Excerpt: 'Lyrics 1964-2008'

In the last pages of this book, you will encounter the songs of a writer no longer young, no longer at the top of the Billboard charts, but whose capacity for feeling and thought compressed into song has only deepened. In his maturity, he considers even the hardest thing with the serenity of the psalm writers. In "Quiet," Paul Simon is decades past youth, yet eager for the next chapter:

I am heading for a time of quiet
When my restlessness is past
And I can lie down on my blanket
And release my fists at last...
And I am heading for a place of quiet
Where the sage and sweet grass grow
By a lake of sacred water
From the mountain's melted snow.

-- David Remnick

Introduction copyright © 2008 by David Remnick