Still Crazy After All These Years

Still Crazy After All These Years is the fourth studio album by Paul Simon. Recorded in 1975, the album produced four US Top 40 hits, "Gone at Last" (#23), "My Little Town" (#9, credited to Simon & Garfunkel), "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" (#1) and the title track (#40). It won two Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1976. In Simon's acceptance speech for the Album of the Year award, on February 28, he jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder, who had won the award the two previous years for Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale, for not releasing an album that year. (Wonder won the award again for Songs in the Key of Life in 1977.)
The liner notes for "My Little Town" contain this quote from "Crow" by Ted Hughes:
To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying
"My Little Town" reunited Simon with former partner Art Garfunkel on record for the first time since 1970.
Simon credits studio drummer Steve Gadd with creating the unique drum beat that became the hook for "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover".
Simon came up with the phrase "Still Crazy After All These Years" for the title track. He then created a story to go with it. The song's sophisticated gospel-inspired chord progression may have been influenced by bassist and composer Chuck Israels with whom Simon was studying with at the time. The title track has been recorded by Rosemary Clooney (on 1993 album Still on the Road), Ray Charles (on his 1993 album My World), Karen Carpenter (on her self-titled solo album released posthumously in 1996), and Willie Nelson (on the Soundtrack of the 2000 motion picture Space Cowboys).