The Wonder of Paul Simon’s “Seven Psalms”
Like many Jews in the diaspora, I wasn’t sure how to go on after October 7. In the throes of grief, fear, and despair, I sought the voice of a dear one who could comfort me, someone who understands, someone who knows.
This is how, with the intention of listening to Paul Simon on repeat for the foreseeable future, I learned one night that Simon had released a new album in May 2023 called “Seven Psalms.”
I was curled up on the couch in what felt like an eternal, dark haze. Then, I heard the strumming of Paul’s acoustic guitar. I heard his tender crooning. I closed my eyes, and I was taken somewhere else—a lush forest at sunrise. Another plane where complex, ambient harmonies turned to quiet convalescence. My eyes filled with tears.
This divine, poetic canon has been the healing balm of my broken heart every day since.
The seven psalms seamlessly woven together in Simon’s Grammy-nominated album echo the seven daily psalms recited during morning prayers in Judaism. Through sound and silence, the musical journey is imbued with Jewish spirituality and wisdom.
King David is recognized as the author of the biblical Psalms, or Tehillim. The hymns of praise he wrote are the sweetest poetry of the people of Israel. Like the days of the weeks, ebbing and flowing until the sacred rest of Shabbat—after which they begin again—the recitation of seven psalms carries us through the tragic and beautiful vicissitudes of life.
Through the intentional repetitions of Psalms, we are reminded of the ancient kabbalistic wisdom that God is everything and everywhere—the good, the bad, and the ugly:
“The Lord is the earth I ride on
The Lord is the face in the atmosphere
The path I slip and slide on
And the Lord is a virgin forest
The Lord is a forest ranger
The Lord is a meal for the poorest
A welcome door to the stranger”
True to the meaning of the word psalm, which comes from the Greek psalmos, or a song with string accompaniment, Simon’s lyrics are accompanied by a haunting, dreamlike acoustic guitar hook that repeats and transforms in a sonic dance.
At times, the sound evokes the peaceful stillness of a lake at dawn—as though you could catch your own reflection on the surface. Then, wistful, cascading guitar strums deliver you through a waterfall into a rough and tumble river of sound until the mellifluous melody of calm returns.
Naphtali Herz Imber, poet and author of "Hatikvah," wrote that “In the Psalms is contained the music of the past, present and the future.” Every note of Simon’s interpretation bolsters this revelation.
Those familiar with Paul Simon may share my surprise that his latest album is so overtly spiritual. After all, he certainly did not live a particularly religious life—in fact, he rejected a religious Jewish identity after his more secular, culturally-Jewish upbringing.
Jewish musician Donald Fagen of Steely Dan described Paul Simon in his childhood as “a certain kind of New York Jew, almost a stereotype, really, to whom music and baseball are very important. I think it has to do with the parents. The parents are either immigrants or first-generation Americans who felt like outsiders, and assimilation was the key thought.”
In 2021, during interviews for the audio biography of Paul Simon’s life, Malcolm Gladwell asked Simon about the impact of his Jewish heritage in his songwriting. He responded: “It’s hard to say, because it’s a cultural sensibility that you grow up with. How, exactly, you define that—I don’t know. It’s there, but it’s only there because that’s the world I grew up in. It’s not a world that I wanted to grow up in. It’s not a religion that I chose to follow. But, it was a culture that I was comfortable in and aspects of it was something that I admired.”
There are plenty of allusions to Judaism and his own Jewish spirituality throughout his work, but still, “Seven Psalms” seems unlikely to come from a secular Jew. That is, until you understand the context of its inception.
In an interview with Gramophone in May of 2023, Simon revealed the ethereal transmission of his beautiful compendium. He woke up from a strange dream on January 15, 2019, in which some mystical entity told him, “You're supposed to write a piece called Seven Psalms.” He was in the midst of what otherwise seemed like retirement, but this message could not be ignored.
Simon thought, “I'm not sure I even know what a psalm is. So I went to the Bible, and I looked at Psalms, and said 'well since I don't know what it is, and it's not really my idea—something in a dream, or somebody in a dream, said “you're going to do this”—well, then, bring it on.'” Sure enough, sounds and lyrics began to pour out of him in the pre-dawn quietude, channeled from beyond.
Simon remarks that this same experience of music unexpectedly moving through him happened when he was 22, with the song “Sound of Silence”, among others throughout his life. The more you listen to “Seven Psalms,” the more its beautiful, devastating and hopeful multitudes feel inspired by a greater message.
Experiencing the grappling, supplication and reflection of “Seven Psalms” bears a striking resemblance to listening to “You Want It Darker,” the final album by legendary Jewish musician Leonard Cohen, released in 2016, 17 days before his death. Leonard Cohen was raised as an Orthodox Jew, and it’s a legacy he proudly carried throughout his life.
Despite the differences in their religious upbringings and identification, both Simon and Cohen offer insights and wisdom that speak to a uniquely Jewish worldview. Listening to either of these albums is like witnessing Jacob wrestling with angels; both personify the definition of yisrael, or “one who has struggled with God and man, and prevailed.”
Both offer a wonderfully Jewish take on man’s search for meaning—the struggle to find ourselves, our purpose, our community, and our connection to God.
Indeed, the same psalm that inspired the lyrics that have captivated audiences around the world for generations in Cohen’s song “Hallelujah,” “I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord,” is invoked in Simon’s “Seven Psalms”:
“The sacred harp
That David played to make his songs of praise
We long to hear those strings
That set his heart ablaze”
This album has set my heart ablaze. It has not only provided space for daily meditation, solace, and reflection during this overwhelmingly terrifying time, but it has reinforced to me the transcendental power and beauty of Jewish art—perhaps even touching on the secret chord.
