Paul Simon, or: Did the butterfly take the wrong turn around the tree?

[RAc]

Apologies if this should have come up before, but a quick search on the forum yielded no results...

 

I just got off rabbitholing in the guts of the www and found this tiddlybit here:

 

I came up with this thing and played it to Paul [Simon]. And he said, ‘I love it . . . but I think it needs to be played on a concertina.’ So there was some dude from Italy doing his first tour of the United States, who just happened to Italy’s greatest classical concertina player. So Paul brings him in with an interpreter, and we sat there all day and went over the lick, and they wrote it out for the guy, who then played it. And afterwards Paul says, ‘Naw, that’s not it.’ And he dismissed the guy and he walks out in bewilderment, and we went right back to where we were and got it in about the third take.”

 

This is Fred Carter Jr. about the guitar intro he wrote and recorded for "The Boxer."

 

from:

 

Takes from the Top: Recording Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’ | Songwriter 101 | BMI.com

Edited December 25, 2025 by RAc
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[Robin Harrison]

.................fair comment.............I have just finished rewatching the excellent documentary of how Paul Simon created and recorded the album "Graceland" and perhaps this is a different interpretaion of how the day might have gone.

                  The first track is "the Boy in the Bubble"  starts with a very edgy  piano accordion intro......

       Paul Simon was, it appears from the video, infinitley focused on getting the exact sound he wanted.

     It seems he gave the concertina player the whole day to show his talent and the instrument he played........no disrespect to the concertina player but it was not the sound he wanted. 

             One of the memorable comments from Joseph Shabalala, the leader / lead singer of Ladysmith Black Mombaso's , was "Paul Simon, we can work with him.......he is a very polite man"

                                         Boy in the Bubble