Paul Simon's movie One-Trick Pony is apparently going to go on being long-awaited for another couple of months yet, so we can't have any idea of what he'll be like on the screen. But on the soundtrack album, his music does a first-rate job of acting…. [The] material here, in both the writing and the performance, isn't credible for a second as the sort of stuff a journeyman rocker could or would actually play. What Simon gives us instead is his very stylized and elegant translation of what that music and that life might mean.

Such an abstract treatment makes perfect sense for Simon. He's always approached rock and roll's forms and feelings with a cast of mind that, for all the respect and genuine affection involved, is finally analytical. His imagination is nourished most by how much he can do with music's raw materials, even as his...