The Paul Simon Song Book

The Paul Simon Song Book is the debut solo studio album by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon, released in the UK in 1965 by CBS. Featuring Simon alone, it was recorded in London after he emigrated there, following the U.S. release and subsequent limited success of Simon & Garfunkel's debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964). Song Book features solo re-recordings of two songs from that album, as well as nine songs that would later be re-recorded by the duo for other studio albums. After a very brief release in the U.S. in 1969, Song Book was later made available there as part of the LP box set Paul Simon: Collected Works (1981). It was released on CD in 2004.
The album cover shows Simon and his then-girlfriend, Kathy Chitty, sitting on "narrow streets of cobblestone" in London, the city Simon had adopted as his home, and holding wooden figurines. In the 1970s, the album art was altered: the picture of Simon and Chitty was flipped horizontally, and the red script-like lettering eliminated in favor of an album title in white block print at the top.
Because the album wasn't released in the US at the time, several bootleg editions surfaced from 1971 on labels like Trade Mark Of Quality, which are included here. The songs are sequenced in a different order to the official release.