So Beautiful or So What is the twelfth solo studio album by American folk rock singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was released on April 8, 2011, by Hear Music.
The album found Simon reuniting with former collaborator and record producer Phil Ramone. Having experimented with rhythm-based textures for much of the previous two decades, the singer returned to composing songs in a more traditional manner using only his acoustic guitar. These songs were further augmented by experimental recording practices in the studio. The album was largely recorded in a small cottage at Simon's home in New Canaan, Connecticut.
The music of So Beautiful or So What features West African blues-inspired guitar playing, Indian-style percussion, and experimentation with samples, which ranged from an excerpt from a 1941 sermon to nighttime ambience in Kenya. The songs were recorded with little bass but with a very large presence of bells. Much of Simon's lyrics touch on themes of spirituality and mortality, which Simon said was unintentional and resulted naturally in his songwriting process for the album.
So Beautiful or So What received widespread acclaim from critics, many of whom considered it Simon's best work in two decades. It later appeared on many year-end lists of the year's best records. The album also became his highest US chart debut at the time, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and charted within the top ten in nine other countries.
Recording and production
For So Beautiful or So What, Simon reunited with record producer and former collaborator Phil Ramone, who previously worked with him on Simon & Garfunkel's 1982 live album The Concert in Central Park. According to Simon, the reunion came casually; he told Ramone when they met each other that he was beginning to work on a new album and, as Ramone lived in the next town, they decided it would be easy to work together again. Simon recorded the album at his small cottage in New Canaan, Connecticut. The recording sessions often consisted solely of Simon, Ramone, and engineer Andy Smith. Throughout the production of the record, the album's engineers would gradually make upgrades to the space during months off. As it was not acoustically designed or soundproofed, Smith often employed iZotope RX software to rid the recordings of extra noise, such as an oak tree above the home from which acorns fell, interrupting recordings. Keeping in line with his experimental attitude, Simon decided to record the acorns, remarking, "All sounds are musical once you start to listen." Occasionally, Simon would record in the control room instead. Like all of Simon's output from his 1997 effort Songs from The Capeman onward, the album was recorded digitally using Pro Tools.
Much time was spent on getting guitars to sound as Simon preferred. A bit of experimentation among the additional session players occurred, from which Simon would edit himself, compiling them together or often deleting them altogether. Many songs were recorded with a hand-built cigar-box guitar, which Simon bought from Mississippi blues musician Super Chikan. Analogue effects were applied before recording digitally to keep mixes simple; this method also inspired Simon while arranging the songs. Smith would burn Simon a compact disc each evening of the day's session, and he would return the next day with notes on the recordings. This resulted in mixes being created as the album developed, rather than at the end of the process. Simon and Ramone often listened to their recordings while driving around, noting what would need changes.
The album's production lasted over a year. Additional recording took place at Simon's summer home in Montauk, New York on Long Island, but less so than his previous efforts. Home recording, as Ramone told Sound on Sound shortly after the album's release, required a certain discipline. Simon would often arrive in the morning and recording until nightfall. Percussion and vocals were overdubbed at Germano Studios. The Indian ensemble on "Dazzling Blue" was recorded at Clinton Studios in New York City, while a bluegrass ensemble was cut at Tony Bennett’s New Jersey studio. Simon’s wife, Edie Brickell, and his teenage daughter Lulu contributed harmonies, while Chris Bear of indie rock band Grizzly Bear contributed electronic drum parts to the album.
Simon financed the recording of So Beautiful or So What himself after being released from his 30-year record contract with Warner Bros. Records. After the recording sessions were finished, he signed a deal with Concord Music Group to distribute the album. Simon said, "It's the best work I've done in 20 years." The cover art, titled "DNA Mutation", was designed by visual artist and NASA systems engineer Sven Geier.
Music and lyrics
So Beautiful or So What finds Simon returning to more harmonic-based compositions than rhythm-based. This was spurred from when he realized his favorite song on his 2006 effort Surprise, "Everything About It Is a Love Song", contained a chord progression he found particularly interesting. After coming to this realization, he focused on the album's three ballads, "Questions for the Angels", "Amulet", and "Love and Hard Times". Unlike his previous rhythm-based albums, in which he would gain inspiration for his guitar parts from pre-recorded backing tracks, Simon took a more traditional approach to building the songs on So Beautiful or So What. He wrote songs at home before developing them further in the studio with the help of a natural click track, such as "a percussion instrument, or even just tapping out a rhythm on his guitar". He overdubbed additional elements afterwards, including additional guitar parts and percussion. Simon began envisioning the album's sequencing when he only had a few songs written, letting it inform his songwriting.
The music for So Beautiful or So What was inspired by West African blues, which Simon combined with "Indian drumming, Old Hollywood strings and bluegrass harmony singing". The songs employ a wide variety of samples, including from older blues and gospel recordings. "Love Is Eternal Sacred Light" contains a harmonica sample from Sonny Terry, and "Love and Blessings" lifts from The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet. Simon did not want to record an ordinary studio album and instead, according to Ramone, wanted "lots of space with lots of atmosphere and feeling ... Rather than go for hugely orchestrated ideas he was going, for example, for overtones in bells and gongs. Or if a sax or a kora comes in, they're there to do something specific, and not to fill in the space." The album's music is also largely devoid of heavy bass (some tracks actually using a baritone guitar instead), and drums are very quiet and reserved. Smith said percussion instruments, including exotic bells, ancient hand bells, and glockenspiels, were Simon's favorite to record with for the album. In using bells to augment the sound, Simon put them behind certain guitar notes to “highlight” the sound, as he wanted the recordings to be devoid of echo; he found that using bells created only a slight echo, with an odd, atmospheric tone that he preferred. Drummer Jim Oblon placed towels over each drums to emphasize the higher-frequency percussive instruments.
The songs on So Beautiful or So What touch on subjects such as love, mortality, and faith. In terms of songwriting, Simon did not approach each new song with a theme; instead, he let them evolve naturally from the first line he would compose. Simon had no plans to pursue religious writing, but it ended up particularly strong in the album's lyrics. He noted that "five of the first six" songs he wrote touched on themes of God: "I wondered whether there was a subconscious theme that I was tapping into. I have used Christian symbols and imagery before in songs. It’s very strongly evocative, so it may just be coincidence—but it may not be." The A.V. Club suggested that the album's gospel influence inspired the touch of humor when discussing dark subjects such as death.
"Getting Ready for Christmas Day" was one of the album's earliest completed songs, and it contains a sample from a 1941 sermon by the Reverend J.M. Gates. The sermon inspired the song's creation, with a certain rhythmic tone to his oration that interested him. Simon heard the sermon on a box set titled Goodbye Babylon, which consists early 20th century Americana. It came together quicker than other songs, with Simon recording his guitar live. The track also references his nephew, who served multiple tours in the Iraq War. "The Afterlife" concerns a man dying and getting to heaven, where he waits in line to meet with God, where everyone is "filling out forms and waiting in line to catch 'a glimpse of the divine.'" While in line, he unsuccessfully hits on a woman. When he finally meets God, he is taken aback, and can only spout gibberish. The point of the song is that having questions for God would cease to be relevant if one were to confront God face-to-face due to the enormity of such a theoretical situation.
"Dazzling Blue" is based on his relationship with wife Edie Brickell, and the title references her favorite color. "The CAT scan's eye sees what the heart's concealing", sang Simon over African cadences and Indian tablas, before marvelling at how his wife and he "were born beneath a star of dazzling blue". He said the song reminded him of his work as a part of Simon & Garfunkel. "Rewrite" features segments of recordings made on a small digital recorder by Brickell on a 2009 family trip together in Kenya. Simon was frustrated over the guitar tone in his song and attached the sound of a wildebeest to a certain guitar note each time it occurred, in an effort to create an interesting sound. The song contains nighttime ambience recorded during the trip. It was written about a burned out Vietnam veteran imagining that he could rewrite his life, in order to give it a happy ending. "Love and Hard Times" is an affirmation of love for Brickell. The beginning of the song references “God and his only son” visiting Earth. Simon noted that the song's thesis is being thankful at the highest level. The track contains orchestral arrangement from Gil Goldstein, which was recorded at Avatar Studios, as Ramone wanted a larger room to record in.
"Questions for the Angels" includes a reference to American rapper Jay-Z, which was inspired by a billboard featuring him that was present over the Brooklyn Bridge for a time. Simon mentioned that he would pass it on his way to the Brooklyn Academy of Music when they were holding a month-long celebration of his music in April 2008. Simon included the line to create a sharp transition from angels in Heaven to a downtown Brooklyn street. "So Beautiful or So What" contains what Simon once admitted is "one of [his] favorite Bo Diddley rhythms", and the song's title references Miles Davis's "So What". The title is a question Simon envisioned when facing the enormity of the infinite. The song almost became a collaboration with Bob Dylan; Simon felt two verses might be nice for him and sent him a message through their mutual manager. Although Dylan said that he liked the song, Simon did not hear back in sufficient time, as the album was on a deadline.
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