One Trick Pony＜Light Blue Vinyl/完全生産限定盤＞

ポール・サイモン 1980年発売 『One Trick Pony』のアナログ盤(ライト・ブルー・ヴァイナル)

自らが製作/脚本/主演した映画のサウンドトラック盤。エリック・ゲイル、リチャード・ティー、スティーヴ・ガッド他、NYを代表するスタジオ・ミュージシャンたちが多数参加。グラミー賞を受賞した傑作『時の流れに (Still Crazy After All These Years)』から5年。サイモン自らが製作/脚本/主演した映画『ワン・トリック・ポニー』のサウンドトラック盤。サイモン演じる冴えない中年ロッカー、ジョナの悪戦苦闘を描いた物語で、本作のレコーディングに参加しているミュージシャンのエリック・ゲイル(g)、リチャード・ティー(p)、トニー・レヴィン(b)、スティーヴ・ガッド(ds)らは、劇中でもバック・バンド役として出演している。「追憶の夜 (Late in the Evening )」がシングル・カットされ全米6位を記録。

The 1980 film ONE TRICK PONY starred and featured the music of Paul Simon, who portrayed a singer-songwriter of considerably less renown than himself. Full of heart, humor and realism, it's one of the best music-oriented dramas extant, and this soundtrack album is equally substantial. ONE TRICK PONY marked an important turning point in Simon's artistic development. Though his musical sophistication had grown, previous to this album his lyrical approach was still oriented towards the linear storytelling style he began with in the '60s. Here, Simon began to develop a more poetic, imagistic approach to lyric-writing. While the salsa horn section of the hit "Late In The Evening" foreshadows Simon's later cultural experiments, it's tracks like "Jonah" and "Oh, Marion" that really tell of things to come. In the former, Simon plumbs the biblical metaphor, skillfully interspersing it with more autobiographical-sounding details. On the latter, he uses metaphysical, slightly surreal imagery to tell the story of a man at odds with his own emotions. Both tunes are representative of the great literary leap Simon's writing took with ONE TRICK PONY, an album full of inventively constructed lyrics matched with Simon's usual harmonic sophistication.