This week our curators of the Song of the Day blog are the Artistic Administration staff of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (our next concert, “At Home,” which will take place both at Caramoor and at Merkin Hall, features Caramoor’s 2016 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars). Today’s selection comes from Caramoor’s Artistic Coodinator, Timothy Coffey:

First off, thank you to NYFOS for allowing me to come up with a Song of the Day for your blog! Secondly, it is incredibly hard to come up with one song from one artist, but I don’t think I can go wrong with Paul Simon – a childhood favorite of mine who has remains a favorite today.

As a young, aspiring, wannabe rockstar, my 12 year old self bought his very first guitar. I can remember a few songs that were on the top of the “I must learn this song immediately” list; Don Mclean’s American Pie, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway (what 12 year old with a guitar did not want to learn that one), Tom Petty’s Free Fallin, and a few other (obvious and perhaps overplayed) guitar favorites. However, my younger self also had an “I must learn every song by this artist” list which included the great Paul Simon.

Below is one that I still play on a regular basis. It always puts me in good spirits and I’ll never get bored of singing the opening line “Mama Pajama…”