The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - The Happiness Lab Presents: Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Presenting: An Excerpt from Miracle And Wonder: Conversations With Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam. Download the audiobook today at miracleaudiobook.com and receive an exclusive listener's guide pdf featuring additional commentary from Bruce, the producers and editors of Miracle and Wonder. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. wee little Malcolm. And recently, I sat down with Paul Simon and my oldest friend and the co-host of the Broken Record Podcast, Bruce Hedlum, to create a new audiobook, Miracle and Wonder, Conversations with Paul Simon. Miracle and Wonder is the product of 30 hours of sessions with one of the greatest songwriters in music history. We talked about his life growing up in Queens, greatest songwriters in music history. We talked about his life growing up in Queens, his influences, and the sources of his extraordinary creativity. This isn't a biography. There are two perfectly good biographies out there already. Miracle and Wonder is an audio biography that sheds new light on Paul Simon's life in his own words and through his own music. You can go to miracleaudiobook.com, enter your email and payment. You'll then receive an email and follow the easy instructions

and Miracle & Wonder will be added to your favorite podcast app. Now, I'd like to play you a chapter of Miracle & Wonder. I think you'll hear and understand why I and so many others consider him to be one of the greatest musicians and songwriters of all time. You know, listen to this story. This is quite amazing. I took a trip on the Amazon and we stopped in this village. It didn't even have any roads. And there's a girl who's sitting in there and she's practicing a nylon string guitar.

So I listen for a while and then we say to her, I say, I know an American song. I say, really? Yeah. She goes. This is Malcolm Gladwell. That's Paul Simon talking to me and my friend and colleague Bruce Hedlum. A moment I never believed could happen.

I've been a fan all my life. The very first pop music I ever remember hearing was Simon & Garfunkel. It was 1970. I was seven. And now, 50 years later, here he was, having lunch with me. And now, 50 years later, here he was, having lunch with me. I asked him, what do you think of sitting down and having an extended conversation about your career? You know what? I'm going to stand. I'm going to stand up. He liked the idea.

It's going to be better. I think this is going to be a no contest, but let's just check the two guitars. I enlisted my oldest friend, Bruce Hedlum, to help with the interviewing, because Bruce knows a lot more about music than I do. What do I think? I think the second one is the Martin, and the first one is your favorite guitar.

Is it Gurian? Yeah. We met nine times. We'd listen to music, and Paul would play and tell stories. Each conversation lasted four, sometimes five hours. Mrs. Robinson was a little snatch of blues. Singing, talking. That's a lick that's not too different from...

Arguing, teaching. See the girl with the diamond ring. So we took all these conversations and wove them into something entirely new. It's part memoir, part biography, part investigation into the heart of creativity. I have no anxiety about running out of ideas. You don't have that at all? No. I think, another idea? You want another idea? Okay, here's another idea. In our time with him, Paul talked about doo-wop and Queens and his dad and a million other things. I thought that the idea of Earth Angel was so lyrically spectacular,

I can remember trying to explain it to my father. Do you get it? An Earth Angel! What he thinks of all the different cover versions of his songs, about the countless people he's collaborated with over the years. I learned early on that you can't ask musicians to write in somebody else's handwriting. And about the day he hung it all up. After I finished the album, Stranger to Stranger, it was like literally a click that said, I'm done. But you weren't done.

No, I wasn done. But you weren't done. No, I wasn't. This is Paul Simon as you've never heard him before. The stories and songs behind an unbelievable life in music. Pull up your chair and listen in. There's still the big mystery of why this happens, and it's just a great mystery. I love it. I love that mystery. The more you're slip sliding away. You can buy Miracle & Wonder at MiracleAudiobook.com, Audible, and everywhere audiobooks are sold.