Simon & Garfunkel - Classic or Dud?

Several S&G songs are as classic as can be: "The Boxer," "Only Living Boy in New York," "America," "April Come She Will," "Mrs. Robinson."

But they also made some truly troublingly bad things. The swallowed-a-thesaurus 11th-grade-level poetry of "The Dangling Conversation," for example. Or

Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy

...it just smacks of Trying Too Hard.

And if I never hear "Feelin' Groovy" again, I will die a happy man.

Frankly, I've never really gotten the sense that Garfunkel added a lot. He sings pretty. He sings high. So the fuck what. The songs are where it's at--delete Art from most S&G tracks and you still have good songs.

So semiclassic, with reservations.

Couple in the next room
Bound to win a prize
Theyve been going at it all night long
Well, Im trying to get some sleep
But these motel walls are cheap
Lincoln Duncan is my name
And heres my song, heres my song.

Right up there with "Motel Blues" in the Best Motel Song category.

The snare drum part on the intro of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" is easily one of the three or four best drum performances ever recorded. I am a drummer and I am telling you that it is utterly, indisputably perfect. But would you call the group that recorded that song "Simon & Gadd"? No.

Simon solo piques me more.

I love those lyrics!

POX (off the top of my head)

America
For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
Hazy Shade Of Winter
Patterns
Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Faking It
Mrs Robinson
Seven O'Clock News (Silent Night)
The Dangling Conversation

Albums

1. Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme*
2. Bookends
3. Sounds of Silence
4. Bridge Over Troubled Water
5. Wednesday Morning, 3AM
6. The Graduate OST

*Wins over Bookends because of the hilariously over-earnest sleevenotes.

i think his first solo record is the best, most coherent/satisfying thing he's done (though there are some songs on the second solo album that are incredible). but there sure are some awesome s&g songs, even if they all have a few lyrics and/or clipped diction that make me cringe. ("seeking out the poor-er quarters..." egads).

Also, why was S&G never mentioned as a massive "influence" on Belle and Sebastian?? It seems so glaringly obvious.

Classic.

But Graceland is really good.

god, I hadn't heard "Mrs. Robinson" in ages. So good.

spent many a car journey in my childhood listening to S&G so i have a nostalgic bias. But their best work still holds up very well in my opinion - so definite CLASSIC!

simon: classic
garfunkel: dud

super mega classic.

I command everybody to listen to the Aretha Franklin version of Bridge Over Troubled Water right now this minute, and never listen to the original again.

FUCK U IF YOU DON'T THINK CLASSIC

lye la lye
*PUNCH*
lye la lye lye (*PUNCH*) lye lye lye
lye la lye
*PUNCH*
lye la lye lye (*PUNCH*) la la lye lye lye

it looks like a knitting pattern written out like that

Bookends is classic.

Funny story about how that *PUNCH* was recorded

Which has already been posted here Studio Stories although not the part about the security guard.

I refuse to believe it is anything but the sound of a boxer punching someone.

preferring paul simon solo to S&G seems completely insane to me, sort've on the level of preferring mccartney solo to the beatles -- i mean, mccartney solo is often pretty great, but c'mon!

How I woul;d rank these
1. beatles
2. paul mccartney solo
3. s&g
4. the song where a rabbit dies in Watreship Down
5. paul simon solo

6. *PUNCH*

4. the song where a rabbit dies in Watreship Down

Isn't that the only solo Garfunkel song anyone likes?

cool cool watre

Do you remember the scene in "Jack Nicholson is OCD GRouch" when he has made all these mix CDs to impress Helen Hunt, and when he notices Helen Hunt does not like his OCD mix CDs, it is playing an Art Garfunkel cover of a boring standard?

Should have gone with the dying rabbit!

hey abbott SPOILER ALERT much??

j/k i have heard enough about 'watership down' that i assume it just consists of rabbits exploding and nothing else

preferring paul simon solo to S&G seems completely insane to me, sort've on the level of preferring mccartney solo to the beatles -- i mean, mccartney solo is often pretty great, but c'mon!

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, May 28, 2012 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I tend to listen to Paul McCartney solo (or John Lennon or George Harrison solo, even) more than The Beatles, these days. But that's because I've listened to all of those Beatles songs hundreds upon thousands of times and I'm quite bored of them, whereas I haven't quite exhausted 30+ albums of solo material yet.

Anyway: S&G? Classic, without a doubt.

j/k i have heard enough about 'watership down' that i assume it just consists of rabbits exploding and nothing else

In addition to rabbit angst, rabbit gore, rabbit eschatology, and rabbit language, there is also a corvid with a comedy Eastern European accent

In rabbit eschatology, Art Garfunkel figures as Frithrah, the black sun who singes the world with an Eb5 falsetto note

preferring paul simon solo to S&G seems completely insane to me, sort've on the level of preferring mccartney solo to the beatles -- i mean, mccartney solo is often pretty great, but c'mon!

this itself is an insane point! It's easy for me to hear that Paul Simon wrote better songs solo.

whereas as much as I like a lot of solo Macca it quite often wasn't the case.

yeah it's not a good analogy