The Paul Simon Songbook
by Paul Simon

The Paul Simon Songbook by Paul Simon
Year: 1965
Release date: 1965-08-00
Overall rank: 4,458th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
75/100 (from 95 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1965 (36th)
Award Top albums of of the 1960s (360th)
Award Best albums of all time (4,458th)

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Paul Simon bestography

The Paul Simon Songbook is ranked 8th best out of 29 albums by Paul Simon on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Paul Simon is Graceland which is ranked number 122 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 10,418.

Paul Simon album bestography « Higher ranked (3,489th)
So Beautiful Or So What
This album (4,458th)
The Paul Simon Songbook
Lower ranked (5,387th) »
Stranger To Stranger

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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The Paul Simon Songbook track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 79 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

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The Paul Simon Songbook rankings

The Paul Simon Songbook rankings summary
Overall rank: 4,458th | 1960s rank: 360th | 1965 rank: 36th  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 5 hours ago).

The Paul Simon Songbook collection

The Paul Simon Songbook ratings

Average Rating: 
75/100 (from 95 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album.  | Show all 95 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
45/100
 !
07/18/2026 14:38 xhitmanx  Ratings distribution  1,44679/100
 
80/100
 !
04/25/2026 20:18 cicadelic  Ratings distribution  13,43573/100
 
15/100
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02/16/2026 23:05 Proto  Ratings distribution  4,19333/100
 
75/100
 !
10/24/2025 03:11 AAL2014  Ratings distribution  4,07975/100
 
75/100
 !
07/20/2025 21:09 TastyandTemptin  Ratings distribution  3,17572/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 11% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 74.6/100, a mean average of 74.2/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 74.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.3.


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The Paul Simon Songbook favourites

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The Paul Simon Songbook comments

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Rating:  
85/100
What a SongBook.. !
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
This album used to confuse me. I didn't get it. I thought it was a compilation of early solo recordings of Simon whilst he was a member of Simon & Garfunkel. Then I finally stopped my nonsense and researched it. Turns out this was made when Simon was taking a bit of a hiatus from his burgeoning at the time duo with Art. He went to England, became of sensation of sorts and was rushed into the studio to record some of his solo recordings with just himself with an acoustic. The production and renditions in genral sound a bit rushed and unadorned in a bad way., But the beautiful songs, and the excellent vocals shine through despite all the BS.

Songs like "Leaves That Are Green", "April Come She Will" "Kathy's Song", "A Most Peculiar Man", "The Side of The Hill"and "A Church Is Burning" all sound gorgeous and plain and very nice here. And I just enjoy hearing Simon on his own just a bit before his duo became very successful. I put this for sure a tier below S&G albums such as "The Sound of Silence" "Bookends" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme", but it still shimmers at times with an young, bright-eyed, and very talented songwriter named Paul Simon.

7.5/10
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
The beauty of this album is that one can hear these songs from the lips of the one who created them. This provides for a much more soulful delivery. The barebones acoustic method also allows one to hear the music on this album as originally intended by Paul.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (4 helpful | 2 unhelpful)

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