Paul Simon's third solo album and his most fully realized work — a suite of elegant, introspective songs that proved he didn't need Garfunkel or nostalgia. Recorded across two years with subtle session work, it's built on understatement rather than spectacle, a masterclass in letting air and space do the heavy lifting. Essential listening for anyone who thinks seventies pop had to be grandiose.
Paul Simon didn’t need to prove anything by 1975, but Still Crazy After All These Years proves it anyway — quietly, almost reluctantly, the way he’d been taught to work. Three years had passed since the Simon and Garfunkel reunion album; a decade since his last proper solo record. What he’d learned in that gap was how to trust silence.
The album was recorded in pieces, tracked at Electric Lady Studios in New York and the Record Plant in Los Angeles between late 1974 and early 1975. Phil Ramone produced most of it—the same Ramone who’d been threading needles with orchestration since the early sixties—but Simon kept things lean. A session drummer here, a bassist there, never the full weight of a rock band crashing down on these songs. When you listen closely, you hear the space between notes more than the notes themselves.
“Still Crazy” opens with maybe the best opening line of Simon’s career: “I met my old lover on the street last night.” Four words and you’re already inside something real, something that happened, not a metaphor wearing metaphor like a disguise. The song itself is built on restraint—electric piano, a walking bassline from session player Richard Tee, a snare that enters almost apologetically in the second verse. Art Garfunkel sings harmony, but barely; you almost miss him. That’s the whole trick.
The record holds together because Simon had finally figured out what he actually wanted to sound like without anyone else. “My Little Town,” a song he recorded with Garfunkel as a single before this album came out, points in that direction—tighter, meaner, less interested in being pretty. But here, on his own, he goes deeper. “Kodachrome” became a hit, which probably doesn’t matter to anyone who’s ever actually heard it, but it’s there on the album anyway, sounding almost like an afterthought among these heavier, more deliberate pieces.
The Sessions
Ramone had engineered countless records by then, and he knew when to push and when to leave the tape running and step back. Simon brought in session players who understood restraint: Richard Tee again, keyboardist Jon Faddis on trumpet for a few bars that matter, Emmett Chapman on a rhythm instrument called the electraharp that no one needed to use but Simon’s ear caught something in it. The arrangements were written but never overstuffed. When a horn enters, it’s because the song needed it to breathe, not because the budget allowed for the horn section.
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” became a single and a kind of anthem—that clicking track, that bassline, Urubamba (a Peruvian group) singing the chorus in a way that made it feel like something discovered rather than composed. It’s probably the most produced track here, the most obvious song, and it still sounds like something you’re overhearing rather than being sold.
The deeper cuts are where the album lives. “Night Game,” “Gone at Last,” “Have a Good Time"—these are the tracks that don’t have easy hooks, that require you to sit with them for a few listens before they give anything up. Simon’s voice on these recordings is older than it sounds on the early Simon and Garfunkel records, less mannered, less afraid of a flat note or a line that doesn’t resolve perfectly. He sounds like someone who’s actually lived the decade between 1965 and 1975, which is to say he sounds like himself.
By the end—"My Little Town” again, reprised here, or “I Do, It for Your Love,” a Robert Johnson cover that hangs in the air like a question that doesn’t expect an answer—you realize what made this album work. Simon had finally stopped reaching for something larger than the song itself. He’d learned that a great pop record in 1975 didn’t need to be a rock record, didn’t need drums that mimicked thunder or vocals that required a choir. Just attention. Just time. Just the sound of someone who knew what he was doing, doing it.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- Three years gap taught Simon how to trust silence completely.
- Recorded across two studios with minimal instrumentation, never full rock bands.
- Opening line delivers immediacy: met old lover on street last night.
- Art Garfunkel's harmony so subtle you almost miss it entirely.
- Simon finally discovered what he wanted to sound like alone.
Why does 'My Little Town' appear twice on the album?
It was recorded separately as a Simon-Garfunkel single before the album sessions began, released in October 1975. Simon included the original recording here; it's the only collaboration with Garfunkel on the album, appearing in full at track two and reprised as the closing track.
What's the 'electraharp' sound on some of these songs?
That's Emmett Chapman's electraharp, a touch-sensitive string instrument that predated modern synthesizers. Simon used it sparingly for textural color — it's present on tracks like 'Tenderness' and 'I Do It for Your Love,' adding an almost otherworldly shimmer without dominating the mix.
Why did this album take so long to record?
Simon was deliberate about pacing and didn't rush sessions. He worked with Phil Ramone over a five-month period, often completing just one or two tracks at a time rather than adopting the typical album-in-two-weeks approach of the era. This gave him space to rethink arrangements and vocal takes.
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