Paul Simon "Slip Slidin' Away"

One great source for battling the seasonal slowdown, is the reissue pile.  Sometimes.

Sometimes the reissue of classic albums contain "bonus" content that is pretty weak.  But sometimes there is a little bit of treasure buried there.

Paul Simon recently collected all his solo albums into one box.  And each album has a few demo or live versions of the songs therein.

The label helpfully put all these alternate versions on one disc for promotional purposes, and though not every cut is radio ready, some of these stripped down take are a great listen and give you a new appreciation for the old songs.

I found about 7 cuts that are worth some limited airplay, bundled them up in a "packet" and they will cycle through the playlist at the speed that just one song might.  So it's not heavy airplay, but the songs are so well-known that there's no need to build familiarity as if it were a new artist or new cut.

Instead, the friendly, loveable sound of Paul Simon provides a little bit of an anchor to a time when the playlist could start to tilt toward the unfamiliar.


Hear the song on Youtube.