Customer Reviews

You're the One

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What are these other reviewers listening to? I wonder what they would say if they lived with this music for a little while. I will be the first to admit that Paul Simon's music can be uneven, but I don't see that with You're the One -not at all. The humor of Old, the passion of Love, the conversation style. You gotta give it at least a three for those alone. But I certainly don't need to defend one of America's songwriting treasures. You will enjoy the subtlety and genius of You're the One.

I simply don't understand how the reception for this CD was so poor.

While I admit I thought a few of the songs odd on a first or even third hearing ("Pigs, Sheep and Wolves" and "You're the One" namely), the lyrics are every bit as good as any of Simon's other works. Since purchasing the album I have listened to it well over 200 times and am blown away with how beautiful the words are.

"Nature gives us shapeless shapes
Clouds and waves and flame
But human expectation
Is that love remains the same.
And when it doesn't
We point our fingers
And blame blame blame."

"All the trees were washed with April rain,
And the moon in the meadow
Took darling Lorraine"

"You want to be a leader?
You want to change the game?
Turn your back on money
Walk away from fame
You want to be a missionary?
Got that missionary zeal?
Let a stranger change your life
How does it make you feel?
You want to be a writer
But you don't know how or when
Find a quiet place
Use a humble pen."


The lyrics speak for themselves. 5 stars. As few artists in the past 20 years has produced such lyrics, why would this album receive any less than 5 stars?

And this is not to mention the instrumentality, which is deceivingly simply--especially in "The Teacher."

When this came out, I was really disappointed... kept thinking of Graceland and it just didn't seem to match up. But years later, I'm listening to it again and I find it very different but aslo really intriguing. I'm so glad I kept the CD.

I loved this album, lyrically and muscially. Unusual in that it speaks to a person in middle age phase of life. Quiet has a profound depth that is really stirring, You're the One speaks truth about relationships that fail. Inspirational.

It's hard to elucidate how one could rate a song higher than so many of Paul Simon's masterpieces such as "Emily, wherever..." "Some Folks Lives", "American Tune" (borrowed from a Bach chorale), "America" with Garfunkel, "Hearts and Bones", "How the Heart Approaches"....and many other unsung titles. But here I do that very thing; "Darling Lorraine","Senorita with a Necklace of Tears", "Quiet", "Love"...just to name four are transcendent masterpieces of sound and text, possibly his greatest. The poetry (aka lyrics) of most of the songs on "You're the One" is evidence of a songwriter's craft which is so far beyond anything else on the so-called Pop market, as to make the whole music business (an oxymoron) seem so crass, shallow, and bereft of those soul-strumming notes of literature which we miss if we love Shakespeare even slightly.
Half of this album is the best and most mature work of this profound artist's career. Purchase it, listen in a quiet room with no distractions, learn the words, let it open slowly and illumine your heart...it is a sublime creation full of love for the irony of life and conversely the beauty of whole of the universe....and by the way, the love of God. It is sublime again, like a view of a new galaxy.

Paul Simon never disappoints. Like his other albums, he takes his musical wisdom into a realm that is uniquely "You're the One". Beautiful!!!

I'm not one for reviews, so this is going to be short. I was initially reluctant about this album. I don't really know why. I kind of listened to it here and there, but not truly listening. But once I sat down and listened to it, I was surprised at how good the album is. There are some low points, but I still think this is a great Paul Simon album. And better than the Capeman album.

Having seen Paul Simon interviewed at the New Yorker Festival a few months in advance of this album's release, I was already familiar with the superb song "Darling Lorraine," which he performed there. This song still strikes me as one of the most flawless in his extraordinary body of work. I waited with bated breath for the album's release. Imagine my dismay when I found that the one song I had already heard was the only one I really liked. "You're the One" is still very, very good--it is, after all, by Paul Simon. The problem with this album, for me, is that it is so cerebral, and the production is so slick, that at times the material seems to have had the life sucked out of it. I would recommend that in addition to buying the CD, you also purchase the live DVD (Paul Simon - You're the One (In Concert from Paris)), since it seems to me that the live versions of these songs have an energy, and a passion about them, that is too often absent from the original studio tracks.

I know I am late to this party, but, if you read this, skip the CD, get the concert DVD, "Paul Simon - You're the One, Paris 2000". There is much more on it. Rip it with a DVD audio ripper to get your mp3's or your music CD.

When I was in high school, in 1967, my English teacher asked the class to name our top five favorite poets. I submitted these, in alphabetical order:
1. Chuck Berry
2. Bob Dylan
3. Lennon/McCartney
4. Smokey Robinson
5. Paul Simon
Although she gave me Dylan, she wanted to know what made the rest poets. Then, in front of God and everybody, asked me to defend my case. As she was indignant about my other choices, so was I about having to defend them, but I pushed on, stating that each was a progression, if you will, of luminaries who came before, equating Berry with Langston Hughes, Dylan with Walt Whitman, Lennon/McCartney with Robert Browning, Robinson with Maya Angelou,and Simon with Robert Frost. I won my case, proving that, though there are differences in subject matter, the new guys served the same purpose as the old guys. My teacher became a noted poet in her own right later. Some forty-two years later, my argument is as valid now as it was then. That said, why did WEA release this album on their oldies label?