Deep Background Presents Miracle And Wonder: Conversations With Paul Simon

Presenting: An Excerpt from Miracle And Wonder: Conversations With Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam. Download the audiobook today at miracleaudiook.com and receive an exclusive listener's guide pdf featuring additional commentary from Bruce, the producers and editors of Miracle and Wonder.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hello, Hello podcast listeners. Malcolm Glabble here. As you know,
I'm the president of Pushkin Industries. What you might not
know is that I've been a fan of Paul Simon
since i was a wee little Malcolm, and recently I
sat down with Paul Simon and my oldest friend and
the co host the Broken Record podcast, Bruce Hedlam to

(00:38):
create a new audiobook, Miracle and Wonder Conversations with Paul Simon.
Miracle and Wonder is the product of thirty hours of
sessions with one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
We talked about his life growing up in Queens, his influences,
and the sources of his extraordinary creativity. This isn't a biography.

(01:00):
There are two perfectly good biographies out there already. Miracle
and Wonder is an audio biography at Shed's new light
on all Simon's life in his own words and through
his own music. You can go to Miracle audiobook dot com,
enter your email and payment. You'll then receive an email

(01:20):
and follow the easy instructions and Miracle and Wonder will
be added to your favorite podcast app. Now, I'd like
to play you a chapter a Miracle and wonder. I
think you'll hear and understand why I and so many
others consider him to be one of the greatest musicians
and songwriters of all time. You know, listen to this story.

(01:45):
This is quite amazing. I took a trip on the
Amazon and we stopped in this village. It didn't even
have any roads, and there's a girl who's sitting in
there and she's practicing a nylon string guitar. So I
listened for a while, and then we say to her
and I said, I know a South American song, and

(02:06):
I play Dud Daddy dudd but and she says, I
know an American song. I say, really yeah. He goes,

(02:31):
this is Malcolm Gladwell. That's Paul Simon talking to me
and my friend and colleague Bruce Headlam. A moment I
never believed could happen. I've been a fan of my life.
The very first pop music I ever remember hearing was
Simon and Garfuncle. It was nineteen seventy I was seven,
and now fifty years later, here he was having lunch

(02:53):
with me. I asked him, what do you think of
sitting down and having an extended conversation about your career?
You know what I'm gonna stand I'm gonna stand up.
He liked the idea. I think this is going to
be a contest. Let's just check to retort. I enlisted

(03:14):
my oldest friend, Bruce had them to help with the interviewing,
because Bruce knows a lot more about music than I do.
But what do I think? I think the second one
is the Martin and the first one is your favorite guitarist, Gurian.
We met nine times. We'd listen to music and Paul
would play and tell stories. Each conversation lasted four, sometimes

(03:34):
five hours. Missus Robinson was a little snatch of blues
singing talking. That's a lick. That's not too different from
arguing teaching to either girl with the damn on ring.
So we took all these conversations and wove them into
something entirely new. It's part memoir, part biography, part investigation

(03:58):
into the heart of creativity. I have no anxiety about
running out of ideas. You don't have that at all. No,
I think another idea, you want another idea, Okay, here's another,
here's another idea. In our time with him, Paul talked
about doo wop and queens and his dad, and a
million other things. I thought that the idea of Earth
Angel was so lyrically spectacular. I can remember trying to

(04:20):
explain it to my father, do you get it? And
Earth Angel? What he thinks of all the different cover
versions of his songs about the countless people he's collaborated
with over the years. I learned early on that you
can ask musicians to write in somebody else's handwriting. And
about the day he hung it all up after I

(04:41):
finished the album Stranger to Stranger and was like literally
a click that said I'm done, But you weren't done. No,
I wasn't. This is Paul Simon as you've never heard
him before, the stories and songs behind an unbelievable life

(05:05):
in music. Pull up your chair and listen. In lip
Sliding Away, there's still the big mystery of why this happens,
and it's just a great mystery. I love it. I
love that mystery. Shong memorial Slip Sliding Away. You can

(05:25):
buy Miracle and Wonder at Miracle audiobook dot Com, Audible
and everywhere audiobooks are sold. Hometown. You wore his passion
for