"Duncan" | ||||
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Single by Paul Simon | ||||
from the album Paul Simon | ||||
B-side | "Run That Body Down" | |||
Released | July 1972 | |||
Recorded | 1971 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 4:34 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) | Paul Simon | |||
Producer(s) |
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Paul Simon singles chronology | ||||
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"Duncan" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the third and final single from his second self-titled studio album (1972), released on Columbia Records in July 1972 backed with "Run That Body Down". [1] The song peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in 1972. [2] [3]
A ballad in E-minor, "Duncan" tells the story of Lincoln Duncan, a fisherman's son. An inability to fall asleep in a cheap motel due to the loud sex that a couple is having next door sends Duncan off on a long reverie. He recalls his decision to leave "the boredom and the chowder" of his hometown in the Canadian Maritime Provinces and head towards New England. He recalls running out of money, losing his confidence and faith in himself, and gaining them back after losing his virginity to a young female street preacher – "just like a dog I was befriended". In the last stanza, he is lying on the ground at night playing his guitar and thanking God for his fingers. Between the stanzas, the song features instrumental interludes, played on 2 flutes, by Los Incas, an Andean group which had previously collaborated with Simon & Garfunkel on "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" in 1970. [4] [3]
Cash Box said that "the instrumental bridge is straight out of the Pied Piper mystique." [5] Record World felt it was "slightly more subdued" than the first two singles from the album. [6]
A concert rendition featuring Urubamba performing the interludes was included on the 1974 album Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin' . It gained radio airplay itself, and has gone on to become a semi-regular on satellite radio's Deep Tracks station. [7] Simon has included the song in his set lists for some subsequent tours as well.
During a show in Toronto on May 7, 2011, Rayna Ford, a fan from Conception Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, called out for Simon to play the song, and said something to the effect that she learned to play guitar on the song. Paul Simon invited her on stage, handed her a guitar and asked her to play it for the crowd. [8] [9] [10]
Chart (1972) | Peak position |
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Canada ( RPM ) [11] | 39 |
US Easy Listening ( Billboard ) [12] | 30 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [13] | 52 |
"American Tune" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the third single from his third studio album, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), released on Columbia Records. The song, a meditation on the American experience, is based on the melody of the hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" and bears a striking resemblance to JS Bach’s “Erkenne mich, mein Hüter“. The song reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" is a song by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the second single from his second, self-titled studio album (1972), released on Columbia Records.
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"El Cóndor Pasa" is an orchestral musical piece from the zarzuela El Cóndor Pasa by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles, written in 1913 and based on traditional Andean music, specifically folk music from Peru.
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"Still Crazy After All These Years" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the third and final single from his fourth studio album of the same name (1975), released on Columbia Records. Though the song briefly reached the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., it was a bigger hit on the magazine's Easy Listening chart, where it peaked at number four.
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