A man sits in a New York studio with a notebook full of songs about leaving, losing, and laughing at himself. Paul Simon, the former Simon & Garfunkel songwriter, was about to release his fourth solo album, Still Crazy After All These Years, on October 25, 1975. The record arrived on Columbia Records with ten tracks, five per side, and every one of them written by Simon alone.
The title track and its confession
So why did the most careful songwriter of his generation call himself crazy? Part of the answer is in the title track, a wry confession of a man who keeps making the same mistakes and is old enough to know better. Another part is in the company he kept. Simon produced the album with Phil Ramone at A&R Recording in New York, and he filled the sessions with jazz players, gospel singers, and a rhythm section from Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
The result was a pop record that sounded like nobody else's. The Belgian harmonica player Toots Thielemans played on it. Michael Brecker took a tenor saxophone solo on the title song, and Phil Woods played alto on 'Have a Good Time'. Backing vocals came from Patti Austin and Valerie Simpson, and the Jessy Dixon Singers added gospel weight to several tracks.
Duets and the Muscle Shoals section
Still Crazy After All These Years was not a quiet, inward singer-songwriter album. It was a New York record full of other people's breath. 'Gone at Last' became a duet with Phoebe Snow, the singer who shared the duet, and the single reached number 23. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, the Alabama rhythm section, drove two of the songs.
The biggest surprise was '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover'. The song, with its deadpan list of exits and its slinky groove, went to number one in the United States. The song proved he could write a hit without his old partner. But the album also brought that partner back. 'My Little Town', credited to Simon & Garfunkel, was their first joint recording since 1970, and it climbed to number 9.
Three singles, three chart jobs
The title song itself only reached number 40 as a single, but it became the album's quiet centre. Simon sang about surviving his own restlessness. The song did not beg for attention, and that was the point. The album did not need a hit title track because it already had three singles doing different jobs in different corners of the chart.
The industry noticed. In 1976 the album won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and Simon took another Grammy for best male pop vocal performance. The record also topped the American Billboard Pop Albums chart, and it went on to sell well enough for gold status in the United States and the United Kingdom, and platinum in Canada. The album also found listeners beyond North America. It reached number 6 in the United Kingdom, number 8 in Norway, and number 9 in Sweden. In the Netherlands it climbed to number 11, and in Japan it made number 18 on the Oricon chart. The record sold well enough to earn gold certification in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its original vinyl pressing carried the catalogue number PC 33540.
What makes the anniversary worth remembering is not the trophies. It is the sound of a songwriter opening his process to other musicians and finding a bigger version of himself. Simon had spent years working mostly alone. On Still Crazy After All These Years he let a saxophonist, a choir, and a soul rhythm section live inside those worlds with him.
Fifty-one years later, the album still sounds like a man walking through New York with a wry smile, half amused and half exhausted by his own patterns. The final song, 'Silent Eyes', ends with the Chicago Community Choir singing behind him, the choir closing the record. Simon did not resolve his craziness. He just learned to share it.
Simon did not resolve his craziness. He just learned to share it.