Simon & Garfunkel were one of the most popular folk/rock acts of the late ‘60s, consisting of singer/songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They leaned into the folk side, with a lot of acoustic work, and had three U.S. number one singles: The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. They met in school in Queens and started out in the New York City music scene as teenagers, calling themselves Tom & Jerry. They had one minor hit, called Hey Schoolgirl, but in 1964, they released their first album, Wednesday Morning. It was all up from there.
Here are some of my favorites, and this week, you get a bonus.
The Sound of Silence (1965): There was an acoustic version of this song on Simon & Garfunkel’s first album in 1964, but this is the version people seem to remember best. Or, at least, I do. Paul Simon, who wrote this song, later said:
It was just when I was coming out of college. My job was to take the songs that this huge publishing company owned and go around to record companies and see if any of their artists wanted to record the songs. I worked for them for about six months and never got a song placed, but I did give them a couple of my songs because I felt so guilty about taking their money. Then I got into an argument with them and said, 'Look, I quit, and I'm not giving you my new song.' And the song that I had just written was 'The Sound of Silence.' I thought, 'I'll just publish it myself,' and from that point on I owned my own songs, so that was a lucky argument
I Am A Rock (1965): This song isn’t the old doggerel about no man being an island; it’s about a man locking himself away from the world, in fact being a rock, or an island – an isolated one, to boot. Paul Simon, who reportedly wrote this in a spree of songwriting when he was young and looking for a hit, later claimed that it wasn’t autobiographical.
Homeward Bound (1966): I have a lovely memory of this song. In May of 1991, my medical company finally boarded our Freedom Bird in Saudi Arabia to head home. One of our young NCOs had his boom box (remember boom boxes?) with him in the plane, and as the Freedom Bird took off, he put in a cassette with this song queued up, and played it full blast. Great moment. And, a great song.
Mrs. Robinson (1968): If you are, like me, a bit gray, you’ll remember that this song played a key part in the 1967 film The Graduate, with a very young Dustin Hoffman and a somewhat older (but still very attractive) Anne Bancroft. Yes, 1967; the song was released as a single the next year. But in that movie, you might remember the May/September relationship that made the film somewhat of an eyebrow-raiser. Fast forward to the summer of 1980, when I was 18, and had about a month-long… liaison, with a woman who was exactly twice my age. That led to the gang of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells I called my buddies to break out in this song whenever I showed up somewhere.
They’re still my buddies. And yes, they’re still a gang of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells.
The Boxer (1970): A rather melancholy tune with a thought-provoking feel to it – and lyrics to match. This one, unlike the rock mentioned above, was semi-autobiographical; Paul Simon later said about it:
I think the song was about me: everybody's beating me up, and I'm telling you now I'm going to go away if you don't stop. By that time we had encountered our first criticism. For the first few years, it was just pure praise. It took two or three years for people to realize that we weren't strange creatures that emerged from England but just two guys from Queens who used to sing rock 'n' roll. And maybe we weren't real folkies at all! Maybe we weren't even hippies!
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Cecelia (1970): Now this song I find just downright confusing. I like the music: It’s got a great sound, snappy, upbeat and fun. But if you take a moment to listen to the lyrics:
Makin' love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom (makin' love on my bed)
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed, someone's taken my place
Later in the song, he’s begging Cecilia to come back – and is delighted when she does. Seriously? How long was this guy gone? He went to wash his face. What, two, three minutes? It only took her that long to get some other guy in his bed? He should have defenestrated her and her other dude and been glad to be rid of her. I never got that – fun song, though, if you just don’t think about it too much.
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And, of course, this one has to be included; it was the primary song played in most of the weddings I attended as a young man.
Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970): This was one of the most popular songs in weddings when I was a young man; of the four of us best buddies, the guys who were my best friends in high school (and still are today), two of us had this song in our weddings. I didn’t; my first time was just in a courthouse, five minutes in front of a judge. The tune is good, and Art Garfunkel’s vocals suited the song.
About this one, Paul Simon said:
I feel pretty certain that you folks who are at or near my vintage have some thoughts about Simon & Garfunkel. As always, the comments are all yours.I have no idea where it came from. It came all of the sudden. It was one of the most shocking moments in my songwriting career. I remember thinking, 'This is considerably better than I usually write.
