The Death of Paul Simon

I remember laughing out loud when I first saw Drew Friedman's illustration of Paul Simon and David Byrne bumping into each either in what looks like the wilds of Borneo. The Internet tells me it was published in SPY Magazine, sometime in the '90s. Sounds about right.

Another thing that sounds right: Paul Simon's "The Afterlife," a track from forthcoming album So Beautiful or So What being previewed at the moment on Stereogum. Or it sounds like Paul Simon, at any rate. The song itself is pretty slight, relying on percussive texture over melody -- and then arranged and produced with old-world skill and taste, naturally -- but it leaves a lot of space for a witty account of Simon's post-mortem visit to what appears to be a bureaucratic heaven.

Per Friedman's snarky drawing, it also sounds as if the Napoleon-sized songwriter is still touring the world for inspiration. In the case of "The Afterlife," he's keeping one tiny foot in Africa, and the other in Louisiana. Of course, the Simonist Empire's expansionist policies date back to the '70s at least, when "Mother and Child Reunion" brought pop-Caribbeana to his uniformly WASPy audience.

Whatever may come with So Beautiful or So What, and Simon claims that his influence on this record is bluegrass, I'd say that any occasion to revisit those old nuggets of sophisticated pop genius is worth taking, as Simon plotted his course from Latin America, to Harlem, and later on to Cape Town.

The man's legacy, as every blogger on earth has pointed out in the last 72 hours, is currently felt in the vanguard indie rave of Vampire Weekend -- but Christ alive, let's hope that's not what he'll be remembered for. Even going down in history as a victim of Drew Friedman's poison, pointillist pen would be better than that!