I am just a poor boy
Though my story’s seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises

On the eve of the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, not far from the Crypto.com Arena where the show would be held the following night, something remarkable happened in a fabled coffee shop not far away. But this was The Troubadour. Remarkable things have a history of happening here. A long history.

If you don’t know it, The Troubadour was a coffee shop on La Cienega before moving to its current location on Santa Monica Boulevard. I say coffee shop, but in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a steaming hot cauldron of musical talent. The Byrds. Buffalo Springfield. Bob Dylan, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Neil Young.

On this night, more than half of the artists taking the stage were Grammy nominees—Andrew Bird, Madison Cunningham, Natalia Lafourcade, Allison Russell and Rufus Wainwright—all of them due to be downtown the following afternoon for the pre-telecast awards proceedings. Not that it mattered. Not one of them would have missed this for the world. And who could have blamed them. This was no ordinary artist they were honoring. This was Paul Simon.

Who’s the most creative singer-songwriter of all time? We can argue until the sun explodes. Dylan. King. Lennon. McCartney. Taylor. Springsteen. There’s no end to the artists that have entertained us. But some do more than entertain—they teach us. They lay bare our passions and our furies. A side of love we never saw coming. The invisible threads of our humanity that we otherwise might never have experienced.

Paul Simon knows those threads. He knows where our secrets lie buried. It’s all there in every song he’s ever written, but just like with Aaron Sorkin, you can, and you will, miss it completely if you aren’t paying attention.

Musician Rodney Crowell was at The Troubadour that night. “There are some people whose music I listen to for entertainment, which I do for Paul, too. But he’s one that I listen for education because there’s a lot to be learned there, constantly,” he says. “I don’t want to be like him, but I want to access what he accesses to do what I do. It’s almost like a meditation, to pay attention.”

So, how does he do it?

Paul’s attention to detail is a good place to start. He doesn’t just write songs; he crafts experiences. In “Sound of Silence,” he takes something ordinary and turns it into a profound meditation on the human condition. Paul’s songs resonate with listeners because he pays attention to the little things, the nuances of life that often go unnoticed. And because he does, so do we.

There’s an authenticity to his creativity. He’s not afraid to be vulnerable, to explore his own emotions and experiences. “Graceland” resonates with listeners because it comes from a place of deep honesty. Few artists have the willingness to bare their soul like Paul does. It makes his songs so deeply thoughtful and relatable.

So much of his work finds a way to speak to the human experience, across cultures and generations. I can’t think of a better example than “The Boxer.” If you haven’t heard it in a while—or if you never have—pay attention to the lyrics. If this song doesn’t speak to our collective struggle for identity and belonging amid the complex fabric of life, I don’t know what does.

We don’t pay attention like we used to. We’ve come to accept a life where the world just kind of washes over us, everything’s a blur, muted tones of gray and beige. The worst of it is that it all too often creeps into our work. We might not be aware of it. We might think our ideas are connecting with people, and for some, that is no doubt true. But for many of us, the work has lost something. And that is not how it’s supposed to be.

Like a Paul Simon song, our ideas ought to grab people by the lapels and shake them senseless. Great ideas do that. They don’t ask to be heard. They insist on it. Demand it. You can’t tune them out. You can’t turn your back on them. They look you in the eye and make you feel things.

It’s hard to do that.

It’s hard for ideas to stop people in their tracks.

Can you settle for something less than that?

Of course you can.

Or you can create work that demands to shine like a supernova.

You can be Paul Simon. ca