Remembering When a Kindred Spirit Helped Paul Simon Mess up His Traditional Sound on an Unforgettable LP in 2006

“Nothing is different, but everything’s changed,” Paul Simon sings in the song “Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean”. The line is an excellent summation of Surprise, the 2006 Simon album that contains that particular song.

On the one hand, Simon’s sprawling, confessional narratives on the album were very much in keeping with the rest of his solo work. But the LP’s experimentation with electronics, spurred on by a big-name collaborator, represented a stark change in approach from the legendary singer-songwriter.

Ready for a Change

Like other artists who stood at the forefront of the singer-songwriter movement in the early 70s, Paul Simon reached a point in the 2000s where hit singles were no longer a realistic possibility. That freed him up to try different methods of making music to captivate his longtime fans.

Of course, Simon had long been willing to change up his tactics to keep his songs fresh. For example, his incorporation of world music touches on Graceland in 1986 brought him to a new career peak at a time when many wondered if he could still hang with pop music’s heavyweights.

Simon spent a good chunk of the early part of the 2000s focused on live shows with Art Garfunkel. When he came out of that somewhat nostalgic time period, he perhaps was looking for a departure from his traditional way of doing things. Brian Eno provided just what he was seeking.

Eno Knows

By the early 2000s, Eno’s reputation as the producer of choice for popular artists looking to do something to mess around with their well-known sounds a bit was well-established. When Simon met Eno, he found in the Brit just the right amount of irreverence and fearlessness to help perpetuate the desired transformation.

In an interview with USA Today (per Wikipedia), Simon explained how the two men set about their Surprise collaboration:

“We spent some time in his studio and decided to combine our visions. It took about two years. The actual time I spent with Brian was 20 days, split into four periods. We found we could really work intensely for five days, and after that it was a bit of a burnout.”

Simon loved the fact that Eno was just as much of a perfectionist when it came to finding the right sounds to accompany a song as he was. In the album credits for Surprise, Eno is credited with “electronics and sonic landscape.” And what a fascinating landscape it turned out to be.

A Thrilling ‘Surprise’

Surprise features Simon musing, at times comically (“Outrageous”), at times soberly (“Wartime Prayers”), on the state of the world and his place in it. The album is also replete with some of his most penetrating character sketches.

Eno’s presence can be felt in the twitchy programmed beats and the electronic noises fluttering about the perimeter of each song. The two men seamlessly combined those experimental elements with live players. There’s not a miss on the album. And the high points, including the stunning “Another Galaxy”, will leave you agape.

Simon and Eno only worked together on this single album. But Surprise pointed the way towards Simon’s future solo albums. They share with it an adventurous spirit and a willingness to combine traditional words and melodies with modern techniques to achieve the most memorable sonic templates.

(Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)