Paul Simon — Paul Simon (first album)
album review

LYRICS FROM "ME AND JULIO DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD"
The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station;
When the papa found out he began to shout
And he started the investigation.
It's against the law,
It was against the law,
What the mama saw,
It was against the law.

Album Review: This album was Paul Simon's first after the breakup of the hit-making juggernaut known to the world as Simon and Garfunkel, and for Simon and his fans, any doubts about whether he could make it without Art Garfunkel were about to be wiped away. The album opens with the slightly stuttering, reggae-ish guitar line and sweet melody of "Mother and Child Reunion," a joyous song that made the Top 10 on the US charts. The next song, "Duncan," features a mesmerizing interplay of flute and acoustic guitar and features one of Simon's all-time best lyrics: "My father was a fisherman; my mama was a fisherman's friend; and I was born in the boredom and the chowder." The song "Run That Body Down" is a lilting salute to all of us that drive ourselves harder than we should. "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard" was another Top 40 hit for Simon, and here he blends rhythm guitar and South American sounds to great effect, to some extent picking up musically where he left off with the bouncy S&G hit "Cecelia." By the time things had ended with Simon and Garfunkel, the music had gotten rather lush—sometimes even with orchestration—far from the original folksy roots of S&G's first album. While the lush sound worked well on much of the S&G material, especially with Art Garfunkel's amazing voice, on this first post-S&G album, Simon went back to his acoustic roots by transforming the folksiness into an updated singer-songwriter sound. With two Top 40 hits and a raft of solidly written songs—none of which needed any of the gimmicky lyrics that plagued some of Simon's later songs—Paul Simon proved that he did not need a partner to produce great music.

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