Book Find: Paul Simon Lyrics 1964-2008

Paul Simon: Lyrics 1964-2008

Whenever I go trawling for books at National Book Store and Book Sale, I'm amazed at the serendipitous moments when I come across books I've been looking for (most of which are not of the bestseller variety) or books I never expected to exist. So it is a pleasant surprise to find Paul Simon's book,  Lyrics 1964-2008.



I immediately browsed for my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs and saw this page: April Come She Will. Sheer poetry!

April Come She Will, the lyrics are sheer poetry!

And Mrs. Robinson, composed for the film, The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman. I always sang along this song when it was played on the radio. I saw the film in my 30s because I was still too young to see when it was first  shown in a local cinema. The book is replete with photos too!

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

The Sound of Silence, a lifesaver of a song

The Sound of Silence is a deep song. I remember getting distracted by these lyrics during my teenage rebellion years in college:

"And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence"

Reading these again after all these years made me realize how timeless the lyrics are.

It's interesting to know the genesis and metamorphosis of some songs composed by Simon

Still Crazy After All These Years. Now this is one song, I'm going to be singing in my twilight (not THAT Twilight, silly!) years.

Graceland in draft and final forms

Graceland is one song I'm belatedly appreciating. I admit I lost interested in the Simon & Garfunkel duo when they split up. In recent years, I've rediscovered Art Garfunkel's vocal artistry and the genius of Paul Simon's lyrical songs.

At P99 for this hardbound book at National Book Store, it is indeed worth all the memories made and yet to be made in the span of my life.

Melody with Lyrics Part 1

I remember those times when I get caught up in the music especially the orchestral soundtrack for a movie and then hear the same melody years later with matching lyrics that enhance it all the more.



Cavatina was a classical guitar piece composed by Stanley Myers and featured in The Deer Hunter, a film about the Vietnam war. It was a soothing melody in contrast to the stark violence in the said war film. I love listening to this played on guitar, piano, flute. And then Cleo Laine composed the lyrics to the melody and it became He was beautiful.



Gabriel's Oboe is from the film The Mission about Jesuit missionaries in South America. Jeremy Irons played the oboe in the movie while being approached by tribesmen. The soundtrack was composed by the incomparable Ennio Morricone.



Sarah Brightman of Phantom of the Opera fame repeatedly requested Morricone to allow her to turn the melody into a song, but the latter refused. After several requests from Brightman, the composer relented and with Chiara Ferraù providing the lyrics, the song is now called Nella Fantasia (In my Fantasy). Brightman was the first to record it and soon it was a staple piece in many opera crossover artists' repertoire.

What Air Supply Song am I? - I Simply Want to Give it All

Avel Manansala's GenSan News Online Mag once again launches another blog contest and outdoes the previous ones on Side A and David Pomeranz!

This time it's the What Air Supply Song Are You? Blog Contest sponsored by Concert Producer Michael Wee and his Dreamworks Ventures, Inc. which brings in quality entertainment to Gensan like the Air Supply Concert in GenSan. Michael Wee also owns the Grab A Crab Restaurant and Coffee Club 101.The said contest was launched in connection with the Air Supply Live in Gensan Concert on October 2. The Air Supply in GenSan Concert is a major production of Dreamwork Ventures Inc.’s Platinum Concert Series 2009, in cooperation with the City Government of GenSan, the GenSan City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc., ABS-CBN. Other partners are Grab A Crab Restaurant, MISO Hardware, San Miguel Corporation, Coca Cola Bottlers Inc., East Asia Royale Hotel, Coffee Dream, Giacominos, NY Fries and Dips, Giacominos, Gaisano Mall of GenSan and Gregoria Printing Press.

Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply
What Air Supply Song Am I?

Here I am again, I've come to see you smile
I know you understand
I have to say again, it's only for a while.

I didn't immediately take a liking to Air Supply's debut album Lost in Love. That much I'll admit. But when I heard I Want to Give It All, a cut from their second album, I ran out of the house and bought myself a copy of The One that You Love cassette tape. That tape finally lost its sound fidelity from having it played countless of times and was eventually replaced by a CD.

It doesn't happen every day
But it happened to me once before
Those early years I threw away
Now I only have to hear your voice
To make me feel so sure that your love is why I want to give it all.

Unrequited love is bittersweet as it brings exquisite joy and pain. My love story is of the unrequited kind. Unrequited because my beloved does not have an inkling at all of being loved by me. You see, I met my beloved in high school. Our friendship lasted even after college but my beloved never knew my feelings transcended friendship.

My beloved left for abroad and never knew about the love letters I wrote for every year that we were apart. After losing touch with my beloved for almost two decades, imagine my pleasant surprise when my beloved rang me up through an overseas call. And at that moment, all the longing I felt for my beloved simply vanished and I realized that I only have to hear the voice of my beloved to make me feel so sure that my love is why I want to give it all.

Don't the minutes fly
And hours just seem so few with days apart so long
It's hard to spend my time
When I'm so far from you.

These days are made complete by seeing my beloved's smile while we are chatting through webcam, feeling the chasm between us closing in and erasing the thousands of miles separating us. These days are made complete just by hearing my beloved's voice, reassuring me of the friendship between us. My happiness is complete just loving my beloved, albeit unrequited, from afar.

An Air Supply song does that to you. Every song they sing is personal. And hits you where it matters - the heart. No wonder, in every Filipino life, there is an Air Supply theme song playing in the background. And in my life, I Want to Give It All will be playing as long as I live and continue to love my beloved.

Fave Song: Alone Again, Naturally

In a little while from now
If I’m not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it’s like when you’re shattered
Left standing in the lurch at a church
Where people saying: "My God, that’s tough
She's stood him up"
No point in us remaining
We may as well go home
As I did on my own
Alone again, naturally

To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to well who wouldn’t do
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt
Talk about God and His mercy
Or if He really does exist
Why did He desert me in my hour of need
I truly am indeed Alone again, naturally

It seems to me that there are more hearts
broken in the world that can’t be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?

Alone again, naturally
Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally

Fave Song: Softly as I Leave You

Softly, I will leave you softly
For my heart would break if you should wake and see me go
So I leave you softly, long before you miss me
Long before your arms can beg me stay
For one more hour or one more day
After all the years, I can't bear the tears to fall
So, softly as I leave you there

(Softly, long before you kiss me)
(Long before your arms can beg me stay)
(For one more hour) or one more day
After all the years, I can't bear the tears to fall
So, softly as I leave you there
As I leave I you there
As I leave I you there

Meaning-full Song: Sometimes by the Carpenters

The song, Sometimes, with lyrics by Felice Mancini & music by Henry Mancini, by the Carpenters is one of my favorite songs. It was never released as a single 45 rpm, never reached the Billboard Top 100 charts and never included in any (Best of) Carpenters anthology CDs. It was never a pop song or a top hit. Nevertheless, the story behind the song and the meaningful lyrics made it to my list of fave songs. The song appears to be a favorite of the Carpenters as it is almost always part of their concert repertoire.

The story behind Sometimes is told by Richard and Karen in the following excerpt from Robert Young's TV show. The lyrics follow after the videos.

Sometimes

Sometimes, not often enough

We reflect upon the good things

And those thoughts always center around those we love

And I think about those people who mean so much to me

And for so many years have made me so very happy

And I count the times I have forgotten to say thank you

And just how much I love them.

April Fools

April Fools
Burt Bacharach-Hal David

Theme of The April Fools starring Jack Lemmon & Catherine Deneuve

In an April dream
Once you came to me
When you smiled I looked into your eyes
And I knew I'd be loving you
and then you touched my hand
And I learned April dreams can come true

Oh are we just April fools
Who can't see all the danger around us?
If we're just April fools
I don't care, true love has found us now

Little did we know
Where the road would lead
Here we are a million miles away from the past
Travelin' so fast now
There's no turning back
If our sweet April dream doesn't last

Are we just April fools
Who can't see all the danger around us?
If we're just April fools
I don't care, we'll find our way somehow
No need to be afraid
True love has found us now

Six Weird Things About Moi

Rolly has tagged me to write on 6 weird things about myself. So here goes:

ONE: I read 5 - 6 books at the same time. Nah, I don't have 6 hands to do that. While others read only one book at one time/sitting, I manage to multi-read. I have to - as a teacher reading 2 - 3 textbooks, as a thriller/horror/science fiction fan taking on the 3rd to the last book of Stephen King, John Sandford, and Ray Bradbury (they're so prolific I and my budget can hardly catch up), as a writer/journalist reading up on the bios and writings of journalists/broadcasters/literati, and as a believer reading Daily Bread and the suggested Bible passages at the start of each day. And no, I don't use bookmarks or dog-ear pages to remind me where I have to continue reading in these books.

TWO: I only feel totally at ease when I am the one taking a picture of myself. I call this my auto-photo/fotome syndrome. Don't ask and I don't tell. So I thank the technorati who came up with cellphone cameras and digital cameras. Now I can choose which pictures of mine to keep and delete.

THREE: I am able to keep my presence of mind in times of crisis. So well in fact that I was once suspected of being part of a plot to blow a colleague to smithereens. This is what happened: a colleague whose family was close to mine was a blast victim. When I heard about it, I asked about his condition and the nurse informed that he was conscious and warned the clinic not to inform his hypertensive mother about the blast. Since my own mom was hypertensive too, I volunteered to phone her about it. When she answered my call, I asked her to sit down and asked someone at their home to get her water to drink. Then with the calmest tone I could muster, I told her that her son was a victim in a blast and was in a hospital, alive and alert. We agreed to meet at the hospital. I passed by the canteen to buy her food and bottled water as it was approaching noon then. When I got there, everything was in a tizzy. I saw other colleagues in groups talking in hushed tones and gesturing a lot. When the mother saw me, she flew into my arms and cried. She pleaded with me to arrange an ambulance to transfer her son to another hospital as the one he's in was under renovation. So to assuage her about his safety, I made the request. While waiting for the paperwork, I shared with her the lunch I brought. Soon, we were on our way to the other hospital. When the son was finally in his new room with his mother, wife and son, I bid them adieu. Within the next few minutes, a few colleagues streamed into the room and warned the mother I was part of the plot to kill her son. Reason: I was so calm and even managed to bring her food and drinks. Since I was so self-assured about the incident, I must have had prior knowledge of it. Ergo! I must be involved in planning it! And this was what I got for being thoughtful, a boy scout and a Red Cross trained volunteer!

FOUR: I have anosmia, a term I learned from Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses. I don't know exactly when I started losing my sense of smell, but I remember as a young boy waking up every morning and sneezing. In elementary my adenoids were operated on. In high school, what started as allergic rhinitis had escalated to sinusitis. My anosmia was weird because I smelled extreme aromas and odors only. I could detect whiffs of strong perfumes and revolting decaying garbage; nothing in between. After polyps were surgically removed from my nasal passages three years ago, I began sensing again to a limited degree the in-between-smells. Thank God for small mercies. Now I can enjoy my meals better. Now I can smell the scent of Ilang-ilang the whole day and dama de noche at night wafting from my garden.

FIVE: My drawing skills are limited to eyes only. My drawing pads are filled with eyes, mine and others. I can't draw any other body part, much more an entire body. I'm learning Chinese water color painting this summer. And eyes are difficult to draw with a Chinese brush!

SIX: I collect various versions of my favorite songs: Windmills of your mind, Meditation from Thais, Adagio by Albinioni, Who can I turn to?, What matters most, What kind of fool am I?, Ode to Joy, Try to remember, While my guitar gently weeps, Somewhere over the rainbow, I'm always chasing rainbows, Both sides now, and many more. In college, I scrimped on my weekly allowance so I could arrange with the record bar to record a cassette tape of Windmills versions.