Paul Simon’s “Seven Psalms”

            When I saw a review of a new Paul Simon album in a recent New Yorker, I was mildly interested.  But then I began reading:

            “On January 15^th, 2019, Paul Simon dreamed that he was working on a piece called “Seven Psalms.”  He got out of bed and scribbled the phrase — alliterative, ancient feeling — into a spiral notebook. From then on Simon periodically woke between 3:30 and 5:00 AM to jot down bits of language. Songwriters often speak about their work as a kind of channeling- the job is to be a steady antenna prepared to receive strange signals. Some messages are more urgent than others. Simon started trying to make sense of what he was being told.

This month, Simon, who is 81, released “Seven Psalms,” his 15th solo album. It’s a beautiful mysterious record composed of a single thirty-three-minute acoustic track divided into seven movements…”[i]

            The article itself is so well-written – and full of fascinating comments about Paul Simon’s lifelong spiritual journey – that I’ve reread it several times. (“Pleasant Sorrows’ review) I ordered the CD, and when it came, began listening. (Streaming options can be found on PaulSimon.com)  There is that unmistakable voice – a voice many of us have known for decades. At 81, it sounds strong and humble, quiet and clear; he’s not trying to get us up dancing or score a #1 hit, but simply sharing the evocative thoughts, phrases, and questions that have come to him.

            I alerted several friends.  After repeated listening, one described it as “mesmerizing.”  Another sent a link to a recent interview with Simon on CBS Sunday Morning.[ii]

It begins:

I’ve been thinking about the great migration
Noon and night, they leave the flock
And I imagine their destination
Nettle grass, jagged rock

He’s exploring this great mystery of life and death and what might lie beyond.

 He begins to sing about “the Lord:” 

The Lord is my engineer
The Lord is the earth I ride on
The Lord is a face in the atmosphere
The path I slip and I slide on

And a bit later:

The Lord is a virgin forest
The Lord is a forest ranger
The Lord is a meal for the poorest of the poor
A welcome door to the stranger

Some verses echo familiar religious images, while others are contemporary:

The Covid virus is The Lord
The Lord is the ocean rising
The Lord is a terrible swift sword
A simple truth, surviving

“The Lord” is one of the most common titles for God in English – it is used 6,753 times in the King James Bible.  There are dozens of names for God in Hebrew, and “the Lord” has been used to cover many of them; no doubt English translators wanted to convey a sense of higher authority, and “Lord” fit.  But the most evocative definition is found in Exodus 3.  Moses is alone in the wilderness and is addressed by a voice from a “bush that was blazing, but not consumed.”  A dialogue with this mysterious voice ensues, and at one point Moses asks what name he should use for this one who is speaking to him. He’s given a name that is also a riddle; it has been translated as “I am that I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” or “He who brings things into being.”[iii]  This sense of “the Lord” comes to my mind as I listen to Seven Psalms – the name for a presence that goes beyond everyday language and expectations; close enough to whisper to us, but forever elusive.

Simon describes a turning point in his own “migration:”

I lived a life of pleasant sorrows
Until the real deal came
Broke me like a twig in a winter gale
Call me by my name
And in that time of prayer and waiting
Where doubt and reason dwell
A jury sat deliberating
All is lost
Or all is well

He refers to one who, 3,000 years ago, also shaped feelings into sounds:

The sacred harp
That David played to make his songs of praise
We long to hear those strains
That set his heart ablaze

Toward the end, he sings:
Life is a meteor
Let your eyes roam
Heaven is beautiful
It’s almost like home
Children, get ready
It’s time to come home

When asked, Simon refuses to let his current perspective be defined by any particular religious tradition or spiritual identity. He is simply passing on what he was given.

As I listen to Seven Psalms, I keep thinking about that first dream that woke him, and the times before daybreak when he was “receiving” these prompts and words.  Where were they coming from? What is on the other side of our ordinary awareness?  Just our personal unconscious, always stirring and searching?  Or a shared, collective unconscious, where, like a grove of aspen trees, we are all connected in ways we can’t conceive and from which we create art for the benefit of one another?  What is that spiritual force that seems to exist within and beyond all of it, which, at unexpected times, offers us gifts of insight and mysteries to ponder? 

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[i] “Pleasant Sorrows: The mysticism of Paul Simon,” Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, June 5, 2023, (“Pleasant Sorrows’ review)

[ii] https://www.cbsnews.com/video/paul-simon-on-seven-psalms-and-dreams/

[iii] The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, Jewish Publication Society, pg. 17; The Hebrew Bible, Volume 1: The Five Books of Moses, pg. 222, translated and commentary by Robert Alter.

Lead image: Paul Simon, Seven Psalms

Lower image: David a la Harpe, Marc Chagall, 1stdibs.com