YMMV / Paul Williams

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• Accidental Innuendo: There's this one suspect line in "Sunday":
  "Snuggled up like spoons inside a drawer / closer now than you and I have ever been before"
• Award Snub: "Rainbow Connection" lost to "It Goes Like It Goes" from Norma Rae. Critics and fans alike let the Academy hear it. And who even remembers the other song anymore?
• Awesome Music: Has his own dedicated page to his works, because of course he does!
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Leland Sklar, bassist extraordinaire, is by far the most popular of Williams' regular studio musicians.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Phantom of the Paradise became huge in Winnipeg (and precisely nowhere else, except perhaps the French underground scene). When Williams later held a concert there, the reception he got (particularly from women and young girls) was likened to The Beatles during the height of Beatlemania (only on a... smaller scale, literally). When Phantompalooza was held there some thirty years later, Williams' reception was certainly not much less enthusiastic.
  • Also, he has a bit of a following in Japan, where his old albums have been re-released before they ever were in the West. He even recorded a live album in Japan.
• Ending Fatigue: The album version of "Sad Song" drags on a little bit at the end. "Hey Jude" it ain't. A few more than a few prefer the brevity of the Muppet Show version.
• Epic Riff: "The Hell of It". Actually, make that any rock song from Phantom.
• First Installment Wins: Someday Man is this to some who find Williams' later work to be too sappy.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The cover for his 1981 album ...And Crazy for Loving You with its diner table full of booze hits a little bit too close to home nowadays, considering it was basically right before everything broke down for real.
  • Swan's rampant drug abuse and paranoia is even more disturbing now that it's been revealed to be pretty close to reality.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Roan Pony".
  • Believe me, Paul Williams is feeling fantastic, and he's still alive.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Great Gonzo!
• Tear Jerker:
  • Paul's best work is just so... powerful. His biggest strength as a lyricist is being able to take raw, heartfelt emotion and distil it into words. Sometimes... those words are very, very sad. You could be reading only the lyrics and the effect just might be strangely similar. The guy knows how you feel, man.
  • "Still Alive". Sad, funny, heartbreaking, heartwarming, all at the same time.
  • His voice, while not Pavarotti by any means, is really what make his songs his. There's an earnestness to his range and phrasing that really sounds like he believes every word he's singing, which is the mark of any great performer.
  • "Touch", his collaboration with Daft Punk from Random Access Memories, is one of the saddest pieces of music he's ever been associated with. Doubly so now that Daft Punk used it to announce their breakup.
  • "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday", one of his other songs for The Muppet Movie, has this effect on many listeners/viewers of said film. To quote this article, "The hauntingly beautiful lyrics, the emotionally gripping music, Gonzo’s soul-searching movements and emotions… every single thing about this song is perfect." Not that Rachel Yamagata's cover is any less of a tear jerker.
  • "When the River Meets the Sea" from Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas is gorgeously poignant, even more so when it was performed at Jim Henson's memorial service.
• The Woobie: When in the thrall of his addiction.

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