166 Perry Street, where Paul Simon was spotted checking out a first-floor condo.

When you're down and out, when you're on the street, when evening falls so hard—buy a $4 million one-bedroom condo in the West Village? Well, times have changed since a younger, poorer Paul Simon penned those words.

Sources tell The Observer that the world-famous Jersey-born, Queens-raised musician recently checked out a unit at 166 Perry Street with his son. The apartment is listed with Miron Properties brokers James Fierro and Donald Abbott, who were tight-lipped about any possible bold-faced names looking at the unit when we called. The sounds of silence, you might say.

The building, designed by Long Island City-based Asymptote Architecture, sits right behind one of Richard Meier's three glass towers, and is considerably wackier than the White Wizard of the West Village's sleek modernist triplets. It's the wave to Meier's straight lines, with a funky angular interior that has all the whiteness of a Richard Meier building, without none of the 90-degree angles.

In the market to buy?

The corner duplex (in which one man's ceiling is the same man's floor) that Mr. Simon was recently spotted scoping out with broker Andrew Sklover is a roomy 2,526 square feet, divided between a main floor and a subterranean level. A soundproofed recording studio with red sound-absorbing cushions on the wall occupies the lower level, which may appeal to Mr. Simon, especially given the recent sale of the Brill Building. The apartment has two full bathrooms and one half-bath and was was fully renovated by the last owner, according to Mr. Abbott. "Everything has been customized—the closets, the lighting, everything."

The seller, the R. Hernreich 1987 Family Trust with Richard Mueller acting as trustee, is hoping to cash in on their $1.75 million buy back in 2010, which was deeply discounted from the sponsor's $2.65 million ask. Sure, buyers were skittish and high-end buyers were rarer still in 2010, but a 125 percent profit over just three years still seems a tad ambitious (diamonds on the soles of her shoes, indeed!). Though as Mr. Abbott pointed out, the unit is priced at less than $1,600 per square foot, compared with well over $2,000 for most new units in the area.

But 166 Perry has some competition—Paul Simon was recently spotted checking out Morris Adjmi's 250 Bowery, a tipster told the New York Daily News. Whether he'll go with deep blue on Perry Street or gridiron modernism on the Bowery—or whether a dark horse will emerge and seduce the singer away to a different building entirely—is anyone's guess.

The Mountain Goats
All Eternals Deck
March 29, Merge
John Darnielle's rotating troupe's 18th album--its first on Merge Records--sounds grim, and not merely because four tracks were produced by death metal icon Erik Rutan. Mr. Darnielle compared the album to scenes in a 1970s "occult-scare movie" and cited influences like fake drug memoir Go Ask Alice and cult gang-war classic The Warriors. With such spooky inspiration, we're beginning to understand just why Mr. Darnielle tends to pick up and shed bandmates. 

Britney Spears
Femme Fatale
March 29, Jive
The long, strange trip of Britney Spears continues, with her new album, Femme Fatale. Ms. Spears has had Forrest Gumpian success in the pop music industry; without exerting any effort, she emerged (or was forcibly dragged) from pink-wigged mania back onto the charts just as dance music was returning to the mainstream. It's hard not to miss the utter lack of persona in Ms. Spears's 2007-era output when hearing her 2011 single "Hold It Against Me," in which a humorless singer attempts to recite a raunchy pun. And yet longtime Britney fans--are there any other kind?--shall be sated until the star's next flickering emergence in two years. 

Wiz Khalifa
Rolling Papers,
March 29, Atlantic
The Pittsburgh rapper says his album title doesn't--at least not solely--refer to marijuana. "I sort of got my 'rolling papers'" from Warner Bros., Mr. Khalifa has joked. While his memory is surprisingly long for someone who so chronically uses ... Twitter (Warner Bros. dropped him before the release of his last album, in 2009), it's exciting to consider what Mr. Khalifa could do with a record label behind him. That is, if he can find another single with as much staying power as the Steelers-themed "Black and Yellow." Maybe a Pittsburgh Pirates single? 

Low
C'Mon
April 12, Sub Pop
The nearly un-Google-able Duluth, Minn., band is nearing the start of their third decade--they got started in 1993, when their soft, slow melodies in the age of grunge inadvertently kicked off the mini-movement "slowcore." They haven't wandered too far from their roots: What's available online sounds methodical and quiet as ever, though devoid of the explicit political resonances from the band's last record, Drums and Guns. Apolitical, perhaps, but still willfully out-there--the record was made in a Catholic Church in Duluth. 

TV on the Radio
Nine Types of Light
April 12, Interscope
Dear Science, TV on the Radio's last album, came in at No. 1 on The Village Voice's year-end Pazz and Jop poll. The band broke through with audiences, too, even getting a poorly sound-mixed spot on Saturday Night Live. What's left for them to achieve? Post-stardom, it would seem: Their new album's cover doesn't feature the band's name. They're now so distinctive--though early tracks lack the weird blats of sound that made Dear Science so much like itself--that they don't need your simple-minded conventions! 

Paul Simon
So Beautiful or So What
April 12, Concord
The venerable guitarist returns with his first album since 2006, and is presumably feeling, well, his venerability: The first single is titled "The Afterlife." Simon's been popular, cyclically, but has he ever been hip? His flirtations with world music (no word yet on what country inspired this album) are earnest, his depiction of a double helix on the So Beautiful album cover daddishly nerdy. The apocryphal reports that Mr. Simon had asked cool older brother of rock Bob Dylan to guest on the album are encouraging. Adopting some of Mr. Dylan's swagger (while still singing more comprehensibly) can only help Mr. Simon. 

Panda Bear
Tomboy
April 12, Paw Tracks
Opining on this delayed release from Animal Collective mainstay Panda Bear (née Noah Lennox), the music blog Stereogum said the album's cover "would make a decent tattoo." While covering a record-listening party for Tomboy, The Village Voice wrote, "Panda Bear fans are the Justin Bieber fans of the indie universe." His songs "kind of have this weathering the storm attitude to them," Panda Bear told Rolling Stone. To what storm is he referring? 

Fleet Foxes
Helplessness Blues
May 3, Sub Pop
Fleet Foxes seemed like they'd tire everyone  out quickly. The Seattle band's blend of folk and choralish harmonies just barely works artistically, and does not spell sales bonanza (hark, the lessons of pop choir the Polyphonic Spree!). Somehow, the band has thrived and is about to release a second album that frontman Robin Pecknold has said is inspired by Van Morrison and Roy Harper. Changes come all at once sometimes: The band also has a new member taken from the wreckage of two post-punk bands. Fleet Foxes' vision of itself is apparently as capacious as any of the band's songs.  

Lady Gaga
Born This Way
May 23, Interscope
The chattering classes were scandalized by Lady Gaga's anxiety-of-influence rip-offs of Madonna's "Express Yourself." What matters, though, is that Ms. Gaga hasn't forgotten how to grab attention. It's tough to criticize Ms. Gaga--she preempts all criticism not by being self-aware, but by constantly upping the ante with her crass stunt artistry. Who knows what other "surprises" this album cycle will hold? Give her credit for this--it took Madonna seven albums to get into weird extraplanetary spirituality, on Ray of Light. With Ms. Gaga's birth-of-an-alien "Born This Way" video, she got there in three.

"I have to tell you," Yoko Ono said to her audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday night, a few days before her 77th birthday, "you have a long life ahead of you, and it’s going to be beautiful." Her Brooklyn Academy of Music show--half concert, half tribute--was filled with all kinds of things: shimmying, screeching, thumping, family members, guitar gods, art films, drag, a tuba, a cello, and as Ms. Ono would say, a lot of cosmic splendor.

The first half was full of thick, loud, strange, twisting grooves, which probably wouldn't sound like promising news to those who know her only as a screechy-voiced Beatles destroyer. But this wasn't music for a pilates class in Westchester--it was interstellar and kaleidoscopic, with pelvic bass lines bouncing below gooey guitars and horns. She sashayed, shuffled, shook and swayed. Sometimes it took her across the stage, especially on the groovier songs from last year’s Between My Head and the Sky. The exclamation point in the title of "Ask the Elephant!" deserves to be there.

The first set ended unexpectedly gently. Over only trickles of piano from her son, Sean Lennon, and a late-night Tom Waits horn, Ms. Ono sang in Japanese and English about hell and earth: It was the kind of thing that could sound like bad Philip Glass, but it was smoky and sad.

But the tribute half of the concert ("Act II," as it’s called on the We Are Plastic Ono Band program) stole the show. First of all, in the spirit of Ms. Ono’s canyon-sized proclamations, I’ve got to say that the sound Paul Simon and his son, Harper, made on the two songs they played and sang together was one of the most exceedingly warm things I’ve ever heard live on a stage. They played "Hold On" from John Lennon’s first solo album, and "Silver Horse" from Season of Glass, her first after his death. One is sung to a wife, and the other is sung by a widow.

Eric Clapton, the guest that came on afterward, turns 65 next month. But his guitar, especially on The White Album's "Yer Blues," was hysterical, sludgy, and huge. "In sound check, he was teaching me to play how my Dad did it,” said the younger Mr. Lennon. "A touch sophisticated."

Justin Bond, who performs in boozy drag as a half of Kiki and Herb, played Ms. Ono's jilted-woman torch song "What a Bastard the World Is." Beforehand there was a joke about Ms. Ono's Twitter, which gives advice about sending diagrams of your footsteps and flammable paper moons to friends: "A lot of the time I don’t know what she’s talking about," said Mr. Bond, "but I do everything she says."

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon played "Mulberry," which was not amused, not amusing, and what the Times politely referred to in its review of the show as "arrhythmic." With more rhythm, amusement and tuba, Bette Midler came on next to play "Yes, I’m Your Angel," a few minutes of caramelized bath house jazz.

After "Rising," one of the first set’s arty disco songs, full of Ms. Ono's points and crouches and marches, Mr. Lennon son whispered something to into her ear. "He's always saying, 'Oh it’s great, it’s great,' to make me feel good," she explained.

"I'm not lying, Mom," he said. The crowd sighed. A few days before the concert, Ms. Ono told this reporter about her maternal feelings: "You would never know, because you’re not old enough, I’m sorry to use those expressions, but when your son grows up, and he’s doing his own thing," she explained, "it’s nice to get a chance to be with him for a while."

She said the show’s guests had been his idea: "I'm doing a regular show of mine, and then they’re sort of added. Added bombs! Not bombs! Bombs is a bad word! What is it? Added sparkling stars."

mabelson@observer.com

The Late Show with David Letterman (CBS, 11:30 p.m.): Daniel Radcliffe, ballet dancer Veronika Part, Levon Helm.

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (NBC, 11:35 p..m): Larry King, Zooey Deschanel, musical guest Playing for Change.

Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, 12:05 a.m.): Actor Denzel Washington (The Taking of Pelham 123), Actor Will Ferrell (Land Of The Lost)

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (NBC, 12:35 a.m.): Steve Martin, Paul Simon, Vanessa Williams.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, 12:35 a.m.): Jeff Goldblum, Jackie Collins.

Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC, 1:35 a.m.): Steve-O, musical guest Nico Vega.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central, 11:00 p.m.): Rerun.

The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m.): Rerun.

Chelsea Lately (E!, 11:00 p.m.): Florence Henderson, Janet Varney, comedians Chris Fanjola and Loni Love.

9 p.m.  Film Cinema Sixteen features original musical accompaniment of Brooklyn-based Wild Yaks. The band will "infuse" two short (silent) films with their "rambunctious, anthemic sound." A Depression-era satire, Pie in the Sky (1935), and Edwin S. Porter's "dazzling trick film," A Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906). At Starr Space, 108-111 Starr Street.

10 p.m. Tingel Tangel Club's blend of "downtown debauchery" arrives at Glasslands with late-night burlesque featuring Tigger!, Harvest Moon, Nasty Canasta and Clams Casino. Performances by Joseph Keckler and the Pixie Harlots, Kenny Mellman (of "Our Hit Parade" and Kiki & Herb) and Larry Tee to DJ. At 249 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn.

Paul Simon, the singer/songwriter, donated $750 on January 9.

Two days later, the campaign got $1,224 from Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman.

And, farther back, a $250 donation on September 16 from Peter Hatch, who once served as chief of staff to Bill de Blasio, who entered the race months later.

"It was a slow day and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of the road. There was a bright light, a shattering of shopwindows; the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio.”

These are the opening lines, the breathtaking opening image, of Graceland, Paul Simon’s biggest-selling solo album. Listening to them stream effortlessly against the song’s insistent bop, it’s easy to lose sight of the bloody, terrorized scene they depict. But read it on the page, in silence, as Lyrics: 1964-2008 permits you to do, and the extent of Mr. Simon’s genius hits you like a shot.

In a Hemingway-size fistful of words, he creates a world as precise as any—lulls us into it with soothing alliteration (slow … sun … soldiers … side)—and then, literally, blows it up.

Lyrics is both encyclopedic and, as with any book of words set to music, necessarily incomplete. It moves from Mr. Simon’s deceptively simple songs with Art Garfunkel, through the exuberant explorations of his early solo work, to the brilliant yet often inscrutable blockbusters, Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, and, finally, to the less-well-known but still searching work of the past decade.

What’s remarkable about reading these lyrics strictly as text is how unremarkable they frequently seem; as David Remnick notes in his brief but superb introduction, their power and poetry is inextricably tied to the music they accompany. Who knows which comes first? It’s clear that Mr. Simon writes his words with the music in mind and vice versa. (This may explain why he has never before in his 44-year career released a book of lyrics.)

There are a few clunkers, as you would expect in such a vast body of work, but these pale when set against the stunning quality and consistency of Mr. Simon’s work over the years. He has the rare, transcendent talent of being able to compose natural, sometimes lengthy sentences that scan and rhyme as though there were no other way to write them (“René and Georgette Magritte/ With their dog after the war/ Were strolling down Christopher Street/ When they stopped in a men’s store/ With all of the mannequins/ Dressed in style/ That brought tears to their/ Immigrant eyes”). Even when there are no rhymes at all—as in “America”—Mr. Simon’s control of language and imagery is so masterful that you only notice it on the page.

There is a Nabokovian playfulness to much of his work, phrases and stanzas that are at once abstract and precise, flamboyantly loose and sculpted to within an inch of their life. From “Thelma”: “Last night I slept on a rented pillow/ A silver moon above my head/ A thirsty dreamless sleep released me/ And I reached for the phone by the side of the bed.”

“You have to be a good host to people’s attention span,” Mr. Remnick quotes Mr. Simon as saying about the songwriting process. “They’re not going to come in there and work real hard right away. Too many things are coming: the music is coming, the rhythm is coming, all kinds of information that the brain is sorting out.” The depth of psychological understanding this represents—not to mention the generosity of spirit—is evident throughout this definitive collection. While it may not be a substitute for the real thing, it’s an essential document of arguably the greatest popular songwriter of our time.

Jesse Wegman is managing editor of The Observer. He can be reached at jwegman@observer.com.

"Speaking for myself, and at least for this coming election, this is one Arizona tradition I'd like to see continue," she said.

Not a bad line. Of course, the track record for presidential candidates from Barack Obama's Illinois isn't much better than for those from John McCain's Arizona:

* Adlai Stevenson twice served as the Democratic presidential nominee, suffering lopsided defeats to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 (442-89 in the Electoral College) and 1956 (by a 457-73 spread).

* U.S. Representative Phil Crane sought the 1980 Republican nomination, but dropped out after finishing with just 1.8 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary.

* U.S. Representative John B. Anderson also sought the G.O.P. nomination in 1980 - and also failed. The moderate-to-liberal Anderson then bolted the party and ran as an independent, finishing with 5.7 million votes, or about 7 percent.

* Senator Paul Simon ran for the Democratic nomination in 1988. He finished in second place in Iowa and third place in New Hampshire and ended his campaign shortly after scoring a symbolic victory in his home state.

* Carol Moseley Braun waged a quixotic bid for the 2004 Democratic nomination, but her bid to become the first woman president failed to take off and she dropped out prior to the Iowa caucuses.

So that's two more presidential losers from Illinois than from Arizona. Of course, there was this guy named Lincoln...

Actually, it wouldn’t be the first time there were three Iowa “winners” on the Democratic side. In 1988, Richard Gephardt, Paul Simon and Michael Dukakis all finished within a few points of each other in the caucuses. And the fallout from that result suggests that a split verdict in Iowa would ultimately be good news for Hillary.

Consider the similarities between the two campaigns.

The official Iowa winner in ’88 was Gephardt, then a youthful sixth-term Congressman from St. Louis who ran as a trade protectionist and all-around champion of the little guy. An underfunded afterthought in national polls, he staked his nomination strategy on a breakout showing in Iowa. Consider him the ‘88 equivalent of John Edwards.

Finishing three points behind Gephardt was Simon, the distinctive journalist-turned-Illinois-Senator who was adored by the reformer/intellectual wing of the party—sort of like Obama, another Illinois Senator, is now.

And then there was Dukakis, the seemingly emotionless Massachusetts Governor who scored a solid third place, just behind Simon. Dukakis entered Iowa as the national front-runner, powered by the best-funded and best-organized machine on the Democratic side—much like the one Hillary has assembled.

So who benefited from the Gephardt-Simon-Dukakis draw?

In the short-term, they all did. Gephardt passed the viability test that had been established for his candidacy. Simon, who was better positioned then Gephardt in the post-Iowa states, retained his spot as the chief (non-Jesse Jackson) national alternative to Dukakis. And Dukakis, whose wife draped a bronze medal around his neck at his caucus night party, was saluted for holding his own far away from Massachusetts—and in the backyard of his two main rivals.

But it quickly became clear that Dukakis was the chief beneficiary—mainly because the result assured that the opposition to him would be split, and not consolidated. Gephardt’s numbers suddenly climbed in New Hampshire and in other states, bringing him up to Simon’s level—but no further. And with Gephardt rising, Simon was unable to increase his own base of support and to challenge Dukakis.

In New Hampshire a week later, Dukakis claimed a long-anticipated victory with nearly 40 percent of the vote—miles ahead of second-place Gephardt (21 percent) and third place Simon (17 percent). Had Gephardt lost Iowa badly, he almost certainly would have dropped out before New Hampshire, giving Simon a clear shot at Dukakis in that state. Even a close second might then have been enough for the media to declare him the real “winner” in a state where Dukakis had so many advantages. Simon would then have been in serious contention for the nomination. (Conversely, a clear Gephardt win in Iowa coupled with an awful Simon showing might have had the same effect on Gephardt.)

But the muddled result allowed Dukakis to win a clear victory in New Hampshire and prevented both Simon and Gephardt from uniting the Anyone But Dukakis bloc of the party.

Obviously, there are numerous ways in which 2008 and 1988 are not alike at all. But one lesson of the ‘88 experience seems clear: Any primary or caucus result that isn’t a clear loss for the front-runner is a victory.