Artist:   Aqualung
Song:   "Slip-Sliding Away"
Album: Words And Music
Label:   Verve Forecast
Year:    2008

Sometimes the way into an album is through a song you already know. Maybe that’s why savvy artists often include one cover among all their originals. It’s like a familiar welcome mat to a brand new house. Aqualung, aka Matt Hales with help from brother Ben, is an intriguing English artist full of idiosyncratic edges and quivering emotions. His vocals are beyond breathy, like Brian Wilson if he wasn’t so worried about tomorrow. It’s no big leap to figure Aqualung perfect for recording a Paul Simon classic. That American icon practically invented spirited individualism in pop music all those years ago. Luckily Hales’ voice recalls just enough of Simon’s sensitivity to grab the tenuous spirit of “Slip-Sliding Away.” The way the lyrics present a case study of a man, woman and son come across as a complete portrait of humanity, when people are holding on to those parts of life that define them. Like so many of Paul Simon’s best songs, the results can be devastating, where he has a special insight into all our secrets and just cannot help but expose those that hurt the most: “She says a good day ain’t got no rain/she said a bad day is when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been.” How’s that for a future of black clouds rolling in from the past? Aqualung plays it for the beauty of getting beyond those missed chances, and while this song doesn’t start Words And Music, in the second slot it definitely shows us the way in.