#36 "YOU CAN CALL ME AL"
PAUL SIMON, 1986

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retroCRUSH fan John Edward Kilduff writes, "There's this one bass guitar lick near the end of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al". It's flat-out funk that hits you at the spine and makes your whole body shake."  He's right, and the video with Chevy Chase ain't too shabby either.  The entire Graceland album was pretty amazing, for that matter.  Simon's pairing with South Africa's Lady Smith Black Mambazo was groundbreaking and it worked beautifully.

-Robert Berry

NOTE:  Shortly after publishing this, Gregory McIntosh passed this great tidbit along...

"Regarding the #36 spot on the 50 Greatest Song Moments of All Time list, Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al”, the bass guitar riff has a cool piece of trivia about it deepening its impact on top of its incredible out-of-nowhere funk action.  If you listen closely, the lick is actually a musical palindrome – it was played forward in its entirety, then the tape was flipped over and played backwards, the backwards lick was recorded onto another tape, and then that second recording was edited into place.  Having not seen the entire 50 Greatest Song Moments list, it would be forward of me to ask you to reconsider the replacement of this little nugget of production genius in your list especially since it is already nestled in the dubious position of the late 30s, but I find it in my personal top ten of greatest song parts of all time because of this magic (as if that matters...).  This kind of editing is easy to accomplish in the studio today what with fancy pants computers and stuff, but in 1986, this was a glorious and complex maneuver to pull off.  Cheers for giving props to it!"

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