this is a poll to decide which is the best track on bridge over troubled water by simon and garfunkel

had no idea El Condor Pasa was already a pre-exisitng tune until that BBC doc a few weeks back. the story of how they made that rhythm track on Cecilia was amazing too.

I only knew this from living near some Peruvian buskers who played it. (I just lucked out and found video of the actual same buskers, below.) So the song is actually an early version of what Simon did decades later, writing pop songs in obscure genres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yvit9dvKIE

Probably 'Only Living Boy', that's a transcendent piece of music.

I've thinking about 'Keep the Customer' quite a lot lately, mainly to try and work out whether it's 'heard' or 'read' (in the Bible), and how perceptive heard would be, in describing the experience of a former? churchgoer.

Some good thoughts here about the meaning of the lyric

http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/7342/

Vietnam vet? Black salesman?

I always assumed travelling salesman from the bible belt myself.

This was my favourite record between the ages of 6 and 10. It was the only LP my parents played that wasn't Jim Reeves. I remember loving the jauntiness in Keep the Customer Satisfied, and thinking that Only Living Boy was a bit weird and I didn't like it too much. Now listening to it, outside the title track (overplayed) there's not much I'd like to skip. Oh, apart from the Everly Brothers cover, that song's pretty lumpen imo.

Just watched the doc talked about upthread. It's def. worth checking out. I lolled at Paul Simon calling Cecelia "pretty hooky" like he was surprised by it or something.

voted "Only Living Boy", & yeah it's the production: I read or heard that those aaahs in the "chorus" were S&G singing at the top of their lungs, shouting really, voices breaking, but that they'd mixed it to sound like they were just singing backing vocals: so that's what gives those aaahs such intensity. Maybe that's a common trick in production, I dunno, not a gamer: but it's thoroughly moving.

it took me a while to come around to S&G (& to PS also) b/c it was square music to me, but then I grew up & cast aside childish ways

I don't know... I like most of the songs on this album, but to me "The Boxer" is classic and timeless and perfect in a way "Cecillia" or "Only Boy" just don't approach. Its interesting that everyone seems to have a lot of real serious S&G opinions and knowledge to drop.

It has to be 'The Only Living Boy In New York', without a second thought or any doubt. Absolutely wonderful harmonies, and such a beautiful tune. Possibly my favourite Simon & Garfunkel song overall as well.

i was really hoping horseshoe was gonna show up on this at some point.

It was the only LP my parents played that wasn't Jim Reeves.

Tell a lie, it was Jim Reeves and Charley Pride in my house, wall to wall. I had to scrape by with S&G and Buddy Holly's Greatest Hits.

I keep forgetting that "The Boxer" is the lie-luhlie song

"Cecilia" is probably my favorite S&G song though, I just adore the percussion to bits

these guys are fucking amazing tho, I don't listen to them nearly enough

when Cleveland Jr started singing his personalized love song to his g/f Cecilia on the latest Cleveland Show, I was hoping he was about to launch into a flamenco version of the S&G tune.

alas, it didn't happen

(granted those lyrics wouldn't have been very romantic but go with me on this)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

sorry, plax, i didn't see this poll! also i don't know the s & g albums that well tbh. will listen!

the 3 massive songs on this (boxer, only living boy, cecilia) just super overfamiliar to want to vote for even tho they're the 3 best songs. voted bye bye love instead which is also massively good.

Tons of well-constructed, well-performed, well-written stuff in here - despite sentimental favorites in "Customer" and "Why Don't You Write Me?", I think it has to be either "Cecilia," "The Boxer," or "The Only Living Boy In New York," each of which just NAILS its vibe to the wall, nothing out of place, so precisely-made! So brilliantly sung! "Boy" for pathos, "Cecilia" for memories of joy singing along to it in big happy groups of people...I can't decide. This is a really really strong record.

I will say that "Condor" and "Frank Lloyd Wright," though both great, sort of slow down this record for me - would be great to have a whole late S&G album of just that kind of thing, but in light of the uptempo and mega-produced things...they don't feel slight, just sort of dwarfed. They'd be great on that first Simon solo record.

I can see why Simon would be all defensively "Hey, waitaminit, I wrote that!" when Garfunkel's singing "Bridge." But when Aretha or Elvis sang it, he no doubt beamed and elbowed whomever he's standing next to and said, "Heh...you know, I wrote that."

horseshoe! we always say with this really absolute certainty that paul simon is so much better than simon and garfunkel but this album was really a huge surprise from me. i think i got confused by the narrative of his own solo stuff where it starts with this really stripped down album and afterwards seems to pick up tricks from all these different experiments and collaborations (jazzy chord shapes, high life bass, shimmering adult contempo production tricks) bit then this album a lot of these ideas are already embedded in it and working in different ways. to the extent that i want to put them all on different simon albums (el condor pasa on the rhythm of the saints, keep the customer satisfied on paul simon, song for the asking on still crazy). the main thing that's happening on this album that he never came back to really is the vastness of them. these voices finding each other in enormous space and the harmonies are out of this world even though i sortof wanted to think of them as being really a bit trite and saccharine before i got properly into it.

would be great to have a whole late S&G album of just that kind of thing

By rearranging tracks from Bookends and BOTW you could probly make a fantastic version of this

I love The Boxer with a fierce passion, lieluhlies & all.

Ppl seem a bit cautious about praising it: is that bcz of Dyln's cover?

I love both the original and Dylan's cover.

Hard for me to pick a winner here, as there are at least five in the running (first three, "The Boxer" and "Only Living Boy"). Big fan of "Customer" and "Frank Lloyd Wright", too. Easily one of my favorite albums of the 70s.

I grew up with Bridge Over Troubled Water, as S&G and The Beatles were household staples throughout my childhood. I doubt I went more than a couple months during the first decade of my life without hearing one or the other, usually this album or Sgt. Pepper's. As a result, it's sometimes hard for me to really hear BOTW, nostalgic familiarity overtaking fresh perception. For that reason, I've really enjoyed reading judith's responses in this thread. Reminds me of lying on the living room rug as kid, my head between the speakers, marveling at the harmonies and production.

Anyway, The Boxer.

Pretty sure "El Condor Pasa" was in there somewhere when Abba were writing "Fernando"

I voted for "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" because it is the one that has grown in my estimation the most over my lifetime with the record (it is literally the first record I remember hearing). I thought it was dull as a kid, without the bombastic drums of "Cecelia" or the thunderous booms of "The Boxer" or the sing-along chorus' of so much of the record. But as I've gotten older, the lyrics, the delivery, the subdued bossa vibe have all hit me harder and harder. It's such a lived in song from a couple of guys still in their 20s.

I should read what I plan to post - that's got some interesting construction and grammatical issues, as always.

unrelated to this specific album but posting here cuz what the hell. Apparently this was the b-side to "Fakin' It", and is their only non-album b-side...? weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaQXN91PHs

have always wondered what the story was behind the sampled dialogue in the middle of Fakin' It, anyone know the background on that...?

the correct answer is the title track

lol what?

i have been listening to this album so much since you started this poll... i still like 'only living boy' the most, its so soft and pretty and self-conscious just the way he sortof drags out the beginning of 'i get the news i need on the weather report' with this hesitant 'ahh' is so amazing

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Fair enough.

Absolutely no surprises for me there with the top spot, 'The Only Living Boy In New York' is sublime. I'm very surprised that 'El Condor Pasa' didn't come higher, though.

me too!

"El Condor Pasa" is my least favorite song on the record.

boo

the lyrics are like a holdover from a more cloying, less-self assured earlier period of Simon's songwriting imho

you only say that because you would rather be a snail

well I do leave a trail of slime wherever I go

^^^(obscure Bloom County joke/ref that probably only Ned will get)

plax i just want you to know that i am going to compile all your paul simon/simon and garfunkel-related posts and craft them into a book and read it while i listen to this album and all the paul simon albums. which is all i'm going to ever do for the rest of my life.

have always wondered what the story was behind the sampled dialogue in the middle of Fakin' It, anyone know the background on that...?

― locally sourced stabbage (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, January 12, 2012 6:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well, I know that it's not sampled, and was in fact voiced in the studio by Beverley Martyn (later to marry John Martyn). She's saying 'Good morning, Mr. Leitch' because they wanted to come up with a 'character' for this 'shop scene' in the middle of the song, and Beverley Martyn suggested using Donovan's surname.

That lyric is just basically Paul Simon saying if he'd existed a century ago, he wouldn't be earning money writing songs, he'd be a tailor instead.

haha waht that is so random

love whatever that clinking-glasses sound is in the guitar breakdown of Cecilia

― The Silent Extreme (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, January 6, 2012 11:19 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Are you talking about the instrumental part? That's a heavily limited xylophone, played by Paul.

Only Boy in New York is the 'best', but my favourite is narrowly 'Song for the Asking'. That cello counterpoint! So beautiful. Especially given how it fades in from the audience applause at the end of Bye Bye Love.

I'm in two minds about the length of 'Song For The Asking'... some days I wish it was longer, but on others I think the length of it is just perfect.

wow what a great song "keep the customer satisfied" is!

yeah it is, love that final orchestra hit

baby driver rightfully marginalized as the james taylor cover it is

its also like magnificently sequenced the songs i already knew seemed so much punchier in this context.

this is so true! i finally get "the boxer."