Saturday April 3, 2021 “A Simple Desultory Philippic” Simon & Garfunkel

Here's our final lyrical examination but I have to tell you there are so many more on my list that we will have to come back to this topic sometime.

 I really chose this Simon & Garfunkel tune because, well I had absolutely no idea what a desultory philippic might actually be.  So for my benefit and anyone else who might be scratching their heads, here goes:  a philippic is a bitter attack, while desultory suggests a lack of a plan or enthusiasm.  My uneducated guess on the extended meaning is that when desultory and philipic are combined it is a bunch of hateful stuff that even the writer doesn’t really give a shit about.

 Still it’s amusing to join Paul Simon as he name checks so many folks from the 60’s and he has said about the ‘song’: "I was having fun. I thought it would be funny to use those unusual words 'desultory' and 'philippic,' in a song title, and I also wanted to sneak in some Lenny Bruce, who was my favorite comedian. That line, 'How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission,' is pure Lenny."

 The song is clearly a parody of Bob Dylan's writing style, especially that of "Subterranean Homesick Blues", released on Dylan's 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, and Simon obliquely references him with the Dylan Thomas reference and getting ‘stoned’ in the fourth verse and in his final verse he tells Albert (Grossman, Dylan’s agent) that he has lost his harmonica.

 Stay safe and well...and now we know what a desultory philippic is and have been Paul Simoned.

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored

I been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd

I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled 'til I'm blind

I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded

Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed

That's the hand I use, well, never mind

 I been Phil Spectored, resurrected

I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered

Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay

And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce

And all my wealth won't buy me health

So I smoke a pint of tea a day

 I knew a man, his brain was so small

He couldn't think of nothing at all

Not the same as you and me

He doesn't dig poetry

He's so unhip that when you say Dylan

He thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas

Whoever he was

The man ain't got no culture

But it's alright, ma, everybody must get stoned

 I been Mick Jaggered and silver daggered

Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?

I been mother, father, aunt and uncled

Been Roy Haleed and Art Garfunkeled

I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone

 Folk rock

I've lost my harmonica, Albert