Okay, you’re Paul Simon. You and Art Garfunkel became an overnight sensation when your song “The Sound of Silence” became a number one hit on Billboard without even knowing it had been re-recorded and re-released. He rushed back from England to join his partner and rushed to the studio to record a few more songs so his new hit could be turned into an album. Problem: you need more songs. Solution? You use some songs that you have stored. And you write a couple more, like “Richard Cory.”
Most people don’t know this, but Simon majored in English at Queens College and earned a degree in English literature (even fewer know that he briefly attended Brooklyn Law School). So it’s only natural that he would draw on his knowledge of poetry to help him find material for the album they were hastily putting together.
Since Simon’s audience was in the process of becoming disenchanted with the Vietnam War and distrustful of the “Establishment”, the wealthy and the older generation, it is natural that he would choose Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory”. Written during the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, it portrays a man who seems to have it all: wealth, education, manners, and the admiration of everyone around him. And those who envy him do not have enough money for meat and curse the bread they had (many were forced to live on daily bread in those years of depression). But despite all this success, Cory calmly goes home one day and kills himself with a gun. The reader is forced to see that all of Cory’s advantages didn’t matter and that he was missing something essential. Perhaps it was the foolishness of excessive wealth (consider the Book of Ecclesiastes “All is vanity and running after the wind”). Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was boredom or depression. We don’t know… but we are challenged to ask.
Simon, using his background in English literature, brought “Richard Cory” into the 20th century. He starts out the same way, although Simon embellishes it a bit. Cory isn’t just rich, he “he owns half of this entire town.” He is so rich that he can give generously to charity. He knows all the right people. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the spoiled only son of a wealthy banker. The press follows his every move like a modern paparazzi. For his amusement, he organizes incredible parties and indulges in orgies.
However, he still commits suicide with a gun.
And the singer of the song? He works in Cory’s factory, hungry and poor, furious with fate for his poverty, bitterly envious of his “boss.” But unlike the poem, the singer seems to have a death wish because still i wish i was cory even after Cory has committed suicide.
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