Working on a Song
For his first 6 years of trying to be a songwriter, Paul Simon wrote terrible songs. “They were all terrible,” his biographer Robert Hilburn said, “I found his old demos—there’s about 50 of them—and it’s unbelievable: there isn’t one good song.” Finally, in the fall of 1963, Simon made a vow: After spending those first 6 years mostly “copying what
... See moreMichiko Kakutani wrote a piece on the show for The New York Times in which I was quoted as saying, “Our process ended up being not unlike Seurat’s. We had to wait until all the dots filled the canvas … before we could step back and look at what we made. You go through the process of doing what you do, and then finally, you just have to put it up th
... See moreJames Lapine • Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George
Dancers need music, but walkers are their own music.
W. A. Mathieu • The Listening Book
Wilson proposed that a booklet of Sonny’s notes be included with the record—a very unusual practice then or now, as musicians are seldom trusted to explain their own work—and he took full advantage of it, filling it with his poetry and various musings. Yet when Sonny suggested the notes be titled “Preparation for Outer Space,” Wilson thought he was
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