In sorrow a beautiful song
Lives in the heart and sings for all
Your forgiveness
Inside the digital mind
A homeless soul ponders the code
Of forgiveness
–Paul Simon, Your Forgiveness
I woke up last night and caught Paul Simon‘s appearance on the Stephen Colbert show. He was promoting an upcoming documentary, In Restless Dreams, about his long and illustrious career and had a lot of things to say that I found interesting, both as a fan and as an artist.
For example, he talked about how sometimes a song comes quickly, seemingly without effort. The song he mentioned was Slip Slidin’ Away, which he said was written in less than half an hour. Colbert asked if any doubt about the quality of the song appears when a song is created so quickly and easily. Simon responded that it was, in fact, the opposite, that it was good because it flowed out so easily. It was ready to say what it had to say.
I have had that same experience as a painter. Sometimes a piece just flies off the brush without a struggle or any indecision. These paintings usually hold up well after time has passed.
They have that innate sense of rightness that I often write about here.
That is something that Simon also spoke about, how he is not looking for perfection in writing a song. He’s looking for it to just feel right in his ear.
He mentioned that after writing something, that the ear begins to go to the irritant. He begins to only hear the things in that song that don’t please his ear and he goes about trying to rid the song of those irritants.
I never thought of my painting in those terms but my eye certainly seeks the irritant when I am working. I think anyone who has ever created anything can attest that their eye almost always goes first to the mistakes left in their creation. A big part of my work is spotting and getting rid of those things– stray brush marks, flat spots, wonky lines, etc– that irk my eye.
It is basically about pruning out the points of wrongness until you get to a sense of rightness that pleases your eye.
Does that make it a good painting or a good song?
Probably not. But getting to a certain point of rightness needs to be done in order to create a good painting or song.
I am including the full extended interview with Paul Simon below. It is much more detailed and in-depth, having everything that is edited from the on-air interview. There is also a song that he performed from his most recent album, Seven Psalms. The song is Your Forgiveness and it is a beautiful piece, the product of a mature artist with a lifetime of experience behind them. Worth a few minutes of your time.
Redtree Times 