The Fat Angel Sings

Inspired by this spooky sound, Simon went back and crafted lyrics about a mythical werewolf as an angel of death alongside imagery of capitalism at its worst. “The fact is most obits are mixed reviews/Life is a lottery/A lot of people lose/And the grinners, the winners with money-colored eyes/Eat all the nuggets and order extra fries/The werewolf is coming,” Simon sings.

As Paul Simon recently said the track takes it name from when Simon and his band blended the sound of the Peruvian percussion instrument Cajón with hand claps and the one-string Indian instrument gopichand, creating an almost howl-like noise that, when slowed down, appears to say “the werewolf.”

“The Werewolf” also features percussion work courtesy of Italian electronic dance music artist Clap! Clap!, who contributed beats for a handful of Stranger to Stranger tracks. “My 23-year-old son Adrian is a composer and he told me about him,” Simon said. “He takes African sound samples and puts digital dance grooves behind it. His newest album is a masterpiece. He makes music sound new and old at the same time.”

That first verse—about the Milwaukee man with the perfectly average life getting killed in a perfectly average way—is a damn near perfect American tableau, the set-up for a wry joke about greed, corruption, and complacency. The apocalypse makes for a funny punchline, too. Good prepper advice: “You better stock up on water, canned goods off the shelves, and loot some for the old folks who can’t loot for themselves.”

Paul Simon is currently on tour in support of his upcoming LP, a two-month jaunt that better suits the 74-year-old legend. “I do think about retirement. I want to see if I’ll get bored and what will happen with the bit of unborn creative impulses if I stop writing songs, which I’ve been doing since I was 12. But I just don’t know,” Simon said. “Philip Glass is one of my role models and he just keeps going. He said to me, ‘If you don’t do it, who will write a Paul Simon song?'”