Article September 17, 2007 Issue

Creative BLISS

BY JUNE SULLIVAN

"ONE SECOND IT DIDN'T EXIST ," explained musician Paul Simon during a recent television interview. "And in the next six seconds it was there."

Simon was referring to the poetic phrase "Like a bridge over troubled water/I will lay me down"—which came to him suddenly and was to become the refrain of the title song of Simon and Garfunkel's final album together.

"I was just shocked and I thought [the phrase] was so much better than I usually write," he continued. "You don't know why this happens, but, when it does, you get this feeling that is very close to bliss."