Stupid Paul Simon

Sat in the office, listening to Simon & Garfunkel, and The Dangling Conversation comes on. Normally I skip over it, because I find it annoying. Here's why.

[NB - possibly of interest only to Simon & Garfunkel nuts. If you want to experience the full horror of this song, which was released as a single in an act of craziness that the sixties should be punished retrospectively for, it can be found on the less discerning Best Ofs, and lyrics can be found here. If you're not interested, put your fingers in your ears and hands over your eyes until I tell you to remove them.]

On the simplest level, he wants to write poetry, as he all but says in the song. This is because he's Important and Special and Clever. You can tell it's poetry, because it's dense with images, each more punchable than the last.

You can play the Paul Simon Game. He leaves a nice big gap after each line, presumably for you to contemplate what he's just said, and nod in recognition, but actually better put to use to insert a rejoinder, perhaps for

As we sit and drink our coffee/couched in our indifference

one might be tempted to add

Couch this, shortarse!

or similar.

Or to

And the dangling conversation

you could add

I'll dangle you in a minute - from a ROPE!

if feeling suitably violent.

Then at the end of the song, there's a hidden fourth verse, where Paul Simon slips out to have sex with a book of poetry. It was cut for reasons of length, and not taste.

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Those of a nervous disposition look away now - there's going to be the smuggest passage of writing ever in the history of humanity, and then, for balance, a photo of Art Garfunkel covered in rats.

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Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time.

T-W-A-T is what that spells. Really, Paul, really. Is your relationship really just like a poem?