Why Paul Simon dislikes one of his classic tracks: “I hate the words”
Paul Simon has been a defining songwriter of American folk and pop music for nearly seven decades. During that time, the New Jersey-born musician has embraced everything from 1960s counterculture folk to the glamorous world of 1980s pop, repeatedly proving himself as something of a musical chameleon. His work remains loved by legions of fans to this day, but, for the songwriter himself, some of his compositions have certainly lost their appeal after all these years.
In fairness, when you have as many celebrated compositions as Paul Simon, it is something of an inevitability that certain tracks will fall out of favour as the years pass. Especially when, like Simon, you are expected to perform certain tracks night after night for years on end. Expectedly, many of Simon’s least favourite tracks come from his period playing alongside Art Garfunkel in one of the greatest musical partnerships of the 20th century.
Famously, the relationship between the musicians was rarely harmonious, with their music career storied by countless arguments and continually increasing levels of conflict. This tumultuous relationship understandably cast a shadow over the duo’s material for years after the break-up of the group. Even after Simon and Garfunkel reunited for a sporadic range of live performances over the years, some of their music never really recovered itself in the mind of Paul Simon.
During an interview with Playboy back in 1984, some years after the pair’s famous Central Park reunion show, Simon reflected upon the work he had created alongside his old partner. Notably, Simon expressed his dislike for the classic track ‘Homeward Bound’. Released as a single in 1966, the song is a classic folk track from the peak of Simon and Garfunkel’s career. Beloved by thousands of fans, Simon’s feelings towards the song have soured somewhat over the years.
“When I finished playing,” Simon recalled, “I was thinking ‘I hate ‘Homeward Bound’,’ and then I thought, ‘Why do I hate it?’ I said, ‘Oh, I hate the words’. So I went over them. And then I remembered where I wrote it”. Reflecting upon that writing process, which happened in 1965 while Simon was over in England, Simon said, “I was in Liverpool, actually in a railway station. I’d just played a little folk job”.
Folk music was undergoing something of a renaissance during the mid-1960s, spurred along by the emergence of groundbreaking singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan. Although Dylan had completely redefined the genre, his influence was both a blessing and a curse for people like Simon. “The job of a folk singer in those days was to be Bob Dylan,” he shared, “You had to be a poet. That’s what they wanted. And I thought that was a drag. And I wanted to get home to my girlfriend, Kathy, in London. I was 22”.
If you think back to what you were getting up to at the age of 22, it probably was not as profound as writing a track like ‘Homeward Bound’. While Simon retains a certain disdain for the song, even he can admit that it was a pretty solid effort for the time in which he wrote it. “I thought, well, that’s not a bad song at all for a 22-year-old kid,” he said, “It’s actually quite touching now that I see it”.