Rich here, continuing with the subject of songs whose lyrics are comprised of lists.
Perhaps it's not surprising to discover that Paul Simon, one of the most lyrically adept and intellectually curious songwriters of the past 60-plus years, has written two songs that would qualify as "List Songs;" i.e., songs whose lyrics revolve around a list of some sort.
The first List Song that Paul Simon wrote was "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)" from 1965, a point in which Paul Simon and his partner Art Garfunkel were at their folk-rock peak. The song is a satirical take on Bob Dylan and his often-obtuse hipster-infused lyrics. In Simon's case, his lyrics referenced then-current notable public cultural, political, and newsworthy individuals in a witty and dexterous manner. Many of the individuals named in "A Simple Desultory Philippic" will no longer resonate in the 21st Century, but many will. Two points for each name in this list that you recognize:
Years later, after Garfunkel had been ditched and Simon seemed less inclined to inject intellectual pretentiousness into his lyrics, he wrote a much more fun type of List Song, this one listing all the street-lingo phrases you could use when breaking up with your lover.
