Simon & Garfunkel - Classic or Dud?

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

it's a fine analogy, it's just that Paul McCartney sucks and Paul Simon doesn't

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
or cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving
but the fighter still remains.

Somebody posted these lyrics to facebook, and I didn't know what they were and immediately thought they were the perfect example of bathos. Just felt vindicated when I realized they were Simon & Garfunkel.

but I agree with above, Paul Simon solo is better.

I wrote up a quick thought about the worst Simon & Garfunkel tune today, the abominable and unreleased "Cuba Si, Nixon No"

http://heystacks.tumblr.com/post/56781841001/simon-garfunkel-cuba-si-nixon-no-back-to

I actually kind of like it, but I'm dumb.

It's basically the antithesis of why I like Simon & Garfunkel, but even a second rate Chuck Berry shuffle with third rate Phil Ochs lyrics on top has certain charms.

Garfunkel was definitely otm. What about the worst Simon & Garfunkel tune that was actually released, though? Not including the Tom & Jerry stuff they did before Simon & Garfunkel, of course.

If you take out their covers I'm not sure. They did some bad covers, especially some of the ones that surfaced as bonus cuts on the early records.

Big bright green pleasure machine is so bad

Simple desultory phillipic too, as noted

I loved "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" as a kid so can't fairly judge it.

The stupid sub-Dylan "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)" is horrid except for that organ bass line or whatever it is that anchors it. Great music, shit lyrics. I feel the same way about "Patterns".

Best unreleased tune is "Groundhog":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaKCN44w-T0

The stupid sub-Dylan "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)" is horrid

Yep, I'd agree with this... I've never been fond of it!

the rest of the lyrics of The Boxer aren't quite as bad, but they still have kind of a hackneyed, kid in creative writing class writing about "The Poor" quality.

Philippic: YA CAN UNNERSTAN DA WOIDS

Mrs. Robinson is a pretty mediocre song.

line about Dimaggio gets me every time and I don't even like baseball

well i mean imagine a whole nation's worth of eyes

'Mrs. Robinson' isn't a favourite of mine, but I don't mind it. 'The Only Living Boy In New York', though... ALL TIME.

'Mrs. Robinson' was an unfinished song they had lying around til Mike Nichols needed a song called Mrs Robinson

well i mean imagine a whole nation's worth of eyes

$50 for a lawn seat at my local summer outdoor venue on his summer tour. Feels like a lot to pay to sit on the grass (straining our nation's worth of eyes)

got in the car this morning, turned on the radio and... this came on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOGqZJC0_Xs

i don't mean to get all alex in nyc on y'all, but there oughta be a law

It took some time for the YouTube embed to load, all the while I was assuming it'd be this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4

"I Am A Rock" is the first song I have exercised my veto over in my dad cover band. It's a bridge to far, which, incidentally, sounds like it would be the name of a Simon and Garfunkel album.

so I found something rather interesting on wikipedia

In 2015, someone edited the Wikipedia page for "The Sound of Silence," claiming the original first lyric was "Aloha darkness, my old friend." It is still there. https://t.co/uB7mBnA1sQ pic.twitter.com/1EFP7uEXsj

— katherine morayati (@morayati) March 9, 2018

So, I'm listening to Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme for the first time in ages tonight and I've pretty much reminded myself why this is the last Simon & Garfunkel album I tend to reach for. Such a frustrating mix of high quality classics ('Scarborough Fair', 'Patterns', 'Cloudy', 'The 59th Street Bridge Song') and supreme duds ('A Simple Desultory Philippic') ... Sounds of Silence was a relative rush job, but I much prefer it.

i've lost my harmonica, albert

I'd never seen this before. Really enjoyed it--don't know if Simon's a little stoned, or if he's always like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDqIsuIpVy4