Paul Simon “Train In The Distance” | Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Train In The Distance

Paul Simon “Train In The Distance”

"I’m seeing Paul Simon for the first time at the Vic Theater tonight, and I’m pretty excited given it’s a living legend in a smallish venue (see also, Bob Dylan, Ray Davies). I like his new album, So Beautiful Or So What quite a bit. But if I were to pick a favorite Paul Simon album, it would be 1983’s Hearts and Bones. Overlooked and undervalued at the time, and probably even still, its best songs, “Hearts and Bones,” “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War,” “The Late Great Johnny Ace” stand among the best things he’s ever done, with or without that tall, frizzy-haired guy. But this is probably my favorite, a hushed oooh-ooohing meditation about falling in and out of love, a subject done to death, but never quite like this:

Two disappointed believers
Two people playing the game
Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts and our brains
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it’s true

I’ve cheated by looking at previous set lists to know that he hasn’t been playing this on this tour. But it’s here so he doesn’t have to."

This is plain lovely and Simon at his songwriting best (of course) What LRDM says here is true and heartfelt though he quotes from  skritchskritch-taptap: 

Le Ramasseur De Mégots