scholarships.

So, because I know him and I like him I said I would write it. And then I thought, well, the area

that is kind of interesting to me about the two fields is this area like the zone, what they call the

zone, which you hear that athletes are in it. They hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer. The baseball looks

as big as a beach ball and they can‘t miss or they can‘t miss the strike zone.


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And the same is true for musicians, where everything is clear and it seems effortless about how

to play. And as a writer, I‘ve experienced that quite a few times, not really a lot but a few times

in my career. And I think that is what happened when I wrote ―The Sound of Silence,‖ when I

was 21. Although, I was completely unaware of it. I just thought, ―Hm! Well, that‘s probably my

best song.‖ But, for whatever causes that, whatever delicate balance between dopamine and

serotonin, [Laughter] that—

BILL FLANAGAN: We don‘t want to know. [Laughter]

PAUL SIMON: We do want to know. We desperately want to know. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: Something that I‘ve heard you talk about and I want to get Paul

Muldoon‘s take on this, too, is that you want to preserve a sense of mystery as you are writing.

You know so much after doing it at such a high level for some time that you want to find the

place where you don‘t know where that is going to happen. I don't know if it is a matter of

following your instincts or waiting for the muse to tap you on the head but when you know a lot,

when you—you‘ve taught. Is there a tendency to say, ―How do I turn off that side of my brain

and try and get into an area that I haven‘t uncovered yet?‖

Take it, Muldoon.

PAUL MULDOON: For me, absolutely. I mean when you talk about knowing, having done it

for so long a knowing what one is doing, those are concepts, which I‘m afraid I don‘t even, I

barely recognize.

PAUL SIMON: Which concepts?

PAUL MULDOON: Sorry?

PAUL SIMON: The mystery?


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PAUL MULDOON: No, the mystery I want to be involved with, absolutely. But my sense is

that I know nothing.

PAUL SIMON: Exactly.

PAUL MULDOON: Having attempted to do it for so long. I‘m perhaps worse off then when I

started. I‘m certainly no better. And I don't know anything at all. And—

PAUL SIMON: Well, that‘s the beginning, isn‘t it?

PAUL MULDOON: Absolutely. And I think—I hope. I hope. And I hope that then, with that

sense of not knowing what one is doing, as if one is starting from scratch or worse that

something interesting will happen. And when I know what I‘m doing, it is almost certainly the

case that—well, my view is, well, if I know what I‘m doing, you almost certainly would know

what I‘m doing. What‘s the point? Let‘s go to a place where none of us ever expected to be. And,

you know, at the end of the day, whatever comes out maybe faintly, maybe even more than

faintly, recognizable as a poem or a song. But when one embarked on it the hope was that it

would be something the likes of which no one has ever seen, you know? So in that sense the

zone is about ignorance, for me, anyway.

PAUL SIMON: Well, if you think that the mystery is ignorance, but I don‘t think of it as that. I

think of it as a real essential thing. And I don‘t want to know. And, actually, it‘s like arrogant to

say I don‘t want to know. Because you can‘t know. It‘s a mystery. That‘s what‘s so great about

it. So you pursue it because it‘s so enticing. It‘s like bliss. But you can‘t access bliss. Somehow,

if you‘re lucky in your life you find yourself in that state. If you try to possess it or hold onto it,

of course, it goes away by definition because it‘s a peak experience.

But what I was going to ask you is, what about—well, let me ask you this question first. At what

point in your life did you think you were an artist?


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PAUL MULDOON: You know, I don‘t mean to be, what does one say, seem falsely humble,

but it seems like a huge term to lay on oneself. You know, honestly.

BILL FLANAGAN: Right. I know. That‘s why I‘m asking.

PAUL MULDOON: I honestly—I go in fear of people that present themselves as artists. I

really do. I am a person who tries to write poems. And maybe on a good day, if one is extremely

lucky one might manage it every so often. But that‘s all I would say, honestly.

PAUL SIMON: That‘s an artist. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: There you go. [Applause]

PAUL SIMON: See, what Bill said is I think is exactly so. I had a lot of difficulty with that

term and never wanted to apply it to me. As I say, I didn‘t come from a background where

anybody every talked about art or being an artist. And it wasn‘t until I was in my forties that I

said, ―I am an artist.‖ It doesn‘t mean I‘m a good artist. [Laughter] It is kind of a personality

type. I like to make up things. They seem to come to me. And I get all excited when that

happens. Then I try to do that and that‘s the way I like to spend my time, and that‘s an artist.

And the culture produces a certain amount of people who do that. And their work, in general,

nourishes the need for art and for those who do that. And if their work isn‘t embraced in their

lifetime or ever, well, it doesn‘t really matter because somebody else‘s work is being embraced

and the culture is being fed and this group of people, their jobs are to do that. And why? We

really don‘t know but the mystery is a thing that‘s—it‘s sort of why you do it because it is so

enjoyable to sense that there is a big mystery and that you got a glimpse of it. And now you are

following it. You never find it but—sometimes if you create something and it comes close to—

well, maybe some really great artists say, ―I found it.‖ You know, Michelangelo or—


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BILL FLANAGAN: They would probably be finished then. That would be the beginning of the

downward slope, wouldn‘t it? They would say, ―Well, I tell you, that Burt Reynolds was really

good until he did Deliverance and then it was all downhill. One thing that is in both of your work

is that sense of exploration, the sense of—one of your poems, one of your songs may start out,

you know, as part of this club. And as it goes along, it keeps taking left turn after left turn. And

sometimes you wonder how he is going to get back to where he started.

Sometimes you do a triple somersault and you get back. And sometimes you just stay out there.

And to put you on the spot, Paul, and I should say this because you guys haven‘t had a chance to

hear it yet—Paul Simon has a new album, which is, I think, one of the best things he‘s ever done

and boy is that saying something. And everyone I know, and I‘m embarrassing you—Elvis

Costello said, ―This is the best album anyone has made in 15 years and I mean anyone.‖

I played a song from it on Lou Reed‘s radio show on Christmas. I played, ―Getting Ready for

Christmas Day.‖ And Lou stopped and said, ―Put that on again. We‘re going to play that song

twice.‖ You know, to continue the parade of embarrassing name dropping, I saw Bono the other

day and he said—[Laughter] he did. He said, ―That‘s what I‘m listening to, that new Paul

Simon,‖ and it isn‘t out yet.

So to illustrate these left turns and to give you, to share what everybody is so excited about, can I

ask you to step over to the six string and give us maybe, ―Love and Hard Times‖ or something?

[Applause]

There is no getting out of it after that build up. I hope is it not presumptuous to say if John F.

Kennedy were alive, this would be his favorite record. [Laughter]

PAUL SIMON: Before I begin, since you said you didn‘t want to sound like name dropping,

I‘m going to tell you that the best name drop I ever heard, okay, and it‘s not—I don't know how

I‘m going to do this because my strap is broken here.


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BILL FLANAGAN: Do you want the stool?

PAUL SIMON: I think I‘ll have to do that. Anyway, this is the best name drop. And it doesn‘t

have anything to do with the song at all. Okay. So it starts off. The name drop is not the way I‘m

going to start off. I was having a conversation with the Dali Lama [Laughter]. That‘s not the

name drop. And the Dali Lama said to me, in the middle of this conversation he said, ―I

remember once Mao Tse Tung said to me,‖ [Laughter] I said, ―That is the best name drop I have

ever heard. [Laughter]

Let‘s see. I guess this guitar is maybe not on.

God and His only Son

Paid a courtesy call on Earth

One Sunday morning

Orange blossoms opened their fragrant lips

Songbirds sang from the tips of cottonwoods

Old folks wept for His love in these hard times

"Well, we got to get going," said the restless Lord to the Son

"There are galaxies yet to be born

Creation is never done

Anyway, these people are slobs here

If we stay it's bound to be a mob scene

But, disappear, and it's love and hard times"

I loved her the first time I saw her

I know that's an old songwriting cliché

Loved you the first time I saw you

Can't describe it any other way


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Any other way

The light of her beauty was warm as a summer day

Clouds of antelope rolled by

No hint of rain to come

In the prairie sky

Just love, love, love, love, love

When the rains came, the tears burned,

Windows rattled, locks turned

It's easy to be generous when you're on a roll

It's hard to be grateful when you're out of control

And love is gone

The light at the edge of the curtain

Is the quiet dawn

The bedroom breathes

In clicks and clacks

Uneasy heartbeat, can't relax

But then your hand takes mine

Thank God, I found you in time

Thank God, I found you

Thank God, I found you

[Applause]

BILL FLANAGAN: Beautiful.

PAUL SIMON: Thank you.


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BILL FLANAGAN: Kind of makes me feel stupid to just talk after that. Just to continue on

what I was saying, what‘s extraordinary about this song is that it begins with God and His only

Son coming to earth, coming into a garden. It sets you up for one thing. And then you say, ―Well,

these people are slobs here,‖ which immediately surprises us. And turns us around. And then

God kind of leaves the picture until the very end of the song when the man says to his wife,

―Thank God I found you in time.‖ It does make its way back but by a route that no one else

would have taken, I think.

Paul, you have not heard that song before.

PAUL MULDOON: I‘ve heard it before.

BILL FLANAGAN: Oh, you have heard it before.

PAUL MULDOON: [simultaneous conversation] opportunity to hear this cd and love it. I‘ve

heard it.

BILL FLANAGAN: You both do something that is interesting, which is you will throw the

slob into the mix, right when we are in the garden. You both—Paul, you famously put the word

Gatorade in a song because you said that it was a word that didn‘t sing. But just as you might put

a discordant note, you put in a discordant word. You know, Paul Muldoon, this is a man who

wrote a poem about testicular cancer examination. You have really—

PAUL MULDOON: Is that what you think that poem is about? [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: I mean [Laughter] ―Charge of the Light Brigade,‖ of course. [Laughter]

That brings some images—and . . . your new book, Maggot represents. There are some

discordant images that pop up and I wonder if that—do you say it‘s time for an elbow in here,

time for a boomerang or it‘s everything is available?


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PAUL MULDOON: I think everything is available and I think that‘s one of the glories of this

age, and most other ages. Everything was available to the poets of the Hebrew Bible. Everything

was available to William Shakespeare, to William Chaucer in terms of—I mean we have become

accustomed to the notion that it is only in recent times that so-called high and low might be

combined in Art, with a capital A. Not at all. I have no idea what high and low might be. I have

no idea. Gatorade is part of one‘s life.

BILL FLANAGAN: And a very delicious part.

PAUL MULDOON: And a very delicious part, too [Laughter]. And, you know, if writing

songs, writing poems is about making sense of things, and I think one of the great things that we

might deduce from that last song that Paul Simon sang is that, here‘s a song that—there‘s

nothing wrong with a song that is about, ―Let‘s go on our first date.‖ That‘s an ongoing and

wonderful element in the rock, in the pop, whatever we call it, pop music, rock and roll, I don't

know what we call it, canon, and ―Let‘s go on for first date in our Prius‖ I don't know. Maybe

that‘s [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: [simultaneous conversation] It would be a social conscience song.

PAUL MULDOON: Absolutely. Whatever it might be. That‘s still going. But a song that

addresses the predicaments, the dilemmas, to use that word, the circumstances of the adult lives,

of those same people who, across the ocean were lying in bed at night listening to pirate radio or

who, in this country were, you know, trying to figure out what was happening at Woodstock or

what was happening with this extraordinary coincidence of social upheaval and popular culture.

You know, those people, the people who are in this room, we all still need to hear the songs and

the poems that make even more sense to us in our present predicament. And where the image of

the light coming under the blind there, the curtain was it, the drape—

PAUL SIMON: And do you know where it came from?


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PAUL MULDOON: No.

PAUL SIMON: Philip Larkin.

PAUL MULDOON: Does it?! That‘s so interesting.

PAUL SIMON: It from ―Aubade‖

PAUL MULDOON: Aubade, of course.

BILL FLANAGAN: Well, Philip Larkin took a lot from Chuck Berry, so it all comes around.

[Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: Yes, some things that we can‘t even discuss, probably, on the Internet. In

terms of some of the famous lines. But, you know, I think that is an important thing to realize,

that there is that two way street. Poets in the conventional sense, I think, learn a huge amount

from songwriters in the conventional sense and vice versa. I think that is one of the wonderful

things that has happened in this era.

But Larkin, when would you have started to read Larkin, for example?

PAUL SIMON: Twenty years ago, 25 years ago. He is one of my favorite poets in the second

half of the 20th

century but I really read him in very small doses because I believe everything he

says and it is so depressing. [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: It can be somewhat depressing.

PAUL SIMON: Yeah. And also, he stopped writing. At least, anyway, this is what I always

thought was the case. He stopped writing. And when he was asked why he said the muse


2.11.11

PAGE 24

deserted him. And that thought really frightened me. It stayed with me for a long time. And I

thought every time I finished an album and couldn‘t think of anything else, people would say,

―Well, when are you going to do another album?‖ I would say, ―I don't know if I will.‖ And they

say, ―Oh, you will. You always say that.‖ But Larkin didn‘t. And so I thought it wasn‘t

impossible.

Or as Steve Martin said to me, ―People always said, to me, ‗Oh, yeah, it‘s going to be funny,

you‘ll see.‘‖ And he says, ―Why, because you go like that?‖ [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: Yeah. Well, what I would say on that topic is that, if one believes in some

notion of the muse, there is some chance that she might believe in you. If you don‘t believe in it,

there is going to be no chance. So it‘s risky. It‘s risky. It‘s scary. And you think, ―Will it ever

happen again, this particular high?‖ And I think when you talk about the dopamine and

[simultaneous conversation], that‘s a major component of it. And that in fact, is the area where

we do want to see a little—both of us want to see more study in that particular area.

[Simultaneous conversation]

I know that you are going to lead it.

BILL FLANAGAN: If you find the dopamine formula, nobody is going to be—dentists are

driving buses.

PAUL MULDOON: But you know what? Wouldn‘t that be great[Simultaneous conversation]

BILL FLANAGAN: --Incredible bus drivers [Laughter] [simultaneous conversation] all want

to ride the bus.

PAUL MULDOON: And that thing—at that stage, people like myself who have shied away

from it—


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PAGE 25

BILL FLANAGAN: From dentistry?

PAUL MULDOON: No, from artistry. [Laughter] . . . (inaudible), yeah, I‘m an artist, I filled a

couple of cavities last week.

BILL FLANAGAN: Alright, now, Paul Muldoon, time for you to step up.

PAUL MULDOON: Oh, really.

BILL FLANAGAN: Will you read ―The Loaf‖ for us? And then I will tell you why.

PAUL MULDOON: Okay. Certainly. This is a poem that is—I will step up, actually, if I may.

This is a poem that is, I suppose, on the cusp that I was describing earlier on between poem and

song –

BILL FLANAGAN: That‘s why I asked.

PAUL MULDOON: It has little refrain, which while it is not quite on the category of a boola,

whatever that it is.

PAUL SIMON: Be bop a lula.

PAUL MULDOON: Yes, something like that. It is going in that direction. So, anyway, I won‘t

say much about it. Just to say that it‘s about— It is having to do with a series of sensations

through a hole in a wall.

The Loaf

When I put my finger to the hole they've cut for a dimmer switch

in a wall of plaster stiffened with horsehair

it seems I've scratched a two-hundred-year-old itch


2.11.11

PAGE 26

with a pink and a pink and a pinkie-pick.

When I put my ear to the hole I'm suddenly aware

of spades and shovels turning up the gain

all the way from Raritan to the Delaware

with a clink and a clink and a clinkie-click.

When I put my nose to the hole I smell the floodplain

of the canal after a hurricane

and the spots of green grass where thousands of Irish have lain

with a stink and a stink and a stinkie-stick.

(One wants to join in) [Laughter]

When I put my eye to the hole I see one holding horse dung to the rain

in the hope, indeed, indeed,

of washing out a few whole ears of grain

with a wink and a wink and a winkie-wick.

And when I do at last succeed

in putting my mouth to the horsehair-fringed niche

I can taste the small loaf of bread he baked from that whole seed

with a link and a link and a linkie-lick.

[Applause]

PAUL MULDOON: Thank you.

BILL FLANAGAN: You know, if they sing along the first time they hear it, it‘s a hit. I wanted

to . . . (inaudible), not only because did illustrate what we were talking before but also because

of that joy in language. And that is something you both have, to for the profound things you say

and for the beautiful things you say, there is also—I thought it was interesting, Paul Muldoon,

Paul Simon‘s ―50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,‖ as a lyric in the little booklet that they handed

out as a lyric you admire.


2.11.11

PAGE 27

PAUL MULDOON: Well, there are many. And I‘m not saying that because we happen to be

sitting here. There are many. But I love that one.

BILL FLANAGAN: And that is the celebration of rhyme. Yeah. That‘s where it started?

PAUL SIMON: I was teaching my son who was four or five at the time about rhymes. That‘s

why I made it. Simple rhymes.

BILL FLANAGAN: It‘s in ―Think Too Much‖, where you rhyme Los Angeles and

unscramble-us.

PAUL SIMON: Yes.

BILL FLANAGAN: I mean those are just things that even a—that‘s a fairly serious song. But

that‘s just a great moment. That is a moment that shows—you know, Jack Nicholson said once,

―Every great actor, even if he is playing King Lear, has to somehow convey his love of acting.‖

And I think what both of you do is, you know, convey your love of language, within these songs,

within these games you play. I have to embarrass Paul Muldoon because—and I won‘t embarrass

my daughter who speak French who is sitting here, by trying to read the Baudelaire. Baudelaire

is ―The Albatross,‖ which you did a translation of.

There is a line that talks about the sailors pulling the albatross onto the boat and torturing this

noble bird by humiliating it. And I want to read three other translations, just one line.

William Aggeler said, ―Pathetically let their great white wings drag beside them like oars.‖ And

when it was translated by Roy Campbell, he rendered it is, ―They piteously drooped their huge,

white wings and trailed them at their sides like drifting oars. And when it was translated by

George Dillon he said, ―Goes hobbling pitiably across the plank and let‘s his great wings hang,

like heavy, useless oars at his side.


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PAGE 28

Now, Paul Muldoon‘s translation was, ―A pitiable pair of paddles. ―You know? Now that‘s just

having—that‘s having fun with Baudelaire.

PAUL MULDOON: Yeah. Now, I‘m not sure how Baudelaire‘s estate will feel about that but

I‘m not too worried, perhaps.

BILL FLANAGAN: It‘s public domain at this point. One thing that you both do is that in your

songs, in your poems, you locate yourselves within the tradition. You know, many the poet

shows up in your poetry. As many as there are farm animals there are romantic poets and

contemporary poets traipsing through your verse. And Paul, again, you have a new song where a

man comes face to face to God. And all he can think of to say is ―Be-bop a lula.‖ And again and

again in your songs, in ―The Late, Great, Johnny Ace,‖ and in ―Rene and Georgette Magritte,‖

where it‘s ―the moon glows and the five satins,‖ that first music you loved sort of comes back

and, you know, you take your place in that collection.

First of all, are you both conscious that you do that? And what do you think it means? Who

wants to go first?

PAUL SIMON: Well, I enjoy—I just enjoy inserting all of these little doo-wop references into

my songs. For the most part they are just little jokes and they don‘t mean anything. But in the

case of the Magritte song, it was—I was using the names of the groups, The Penguins, The Moon

Glows, The Orioles, The Five Satins because it sounded so beautiful, their names. And to put

Magritte in there was to already begin a surreal composition, which is what he was, which is

what he—that‘s what Magritte was.

BILL FLANAGAN: A juxtaposition.

PAUL SIMON: So I was writing a song. As I wrote it I thought, ―Well, talk about writing for a

narrow audience. So I‘m writing probably here for Amit Urdigan(?), you know? [Laughter]

Somebody who knows who they are and has a couple of Magrittes on his wall. I mean . . .


2.11.11

PAGE 29

(inaudible) talking about. But that‘s all it was, was—putting that content into a surreal form

because the sound of the words made you feel that there was something mysterious about it.

PAUL MULDOON: How do you find that tension? Isn‘t it more interesting for you to just go

to Magritte and allow people to come to the song and to an idea of Magritte rather than, perhaps,

being overly concerned about whether or not they are going to get it?

PAUL SIMON: I lied about that.

PAUL MULDOON: You lied about what?

PAUL SIMON: I wasn‘t overly concerned. [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: No. And I don‘t think you should be. I think you are right because one of

the great things is that we hear that song and we—I mean some of us have some vague idea but

some less vague than others, ideas about Magritte. But, actually, for some people, I mean one of

the great things they might say is, you know, ―There is a Paul Simon song about Rene Magritte

and his wife, and it actually got me interested in Rene Magritte.‖ And I think that is something

that we tend to forget. We are so concerned nowadays about what people understand in an era

when frankly people, please forgive me, from what I can see, understand less and less.

I mean I was in a school somewhere the other day. I was saying to Bill I think, earlier on, where

they clearly had never heard of James Fennimore Cooper. And one might say, ―Well, that‘s

okay. He‘s a dead, white male and he couldn‘t write for nuts, anyway.‖ However, there is

something faintly troubling about that, when we listen to JFK talking about a nation and what its

writers might mean. So—

BILL FLANAGAN: Let me jump in there and ask something that—Paul, you said, in the fall

when I saw you, you said making this album you were asking yourself, is the form that I work in


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PAGE 30

still relevant? And I think if that‘s true of the rock LP, it has to be something that someone

setting out in a life of poetry has to ask himself, ―Is the form that I work in still relevant?‖

PAUL MULDOON: That may be why I‘ve never admitted to have set out on a life of poetry.

BILL FLANAGAN: Ah! That‘s it.

PAUL MULDOON: No. You know, of course it is still relevant. Of course it‘s still relevant.

PAUL SIMON: That‘s that answer that we know is coming when you ask the question. You

just have to periodically ask the question so you can say to yourself again, ―Well, of course, it‘s

what I do. And if I have any doubts about it, I‘ll try and make it so obviously relevant by being

good that that will be the answer to the question. Now, maybe I‘ll succeed or maybe I‘ll fail at

that but I do think that when something is clearly powerful in whatever way—the reason I‘m

hesitating here is I‘m thinking, well, actually, the art that I like is all art about beauty. And so,

when I‘m writing I look for beauty and then I feel, ―Oh, that‘s good.‖

But, of course, there is a lot of art that isn‘t about beauty at all. It is still art. So, in a certain

sense, really, it is like, what kind of art are you involved in that evokes that question, you know,

is it relevant. I don‘t think that—I don't know, but I don‘t think that Tarantino thinks, ―Am I

relevant.?‖

PAUL MULDOON: No.

PAUL SIMON: He is obviously relevant because people respond to that sense of violence and

storytelling that jumps around. And that‘s another form of art. But if you‘re Matisse and you

paint that way, you‘re not going to be Picasso and paint—

BILL FLANAGAN: Copernican.


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PAGE 31

PAUL SIMON: Yeah. So, really, I mean it gets back to a certain question about art again,

which is, what is it you aspire to when you are making something and what is it that you want to

connect yourself to and, you know, have others connect to through you. In my case I think of it

as I like art that is beautiful as opposed to art that upsetting or art that is nihilistic or—but you

need all of it to express how we all feel.

BILL FLANAGAN: But, you know, what is interesting is, another thing that both of you do, is

that you will have a disruptive image, and I‘m not just talking about a word like Gatorade but,

you know, ―the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio.‖ There is a bombing that takes

place where you don‘t expect it on the new album. You have got the vest of dynamite, you know,

strapped to the suicide bomber, I think in the new book.

There is that sense and I think it is very resonant to people living in the world now that while the

violence of the world can intrude, it can even intrude in the middle of this verse.

PAUL SIMON: Well, yes. But look, movies are filled with violence portrayed as beauty.

BILL FLANAGAN: Right.

PAUL SIMON: Explosions, they will show you four or five different shots of the same

explosion. And what is it? It is some beautiful color filling the screen. But if you happen to

actually be near an explosion where someone was incinerated, or any of those elements, well,

you can see what happens to a whole generation of soldiers. They come back with a very high

percentage of post-traumatic stress disorder. Violence is not beautiful. You know, whether it is

art, well, I guess it is. I don‘t know.

I can‘t remember who said, and he was roundly criticized for it, one of the Italian film directors

who said that 9/11 was a moment of great art, that the buildings falling was great art.

BILL FLANAGAN: That wasn‘t Bill Maher, was it?


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PAUL SIMON: It wasn‘t Bill Maher. It was one of the film directors. It might have been—

BILL FLANAGAN: It is probably just as well not to say because he won‘t be able

[simultaneous conversation]

PAUL SIMON: Anyway—of course, he had to retract that. That was what he felt. He looked at

it and saw it as some astounding image and thought of it as art. Most of us think of it as horror

and fear and—

BILL FLANAGAN: But it‘s true that almost everyone who saw it, their first reaction was, they

thought they were watching a disaster movie, you know, because we hadn‘t seen that in life. We

had only seen it in the movies. Another line of yours that I love, and I‘m going to try and entice

you back, because I know that our time is running short, is ―A pilgrim on a pilgrimage walked

across the Brooklyn Bridge.‖ That‘s a line that just immediately—that song could have gone

anywhere and I would have gone with it. ―Questions for the Angels,‖ would you favor us?

PAUL SIMON: I‘ll try. I‘ll try. I‘m not good at this one. I wasn‘t too good at the last one,

either, as a matter of fact.

PAUL MULDOON: Sounded good.

PAUL SIMON: Thanks for the . . . (inaudible) [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: [Laughter]

PAUL SIMON: One of the things that I think of as I‘m writing is that the first line—I envision

the first line having this shape, meaning it could go anywhere as opposed to here where in a

verse or two I‘m going to be finished. So I don‘t want that. So ―a pilgrim on a pilgrimage walked


2.11.11

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across the Brooklyn Bridge,‖ was fine. It was a little bit funny and it was also, you know, a road

song.

BILL FLANAGAN: It‘s a road song.

PAUL SIMON: Let‘s see how I‘m going to do this on this guitar.

A pilgrim on a pilgrimage

Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge

His sneakers torn

In the hour when the homeless move their cardboard blankets

And the new day is born

Folded in his backpack pocket

The questions that he copied from his heart

Who am I in this lonely world?

And where will I make my bed tonight?

When twilight turns to dark

Questions for the angels

Who believes in angels?

Fools do

Fools and pilgrims all over the world

If you shop for love in a bargain store

And you don't get what you bargained for

Can you get your money back?

If an empty train in a railroad station

Calls you to its destination

Can you choose another track?

Will I wake up from these violent dreams

With my hair as white as the morning moon?

Questions for the angels

Who believes in angels?

I do

Fools and pilgrims all over the world

Downtown Brooklyn

The pilgrim is passing a billboard

That catches his eye

It's Jay-Z


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He's got a kid on each knee

He's wearing clothes that he wants us to try

If every human on the planet and all the buildings on it

Should disappear

Would a zebra grazing in the African Savannah

Care enough to shed one zebra tear?

Questions for the angels.

[Applause]


[Applause]


BILL FLANAGAN: You don‘t hear Jay-Z in that many, mentioned—I guess actually you do

hear Jay-Z in other songs. Has Jay-Z heard the song? . . . (inaudible)

PAUL SIMON: I don‘t think so. It hasn‘t come out yet.

BILL FLANAGAN: Well, he may sample it.

PAUL SIMON: It is sort of what you were talking about before, everything being in there. The

song is sort of dreamy with words that you don‘t really think of a pilgrim. I mean how many

pilgrims do we know in our life? And the Brooklyn Bridge, and the questions that he starts to

ask, they are sort of the typical questions, ―Who am I‖ and ―Where will I sleep,‖ and about love

and all of this. Those become sort of the first questions for the angels.

Then, when he crosses the Brooklyn Bridge and he sees the billboard of Jay-Z, which actually

was a billboard that I saw, I think it changes the perspective of the song and you‘re not just in

some dream landscape. And then comes the real question of the song, which is, ―If there were no


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human beings, the whole species were gone, would the rest of the living creatures on the planet

really, would a zebra shed a tear?‖ No. I mean it‘s a terrible species. If I weren‘t in it, I would

definitely be opposed to it. [Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: I‘m going to have a tee shirt made, ―If I weren‘t in it, I would definitely

be opposed to it.‖ That‘s pretty much my attitude towards most things. Paul Muldoon, I have to

really put you in a terrible spot here because, probably because I was thinking about the two of

you in relation to each other. The other day I read with new eyes the poem ―Ontario,‖ from

Meeting the British, 1987, which opens with, ―My Uncle Pat‘s face falling in slo mo in the

constellations of the northern hemisphere.‖

I thought, you must have been listening to Graceland when you were writing that poem.

Constellations, hemisphere and slo mo, all in the same place.

PAUL MULDOON: It‘s conceivable. I can‘t remember. Let‘s see. That would have come out

in—certainly I was listening to Graceland, also, in endless cycle, though I don‘t think we were

using the term.

BILL FLANAGAN: That‘s ‘87. Right on the money.

PAUL MULDOON: [simultaneous conversation] I‘m sure. Absolutely. If I wasn‘t listening

[Laughter] [simultaneous conversation] Yes. Yes. Well, I do, you know—I think a lot of the

time, of course, one is not necessarily conscious. And one of the things that one is trying to do is

to the extent that one might allow for, say, in that song you‘ve just sung, the connections

between that song and, is it ―America,‖ we‘ve all gone, the one about the New Jersey Turnpike?

PAUL SIMON: Yes.

PAUL MULDOON: I mean that‘s a song that‘s in dialogue, I think, with that song, isn‘t it—


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PAUL SIMON: Yeah.

PAUL MULDOON: And I think there may even—there‘s a rhyme in there, which goes back to

the era of ―Bridge over Troubled Water.‖ There‘s another rhyme—

AUDIENCE: ―Homeward Bound.‖

PAUL MULDOON: Sorry.

AUDIENCE: ―Homeward Bound.‖

PAUL MULDOON: Yes, ―Homeward Bound.‖ Railway station, yeah, thank you.

BILL FLANAGAN: Man, that PEN group is one smart bunch of kibitzers.

PAUL MULDOON: These are readers. These guys have heard of Cooper, I‘m pretty sure.

[Laughter]

BILL FLANAGAN: He created ―M*A*S*H‖

PAUL MULDOON: What‘s interesting about that, it‘s a take on—but the fact that it‘s in

conversation with your earlier, wonderful song is—I think gives it even more depth.

PAUL SIMON: I think we are all allowed to take—I think it‘s the common pool should be

enlarged and people should feel free to go and—I don‘t feel any particular ownership about this.

I didn‘t make up anything.

PAUL MULDOON: I think that is critical to the notion of the muse. If you believe in the muse,

you are simply a vehicle for the muse. You really are just standing in there and doing one‘s little

part, I believe, and allowing art to come through.


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BILL FLANAGAN: You know, one of Keith Richard‘s great excuses for staying up for a week

at a time was that if he went to sleep, the songs would go to someone else. [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: That‘s pretty good.

BILL FLANAGAN: We‘re way past our time. And I do want to read a couple of questions from

our audience. But before I do I want to say that one of my favorite, favorite songs is a song by

Warren Zevon, is ―My Ride‘s Here.‖ Springsteen did a version of it that I had on repeat in my

car until my children wanted to jump out of the car. And I only found out about six months ago

that my friend Paul Muldoon co-wrote that lyric, which maybe explains why it is so good.

And to totally blur the line we have been blurring for the last hour between lyrics and poetry and

to make the case that the song lyric is a fourth room of literature that deserves its own entry.

Would you--

[Applause]

Yeah. Let‘s hear it for—nobody is going to argue with that now.

[Applause]

Paul, could I ask you to read, ―My Ride‘s Here?‖

PAUL MULDOON: Certainly. Now, this was co-written with Warren Zevon. Warren, of

course, who among many distinctions was the musical director, I suppose, for the Everly

Brothers--

BILL FLANAGAN: That‘s right.


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PAUL MULDOON: --In one manifestation.

BILL FLANAGAN: It all comes back to the Everly‘s.

PAUL MULDOON: It all comes back to the Everly‘s; well, a lot of it does.

My Ride‘s Here

I was staying at the Marriott

With Jesus and John Wayne

I was waiting for a chariot

They were waiting for a train

The sky was full of carrion

"I'll take the mazuma"

Said Jesus to Marion

"That's the 3:10 to Yuma

My ride's here..."

(This was way before the recent remake, by the way.)

The Houston sky was changeless

We galloped through bluebonnets

I was wrestling with an angel

You were working on a sonnet

You said, "I believe the seraphim

Will gather up my Pinto

And carry us away, Jim

Across the San Jacinto

My ride's here..."

Shelley and Keats were out in the street

And even Lord Byron was leaving for Greece

While back at the Hilton, last but not least

Milton was holding his sides

Saying, "You bravos had better be

ready to fight

Or we'll never get out of East Texas tonight

For the trail is long and the river is wide

And my ride's here."

I was staying at the Weston

I was playing to a draw


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When in walked Charlton Heston

With the Tablets of the Law

He said, "It's still the Greatest Story"

I said, "Man, I'd like to stay

But I'm bound for glory

I'm on my way

My ride's here..."

[Applause]

PAUL MULDOON: Thank you very much.

BILL FLANAGAN: Of the many beautiful things in that song, I think my favorite is rhyming

carion with Marion [Laughter], John Wayne‘s real name.

PAUL SIMON: That‘s right.

BILL FLANAGAN: When I heard that I said, ―Oh! We‘re reminding people that John Wayne

was Irish.‖ And he was a . . . (inaudible). [Laughter] Just take credit for it Paul.

All right. We‘ll take a couple of questions from this very patient audience. Either of you can grab

this: Can you speak to any moments in your writing process when you knew you had knocked it

out of the park, a line that seemed to fall from God. And, in turn, any lines you wish you could

take back?

PAUL SIMON: Let‘s see, lines I wish I could take back—well, of course, I prefer not to tell

you. There are some. Most of the time I feel, anybody can be bad. So why should I be overly

ashamed of stuff? So I was pretentious when I was young. Well, you‘re supposed to be. Anyway,

that‘s my excuses. Lines that I thought really surprised me and stopped me, the moment that I

sang ―Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water, I will lay me down,‖ with that melody, I was very

surprised. And I thought, ―Where did that come from? That‘s much better than I usually write.‖

[Laughter]


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But that‘s sort of going back to the zone. When you really don‘t—I was just really too young to

know that sometimes you‘re in some place and it happens and you‘re the conduit. You know,

when it happened to me later in life, I was very grateful when it happened. I loved the mystery of

it. Another time that I can remember it happening was in ―Graceland,‖ when I wrote, ―Losing

love is like a window in your heart.‖ I just, actually acted—I had to sit down. Whatever it was, it

was really telling the truth about something.

The same is true for when I thought up, ―Still Crazy After All These Years,‖ which I was

thinking of me. I wasn‘t making up a song. I was, you know, disappointed at what was going on.

Then I thought, ―Boy! That‘s a good‖—that‘s the songwriter. That‘s the poet. That‘s the artist.

―Hmm. I bet I can use that.‖ You start to recognize it. Oh, there are other times, too. There is a

song of my called ―Darling Lorraine.‖

PAUL MULDOON: I love that song.


PAUL MULDOON: That‘s a great song.

PAUL SIMON: It is filled with moments where something happens and you realize—I‘ll tell

you later—the song starts—and I start these songs with some line that is going to allow me to go

the next song. I have no idea what the subject matter is when I begin a song because the music is

usually written and I‘m trying to find words that have the sound of the melody. Like if it was a

very high note, I wouldn‘t try and say, ―That‘s great for me-e.‖ You don‘t want to be up there on

an ―E‖ sound. You want to be up there on a ―Wah‖ sound.

So I began, ―The first time I saw her I couldn‘t be sure. But the sin of impatience,‖ which was a

line I had written in a book, in my little notebook and probably had it for a few months, ―said,

‗She is just what you are looking for.‘ So I walk right up to her.‖ Meanwhile, I‘m still all in


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songwriting cliché. ―I walk right up to her and with the part of me that talks,‖ okay. That‘s nice.

It‘s not a cliché. ―I Introduce myself as Frank from New York, New York,‖ which I think is

funny whenever they say, ―New York, New York.‖ I think of it like New York.

Once when I was playing in England they said, ―And now from New York State.‖ [Laughter]

Which was better than another introduction I had in England, which was when I played in a

working man‘s club in Manchester, I think, and the guy said, ―Shut up. Give up. Shut up. You‘ve

had your fun. Shut up, now, and give artist a go.‖ [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: That‘s why I don‘t describe myself as an artist.

PAUL SIMON: Exactly. I didn‘t myself then, either. But anyway, so, ―Darling Lorraine.‖

―The first time I saw her I couldn‘t be sure. The sin of impatience said, ‗Just what you are

looking for.‘ So I walk write up to her and say, the part of me that talks, I introduce myself as

Frank from New York, New York. She‘s so hot. She‘s so cool. I‘m not. I‘m just a fool in love

with darling Lorraine.‖ This is all clichés, ―I‘m just a fool in love.‖

And then I begin the next verse with, ―All my life I‘ve been a wanderer,‖ another line that I have

absolutely no interest in. If anybody had that in a conversation and began that at a party and said

that to me I would be thinking, ―How can I escape?‖ [Laughter] Really. Tell me about it. So I

knew that as I wrote it. So I said, ―All my life I have been a wanderer. Not really. I mostly live

my parents‘ home. Anyway, Lorraine and I got married.‖ I loved the way the guy was so self-

involved. He just switches back to—he switches his course. I made a note of that. If you get

trapped in a song you don‘t have to stay there, you can turn around and say, ―Psht!‖

―Anyway, Lorraine and I got married, and the usual marriage stuff,‖ which again I thought,

―Lorraine and I got married. What am I going to do, explain things now?‖ ―And the usual

marriage stuff.‖ That‘s not important. ―And then one day she says to me from out of the blue,

‗Frank. I‘ve had enough. Romance is a heartbreaker and I‘m not meant to be a homemaker and

I‘m tired of being ‗darling Lorraine.‘‖


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And then the guy says, ―What? You don‘t love me anymore? What? You‘re walking out the

door,‖ again, kind of typical songwriting stuff. ―What? You don‘t like the way I chew?‖ To

which my wife said, ―You can‘t say that in the song. Everyone will know that it‘s about us.‖

[Laughter] Nobody will know, and you know, it has probably been said in other places, other

times and places. ―You don‘t like the way I chew? Hey, let me tell you,‖ this guy, ―You‘re not

the woman that I wed. You say you‘re depressed but you‘re not. You just like to stay in bed.‖

Totally unaware, you know.

―I don‘t need you, darling Lorraine.‖ And then ―Lorraine,‖ he says, ―Lorraine, I long for your

love‖: this opening up of the heart. I think good— The guy‘s so self-involved and cliché ridden,

but he opens up his heart. But then he immediately closes because the next line he says,

―Financially speaking‖ [Laughter] ―I guess I‘m a washout. I mean everything is ‗buy and sell‘

and ‗sell and buy‘ and that‘s what the whole thing is all about. If it had not been for Lorraine, I

would have left here long ago. I should have been a musician. I love the piano.‖ It makes me

laugh, you know. Anyway, ―She is so something, she is so free. She is so light. She is so free.

I‘m—

PAUL MULDOON: --Tight.

PAUL SIMON: ―I‘m tight. Well, that‘s me. I feel so good with darling Lorraine.‖ And then it

went to ―On Christmas morning . . .‖ no, I think I‘ll remember— On Christmas morning Frank

awakes to find Lorraine has made a stack of pancakes. ―They watch the television, husband and

wife, all afternoon It’s a Wonderful Life.‖ It seemed like a good Christmas line, you know. But

then they are back, ―What, you don‘t love me anymore? What, you are walking out the door.

You don‘t like the way I chew? Hey, let me tell you, you are not the woman that I wed. Give me

my robe. I‘m going back to bed. I‘m sick to death of you Lorraine.‖

And as soon as I wrote that I said, ―Oh, my God. She is going to die.‖ And the whole song

changed. And then ―Lorraine, her hand is like wood. The doctor was smiling but the news wasn‘t


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good. Darling Lorraine, please don‘t leave me yet. I know you are in pain, pain you can‘t forget.

Your breathing is like an echo of our love. Maybe I‘ll go down to the corner store and buy us

something sweet. Here is an extra blanket, honey to wrap around your feet. All the leaves were

washed with April rain and the moon in the meadow took darling Lorraine.‖

But that moment of, ―I‘m sick to death of you Lorraine,‖—

PAUL MULDOON: You know. I would have no hesitation in saying that that is a good as

anything Philip Larkin ever wrote. Really.

BILL FLANAGAN: Yeah.

PAUL MULDOON: And I think Philip Larkin would say that, too.

BILL FLANAGAN: Let‘s have a vote. [Simultaneous conversation]

[Applause]

PAUL MULDOON: No, seriously. That‘s lovely. It‘s a brilliant song.

BILL FLANAGAN: It‘s a brilliant song. It‘s a better example than I pulled out of—as I said,

the songs that keep unfolding. And you feel—and, again, both of you do this in your work. You

have that, the reader, the listener can share that sense of exploration that you don‘t know what

door is going to open next. And ―Darling Lorraine‖ is a fantastic song—

PAUL SIMON: And by the way, it was a doo-wop song, ―Darling Lorraine.‖ It was a doo-wop

song called ―Darling Lorraine,‖ and I just said, ―That‘s a great title.‖

BILL FLANAGAN: And this kind of shows us, all right, 50 years later, where is that couple

from the doo-wop song. And the other thing is that the last line, when she dies and suddenly it


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Annabel Lee. And suddenly we are out of the realm of doo-wop. We are out of our time. We are

in classic verse, classic poetry because that‘s what this schmo, you know, in the song has

suddenly become, because we all do. Eventually, everyone‘s life is a tragedy.

Forgive me because we have gone way over time. I haven‘t asked the questions I should have

asked. But I think we all agree that if we have five minutes left, could we impress Paul Simon to

sing us one more song on the way out?

[Applause]

And your call, Paul.

PAUL SIMON: Once I said to an audience, thank you for your tepid response. [Laughter]

PAUL MULDOON: Thank you for what?

BILL FLANAGAN: . . . (inaudible) [Laughter]

PAUL SIMON: This is an old song, around the seventies. It seems to have a little, kind of

resonance now with what‘s going on in Egypt.

Ah, peace like a river ran through the city

Long past the midnight curfew

We sat starry-eyed

oh, oh, we were satisfied

O-o-oh, And I remember

Misinformation followed us like a plague

Nobody knew from time to time

If the plans were changed

Oh, oh, oh, if the plans were changed.

You can beat us with wires

You can beat us with chains


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You can run out your rules

But you know you can't outrun the history train

I seen a glorious day

Ah, four in the morning

I woke up from out of my dreams

Nowhere to go but back to sleep

But I'm reconciled

Oh, oh, oh, I'm going to be up for a while



[Applause]

BILL FLANAGAN: Thank you everybody. I want to thank Paul Simon—

PAUL SIMON: Such a pleasure to be with you.

PAUL MULDOON: Yeah [Simultaneous conversation]

BILL FLANAGAN: Richard Hoffman, are you going to come up and say something? I want to

thank Karen Woulf, from PEN for inviting us up here. I want to thank you folks for hanging in.

Paul Muldoon and Paul Simon. Richard, Richard Hoffman.

RICHARD HOFFMAN: Wow! Well, first of all, I just want to let everybody know to please

keep your seats until our guests have left the stage. And that the JFK Library Bookstore has

copies of Paul Muldoon and Bill Flanagan‘s books. And Paul and Bill will be happy to sign them

for you in the back of the auditorium.

And now I have an announcement. I‘ve been waiting all night to make this announcement. As

many of you know PEN New England offers literary awards for poetry, fiction, non-fiction,

children‘s books and nature writing. Tonight we are pleased to announce the establishment of the

PEN New England Award for Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence.


2.11.11

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[Applause]

We are also proud and immensely grateful that Bill Flanagan has agreed to chair the award

committee.

BILL FLANAGAN: Well, I can‘t get out of it now.

RICHARD HOFFMAN: No. Stalin used to do this, too. So you will all be hearing more about

this new award during the next year so stay tuned. Actually, that is always good advice as I‘m

sure our panelists would agree. So thank you all for coming. Have a good night and stay tuned.

[Applause]

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