That Name Sounds Familiar

Song 245: This week A Simple Desultory Philippic by Simon and Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon, takes the spot as the playlist entry. During my HS days, I spent a number of good Saturday afternoons hanging with my buddy Ed (who I mentioned in Song 243 post from 2 weeks ago for his video camera work on the But video) listening to his Simon and Garfunkel collection, and I soon got to know all of their albums by heart. I truly enjoyed Paul Simon's lighter side, even though I didn't quite recognize all of the names the first few times around. I felt I should know all, or most of them, and being a fan of the Mamas and the Papas, I did know who Lou Adler was, plus I recognized Roy Halee from the credits on the SnG LPs, but it took a while for me to connect Mick Jagger as the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. As I noted in that post from 2 weeks ago (Subterranean Homesick Blues), I also didn't hear any Dylan recordings until I got to college, so while I recognized some references to Dylan, I didn't know how much this track is really a parody of Bob. As I got to know Dylan's records very well, I also came to appreciate an additional level to the understated humor of this track. Further on, in the fall of '74, I read Atlas Shrugged and a few more pieces by Ms. Rand, but at the time, I was still mispronouncing her first name, like many people do, as if it rhymed with Stan. A year or 2 after that, listening to this track, I realized that Paul Simon had shown us, a long time ago, that her first name actual rhymes with sign. By then, I also felt like I'd been Ayn Randed but had gotten past it, maybe because I too had learned the truth from Lenny Bruce. On a side note, I crafted this piece today as a companion to my political blog entry entitled Ayn Randed which appears on both Politics 106 and Daily Kos.