There Goes Rhymin' Simon

保罗西蒙的第二张个人专辑，1973年发行。一方面，西蒙彼时尚未投身“世界音乐”；另一面，西蒙开始对Simon & Garfunkel时期进行反思。他后来总结道，自己在60年代的作品中所表现的年轻人的迷惘、反叛情绪都很矫揉造作，实际上并没到那种程度。因此该时期中，西蒙更多地是展现一种平和文雅的形象，当然其中也包含了些深层的忧郁，一如那首著名的American Tune。专辑里另一首给人印象深刻的歌是Something So Right，含蓄而意味深长，歌词很见功力，可称“西蒙式情歌”的样本吧

这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第267位。

by William Ruhlmann

Retaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin' Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music. Simon returned to the kind of vocal pyrotechnics heard on the Simon & Garfunkel records by using gospel singers. On "Love Me Like a Rock" and "Tenderness" (which sounded as though it could have been written to Art Garfunkel), the Dixie Hummingbirds sang prominent backup vocals, and on "Take Me to the Mardi Gras," Reverend Claude Jeter contributed a falsetto part that Garfunkel could have handled, though not as warmly. For several tracks, Simon traveled to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios to play with its house band, getting a variety of styles, from the gospel of "Love Me Like a Rock" to the Dixieland of "Mardi Gras." Simon was so confident that he even included a major ballad statement of the kind he used to give Garfunkel to sing: "American Tune" was his musical State of the Union, circa 1973, but this time Simon was up to making his big statements in his own voice. Though that song spoke of "the age's most uncertain hour," otherwise Rhymin' Simon was a collection of largely positive, optimistic songs of faith, romance, and commitment, concluding, appropriately, with a lullaby ("St. Judy's Comet") and a declaration of maternal love ("Loves Me Like a Rock") -- in other words, another mother-and-child reunion that made Paul Simon and There Goes Rhymin' Simon bookend masterpieces Simon would not improve upon (despite some valiant attempts) until Graceland in 1986.