Paul Simon has never been one to mince words about the music that he liked. Even at the expense of his own catalogue, Simon was known to be particularly merciless when it came to certain songs, even saying that a handful of his songs weren’t exactly what they were meant to be. Although Simon had an axe to grind with many flawed songs, he thought that one of the greatest songwriters of his generation had a few issues with one of his classics.
Before Simon started making his own classics, though, he was still honing his craft as the duo Tom and Jerry with Art Garfunkel. Taking the sounds of traditional folk and putting a slight rock and roll twist on it, most of the band’s output fell on deaf ears before they hit upon ‘The Sound of Silence’. Featuring a disquieting outlook on the world, Simon had created one of the anthems of the 1960s, only for it to be forgotten until it got a rock and roll makeover.
Even though Simon had a major song on his hands, his heroes had already been making classics for years. Outside of the apparent influences on Simon like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had first opened the public up to the idea of making songs that didn’t have to cater to the traditional love song formula, featuring songs with layered meanings behind them.
While McCartney was known as the primary pop songwriter of the band, Lennon had his sights set on something more cerebral than the traditional structure. Throughout the rest of The Beatles’ tenure and into his solo material, Lennon would begin incorporating different artistic concepts that no one had touched on, including his first protest songs like ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and ‘Revolution’.
Of Lennon’s protest songs, ‘Power to the People’ remains one of his most celebrated, featuring a massive chorus and encouraging the power to return to the common man rather than the corporate higher-ups. While the song may have gotten a rise out of many people, Simon was less than impressed with what Lennon had to offer.
When talking about the song’s legacy, Simon thought Lennon didn’t take it anywhere, saying, “It’s a poor record, a condescending record. Like all of these cliche phrases. They’re dangerous. What does that mean – ‘Power to the People’? And who is he saying it to? Is he saying it to people who have any idea what it means?”.
As the 1970s had begun, though, Simon was about to take on a much different career trajectory than Lennon. While the former Beatle would make various political songs before taking a break from music, Simon would hone his strengths as a writer, using complex chords to create sophisticated pop songs like ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’.
Even though Simon had harsh words for how Lennon wrote his protest anthem, he would still count him among his favourite songwriters, putting him on the higher tiers of writers he had ever heard. Simon may have disagreed with the mechanics of what Lennon was doing, but ‘Power to the People’ has still given hope to those who feel like their voices need to be heard.
