Graham Reid | | 3 min read
When it comes to economy of images, Paul Simon has few equals, as this song illustrates. There are huge gaps the listener can fill.
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Delores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
And I know a father
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he'd done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again
He's slip slidin'
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
Mmm
Here Paul Simon is writing about characters with empathy, perhaps born of "knowing" them. There's the haiku-like economy of the verses. As with Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue, this is lyric-writing refined down to the essentials.
Ironically, he actually thinks there's already one verse too many.
"I wrote it very quickly. It took an hour to write the entire song. It was unusual to have it come so fast, probably the fastest I ever wrote anything.
"I always felt it had one too many verses. It has the man, the woman and the child. Then it has the "God only knows" verse. If I had the courage I would have edited that verse out.
"If I had found a more interesting way of arriving at that so that it felt like you were coming back to a place instead of feeling like you were on a long plateau, it would have been better.
"I didn't originate that title. It came from that Little Richard song Slippin' and Slidin'."
Slip Slidin' Away, Paul Simon, 1977
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For more one-off or unusual songs with an interesting backstory see From the Vaults.
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