Paul Simon revealed that he wasn’t a fan of Frank Sinatra’s cover of one of Simon & Garfunkel’s most famous songs. He made the revelation while speaking to Stephen Colbert at the New York premiere of MGM+’s two-part documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.
When Colbert asked Simon whether he was friendly with Sinatra, the “Scarborough Fair” singer gave a rather unexpected answer. “I met him once. It was very interesting, too, because he made a cover record of my song 'Mrs. Robinson,'” Simon recalled. “And he changed the lyric[s],” Simon added with outrage.
“[The original lyrics] were fantastic, but when I first heard [Sinatra's], it was like, 'Man, ring a ding, ding you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more,' and this is in the '60s, and I said, 'He can't do that,'" Simon recalled.
"I said, 'I'm stopping the record,'” he remembered of first listening to the cover. “I said, 'I am stopping it. Nobody asked me to change, and I'm not giving permission. I don't care.'”
Simon explained that his feelings about Sinatra’s version changed when he received a call from an executive, who assured Simon that the new lyrics had been his idea.
“A guy from Warner Brothers called me up and said, 'Please don't do this. It's my fault, I did it.’” The exec begged Simon to rethink his disapproval of Sinatra’s version, worried it might ruin his producing career. “Please don't do this to me,” the executive reportedly told Simon. “So I said, 'Okay,'" the musician said.
But Simon said that his feelings eventually changed on the tune. "And then later, I fell in love with that record. And when you play music after the concert is over, that's the first song,” he enthused.
The first installment of In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon hits MGM+ on March 17, with the second installment dropping on March 24. You can check out the trailer below.
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