{"id":232814,"date":"2025-07-02T19:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232814\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T19:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:48:12","slug":"the-one-song-paul-simon-uses-to-punish-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232814\/","title":{"rendered":"The one song Paul Simon uses to punish himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paul<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Wed 2 July 2025 18:00, UK <\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to hate one of your songs, but it is another to have a track in reserve to wield as punishment for any moment you may have made a mistake on stage.\u00a0Paul Simon<\/a>\u00a0has rarely been an artist who does things the normal way.<\/p>\n

One of the behemoths of the 1960s counterculture movement, Paul Simon\u2019s folk ditties alongside his bandmate Art Garfunkel made him one of the most beloved songwriters of his generation. With a road to fame and fortune getting wider and easier to traverse, Simon decided to cut the journey short and become a solo outfit, wrestling creative control firmly into his hands.<\/p>\n

It was a decision that would largely benefit Simon. Soon after the breakup<\/a>, he would begin to enact his vision for tracks, rarely disappointing his fans and, in general, making good progress toward reaching the goal laid out in front of him and Garfunkel as they started out as a duo. It means that while he was certainly never too disparaging about his time as part of the legendary pair, he was always keener to look forward than backwards.<\/p>\n

For Simon, the time in the duo was just a little tainted. A songwriting purist, Simon was well aware of the concessions he made during that time, either to Garfunkel or to appease the masses in an attempt to be as big a seller as The Beatles or Bob Dylan. A few of his songs from this period are therefore locked away and kept far from Simon\u2019s setlist.<\/p>\n

One such track is \u2018The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin\u2019 Groovy)\u2019, a notably shallow track from Simon\u2019s catalogue<\/a>. The tune arrived at an odd time for Simon as he returned from England to a bevvy of applause and fame which he was not yet used to. It meant a bout of depression ensued; however, during a more positive moment, Simon wrote the track he wished he hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201dI started to swing out of it,\u201d he said. \u201cI was getting into a good mood, and I remember coming home in the morning about six o\u2019clock over the 59th Street Bridge in New York, and it was such a groovy day really, a good one, and it was one of those times when you know you won\u2019t be tired for about an hour, a sort of a good hanging time, so I started to write a song that later became the \u201959th Street Bridge Song or \u2018Feelin\u2019 Groovy\u2019,\u201d he said. But when he sobered up, he grew to hate the track.<\/p>\n

In fact, he disliked it so greatly, that, during a 2018 performance, he used the song as some kind of sonic flagellation. Having forgot the lyrics to his 1990 tune \u2018The Cool, Cool River\u2019 he brought out the offending song for a whirl on stage as recompense.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I made a mistake and forgot the lyrics to that song,\u201d Simone confessed to the crowd, \u201cI\u2019m going to penalise myself. I\u2019m going to sing one of my songs that I loathe.\u201d As he is handed his acoustic guitar, he tells the audience, in the clip below, \u201cThis will teach me, because I just \u2014 I hate this song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few artists have enough hits to be able to use one of them to punish themselves, but Paul Simon does. If you are ever in the vicinity when Simon plays \u2018The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin\u2019 Groovy)\u2019, just know he has done something he\u2019s not proud of before he picked up the guitar.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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