History AwesomeMusic / SimonAndGarfunkel

* Simon's adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem [[Literature/CollectedPoems1921 "Richard Cory"]] opens Side 2, the almost jaunty tune and electric instrumentation expertly setting up the MoodWhiplash in which we learn that the title character had wealth but was so unhappy that he was finally DrivenToSuicide... not that this stops the singer from cursing his poverty and wishing he could be Richard Cory.

* Simon's adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem [[https://youtu.be/fAGKpoVFbmw "Richard Cory"]] opens Side 2, the almost jaunty tune and electric instrumentation expertly setting up the MoodWhiplash in which we learn that the title character had wealth but was so unhappy that he was finally DrivenToSuicide... not that this stops the singer from cursing his poverty and wishing he could be Richard Cory.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0 "The Sound of Silence"]] had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4 already appeared]] on ''Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.'', but only gradually found an audience, and when producer Tom Wilson put an electric guitar and rhythm section over the simple guitar-and-vocals arrangement, Simon & Garfunkel were truly here to stay. Though Garfunkel recalls that Simon was "horrified" when he first heard the electric arrangement, the extra instruments add an appropriate level of angst to the haunting lyrics about humanity's inability to communicate (a theme that runs through many songs on the album), which rank among Simon's best.

* Simon's adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAGKpoVFbmw "Richard Cory"]] opens Side 2, the almost jaunty tune and electric instrumentation expertly setting up the MoodWhiplash in which we learn that the title character had wealth but was so unhappy that he was finally DrivenToSuicide... not that this stops the singer from cursing his poverty and wishing he could be Richard Cory.
* Following on from the previous song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YTgwY1Ld5s "A Most Peculiar Man"]] is another memorable musical character portrait of a shut-in whose angry interactions with the other tenants in his building hid inner torment so terrible that, like Richard Cory, he was finally DrivenToSuicide (the vocals and instruments becoming noticeably harsher for the relevant lyrics), and all that anyone can say now he is dead is that he was... a most peculiar man.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYD-DIggB2k "April Come She Will"]] is a beautiful ballad using the passing months as a metaphor for the changing moods of a romantic attachment - content in April and especially May, withdrawing across June and July, and dead and gone (whether literally or not is ambiguous) by August and September.
* Having opened with a song lamenting humanity's inability to communicate, the album closes with a song ''celebrating'' lack of communication in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2nN-Yrt1EU "I Am a Rock"]], described by Garfunkel as Simon's "most neurotic song". In contrast to the most peculiar man from earlier on Side 2, the singer of "I Am a Rock" is perfectly happy shutting himself off from the world, thank you very much. Rather that than be hurt again when love and friendship turn sour. The duo's voices mesh gloriously with each other, and the gradual ebbing of the instrumentation down to just Simon's voice and guitar for the final refrain is especially potent.

* Simon & Garfunkel's third studio album opens with the brilliantly constructed and beautifully rendered "title track", [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jj4s9I-53g "Scarborough Fair/Canticle".]] While based in England, Paul Simon was introduced to the English folk song "Scarborough Fair" by Martin Carthy, but they decided to give the song that little bit extra by re-working Simon's anti-war ballad "The Side of a Hill" from his 1965 solo album ''The Paul Simon Songbook'' with a new melody by Art Garfunkel to be sung in counterpoint as "Canticle".[[note]] Carthy was particularly upset that the song was thus credited solely to Simon and Garfunkel, feeling that at least they should have included a "Traditional" attribution for "Scarborough Fair", but he and Simon eventually made amends.[[/note]] Add a dreamlike acoustic guitar riff, harpsichord, and glockenspiel, and you have all the makings of an absolute classic. (When they performed the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ccgk8PXz64 live,]] they pared it back to a rendition of "Scarborough Fair" only.)

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAnj2fyjxRw "Homeward Bound"]] is an anthem for travelling musicians everywhere who are feeling the bite of homesickness. Simon composed the song while touring folk clubs in England, writing down the lyrics on a scrap of paper while, per the lyrics, "sittin' at the railway station" with "a ticket for [his] destination" (the railway station has variously been identified as Widnes or the now-disused Ditton, both between Liverpool and Manchester), and the sudden brightening of the mood for the refrain in which the singer dreams of returning to the land where his thoughts are escaping, his music is playing, and his love lies waiting silently for him is a particular highlight.
* Side 1 closes with the buoyant [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Reuyu9e_o "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)",]] an infectiously optimistic ditty about slowing down and taking the time to appreciate life's pleasures.
* The punchy Music/BobDylan parody [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvs3rCFI2A "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert [=McNamara'd=] Into Submission)"]] matches Simon's harsh vocals and deliberately meandering lyrics (with a healthy dose of HypocriticalHumor as the singer sneers at an unknown person for being so uncultured as to think that "Dylan" refers not to Bob Dylan, but to Creator/DylanThomas - "Whoever he was!") with a spiky electric score, the object of the parody emphasised further with wry use of a harmonica between verses and in the fade-out.
* The enigmatic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWrdwP1YH0 "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her"]] is a highlight of Side 2; just who - or what - is Emily? Simon and Garfunkel have given several possible answers - Simon's then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty, the 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, or perhaps the ideal of romantic love, or even simply some undefined aspect of life that brings fulfillment.

* The [[WanderlustSong "road trip" classic]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pWK9KASwFU "America"]] is striking for being one of the few songs in Simon & Garfunkel's catalogue to feature lyrics that don't rhyme, and they certainly don't need to rhyme to paint a compelling picture of two lost souls who board a Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh to New York in search of what makes America what it is. The buildup of energy to the refrain (first on the line "It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw", then on the line "Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike") is especially powerful.
* The wistful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFtz5hwO3w "Old Friends"]] gives us a truly heart-rending set of vocals (doubly so when one considers the ups and downs Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's friendship has had as they have reached the "terribly strange" age of 70 mentioned in the song) over a well-crafted orchestral score, finally leading straight into a reprise of the gentle "Bookends Theme" for solo guitar that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTt1Pj8lOwY opened Side 1]] and now returns to close it, this time with lyrics that pick up the thread of "Old Friends":

* The irresistibly catchy [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C1BCAgu2I8 "Mrs. Robinson"]], made famous by its use in ''Film/TheGraduate'', is another song in Paul Simon's catalogue that really takes off in its refrain, not least when the lyrics wonder where New York Yankees great Joe [=DiMaggio=] has gone at a time when the nation needs heroes to look up to.[[note]] Simon's own baseball idol was Mickey Mantle, but his name didn't have enough syllables to fit the tune; as for [=DiMaggio=], Simon met him by chance in a New York restaurant shortly after the song was released, and [=DiMaggio=] pointed out that he hadn't gone anywhere - he had just done commercials for Mr. Coffee and Bowery Savings Bank! He was later voted baseball's greatest living player in a poll taken in the sport's centennial year, 1969.[[/note]]
* The driving guitar rhythm and spiky brass of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVA-1iJxRQI "Hazy Shade of Winter"]] lend an appropriate level of anguish to a song about a poet lamenting his lack of professional success as time seems to pass ever more quickly, with autumn changing to winter.
* The lively [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDu7eitZrgw "At the Zoo"]] is almost guaranteed to get your toes tapping with its upbeat rhythm and its wry anthropomorphisation of the various zoo animals, some of them decidedly uncomplimentary!

* Simon & Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album topped the charts in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and at least seven European countries,[[note]] The United Kingdom, France, Spain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; it was also #4 in Italy.[[/note]] and deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970. It hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvF5imxSaLI title track]], especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals for the third verse and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a truly outstanding climax. The lyrics, in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed, also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup. For added awesome, try the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrcwRt6J32o live version]] from the 1981 Central Park concert.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6d3yVq1Xtw "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)"]] may be somewhat controversial for its inadvertent use of Daniel Robles' Peruvian folk-inspired tune (as arranged by Los Incas), but since Simon reached a very amicable settlement with Robles' son and later produced Los Incas' first English language album, we can enjoy the song for his own contribution, the haunting lyrics about preferring to take action rather than be acted upon, about preferring to take off and be free rather than be chained down.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5uei2AFEaQ "Cecilia"]] starts with an infectious rhythm track (a tape recording of Paul and Eddie Simon and Art Garfunkel slapping their hands against a wooden piano bench, initially recorded for a lark at a party) and provides vocal harmonies as good as any the duo ever recorded for a song about a relationship not quite going as the singer hoped.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx6_0Do0qGQ "Keep the Customer Satisfied"]] features a positively explosive use of big band brass, especially in the coda following the final refrain. Though some listeners interpret the lyrics about staying "one step ahead of the shoeshine", "two steps away from the county line", and keeping the customer satisfied to refer to drug dealing, the surface interpretation is the same as that for "Homeward Bound"; like Simon and Garfunkel themselves, the singer is just a travelling musician who is tired of life on the road and wants to go home.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY "The Boxer"]] is a plaintive, beautifully sung classic;[[note]] Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel insist that the so-called "lie la-lie" refrain - originally written as a placeholder until Simon could think of lyrics - is actually "la la-la", but no-one believes them - not even their own children.[[/note]] the gradual crescendo through the final repetitions of the refrain until it finally resolves into a quiet conclusion for solo guitar is a highlight. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JUbFj0BIc4 live version]] (heard on their 1969 live album and the 1981 Central Park concert among others) is a must-hear, featuring an extra verse that does not appear in the studio version:

* The next song on the album languished, largely unknown and unappreciated, for close to 40 years. It's a cheerful, upbeat rock song about yearning for love and adventure. Then Creator/EdgarWright named a movie after it: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8i4Rp3qizk "Baby Driver"]].
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJGSHMgbB0E "The Only Living Boy in New York",]] one of several songs Simon wrote to express how much he missed Art Garfunkel while he was in Mexico filming ''Literature/Catch22'' (and another sign of their irreversible slide toward breaking up as a musical act), sticks long in the memory with its heavily echoed vocalise refrain and lyrics appealing to the memory of the duo's early years (with Simon addressing Garfunkel as "Tom", a nod to their 1950s performances under the name Tom & Jerry) even as they grew apart.
* The album - and the duo's studio career overall - closes with the sweet, simple, direct [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmwiR7PQ_m0 "Song for the Asking".]] The theme of growing distance remains, but the overall mood is hopeful - Paul Simon's music will still be there after he and Art Garfunkel have parted ways, and we just have to ask him to tell us of all the love he holds inside. And with so much first-class music, there will surely always be someone, somewhere, who will ask for the songs of Simon & Garfunkel.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY "The Boxer"]] is a plaintive, beautifully sung classic;[[note]] Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel insist that the so-called "lie la-lie" refrain - originally written as a placeholder until Simon could think of lyrics - is actually "la la-la", but no-one believes them - not even their own children.[[/note]] the gradual crescendo through the final repetitions of the refrain until it finally resolves into a quiet conclusion for solo guitar is a highlight. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JUbFj0BIc4 live version]] (heard on their 1969 live album and the 1981 Central Park concert among others) is a must hear, featuring an extra verse that does not appear in the studio version:

* Simon & Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album topped the charts in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and at least seven European countries,[[note]] The United Kingdom, France, Spain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; it was also #4 in Italy.[[/note]] and deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970. It hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_a46WJ1viA title track]], especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals for the third verse and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a truly outstanding climax. The lyrics, in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed, also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup. For added awesome, try the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrcwRt6J32o live version]] from the 1981 Central Park concert.

* The next song on the album languished, largely unknown and unappreciated, for close to 40 years. It's a cheerful, upbeat rock song about yearning for love and adventure. Then Creator/EdgarWright named a movie after it: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8i4Rp3qizk Baby Driver]]''.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJGSHMgbB0E "The Only Living Boy in New York",]] one of several songs Simon wrote to express how much he missed Art Garfunkel while he was in Mexico filming ''Literature/Catch22'' (and another sign of their irreversible slide toward breaking up as a musical act) sticks long in the memory with its heavily echoed vocalise refrain and lyrics appealing to the memory of the duo's early years (with Simon addressing Garfunkel as "Tom", a nod to their 1950s performances under the name Tom & Jerry) even as they grew apart.

* The album - and the duo's studio career overall - closes with the sweet, simple, direct [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmwiR7PQ_m0 "Song for the Asking".]] The theme of growing distance remains, but the overall mood is hopeful - Paul Simon's music will still be there after he and Art Garfunkel have parted ways, and we just have to ask him to tell us of all the love he holds inside. And with so much first class music, there will surely always be someone, somewhere, who will ask for the songs of Simon & Garfunkel.

* Though not a commercial success, Simon & Garfunkel's first album still gave us a few first class songs, such as the laid back [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7d0bIlWDLQ "Bleecker Street",]] a tribute to the Greenwich Village thoroughfare. Like the rest of the album, it's just Paul's guitar and the duo's voices, but the effect is powerful.

* Following on from the previous song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YTgwY1Ld5s "A Most Peculiar Man"]] is another memorable musical character portrait of a shut-in whose angry interactions with the other tenants in his building hid inner torment so terrible that, like Richard Cory, he was finally DrivenToSuicide (the vocals and instruments becoming noticeably harsher for the relevant lyrics), and all that anyone can say, now he is dead, is that he was... a most peculiar man.

* Following on from the previous song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YTgwY1Ld5s "A Most Peculiar Man"]] is another memorable musical character portrait of a shut-in whose angry interactions with the other tenants in his building hid inner torment so terrible that, like Richard Cory, he was finally DrivenToSuicide (the vocals and instruments becoming noticeably harsher for the relevant lyrics), and all anyone can say now he is dead is that he was... a most peculiar man.

* The lively [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDu7eitZrgw "At the Zoo"]] is almost guaranteed to get your toes tapping with its upbeat rhythm and its wry anthropomorpisation of the various zoo animals, some of them decidedly uncomplimentary!

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY "The Boxer"]] is a plaintive, beautifully sung classic;[[note]] Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel insist that the so-called "lie li-lie" refrain - originally written as a placeholder until Simon could think of lyrics - is actually "la la-la", but no-one believes them - not even their own children.[[/note]] the gradual crescendo through the final repetitions of the refrain until it finally resolves into a quiet conclusion for solo guitar is a highlight. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JUbFj0BIc4 live version]] (heard on their 1969 live album and the 1981 Central Park concert among others) is a must hear, featuring an extra verse that does not appear in the studio version:

* The enigmatic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWrdwP1YH0 "For Emily, Whenver I May Find Her"]] is a highlight of Side 2; just who - or what - is Emily? Simon and Garfunkel have given several possible answers - Simon's then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty, the 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, or perhaps the ideal of romantic love, or even simply some undefined aspect of life that brings fulfillment.

* The enigmatic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWrdwP1YH0 "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her"]] is a highlight of Side 2; just who - or what - is Emily? Simon and Garfunkel have given several possible answers - Simon's then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty, the 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, or perhaps the ideal of romantic love, or even simply some undefined aspect of life that brings fulfillment.

Music/SimonAndGarfunkel are one of the greatest folk duos ever to pick up a guitar and a microphone. The reasons why are many.

* Simon & Garfunkel's third studio album opens with the brilliantly constructed and beautifully rendered "title track", [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jj4s9I-53g "Scarborough Fair/Canticle".]] While based in England, Paul Simon was introduced to the English folk song "Scarborough Fair" by Martin Carthy, but they decided to give the song that little bit extra by re-working Simon's anti-war ballad "The Side of a Hill" from his 1965 solo album ''The Paul Simon Songbook'' with a new melody by Art Garfunkel to be sung in counterpoint as "Canticle".[[note]] Carthy was particularly upset that the song was thus credited solely to Simon and Garfunkel, feeling that at least they should have included a "Traditional" attribution for "Scarborough Fair", but he and Simon eventually made amends.[[/note]] Add a dreamlike acoustic guitar riff, harpsichord, and glockenspiel, and you have all the makings of an absolute classic.

* Simon & Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album topped the charts in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and at least seven European countries,[[note]] The United Kingdom, France, Spain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; it was also #4 in Italy.[[/note]] and deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970. It hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_a46WJ1viA title track]], especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a climax that makes this song a perfect closer to the 1981 compilation ''The Simon and Garfunkel Collection''. The lyrics, in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed, also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY "The Boxer"]] is a plaintive, beautifully sung classic;[[note]] Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel insist that the so-called "lie li-lie" refrain - originally written as a placeholder until Simon could think of lyrics - is actually "la la-la", but no-one believes them - not even their own children.[[/note]] the gradual crescendo through the final repetitions of the refrain until it finally resolves into a quiet conclusion for solo guitar is a highlight. The live version (heard on their 1969 live album and the 1981 Central Park concert among others) is a must hear, featuring an extra verse that does not appear in the studio version:

* Following on from the previous song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YTgwY1Ld5s "A Most Peculiar Man"]] is another memorable musical character portrait of a shut-in whose angry interactions with the other tenants in his building hid inner torment so terrible that, like Richard Cory, he was finally DrivenToSuicide, and all anyone can say now he is dead is that he was... a most peculiar man.

* Simon & Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970, and it hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_a46WJ1viA title track]], especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a climax that makes this song a perfect closer to the 1981 compilation ''The Simon and Garfunkel Collection''. The lyrics in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup.

* Though not a commercial success, Simon and Garfunkel's first album still gave us a few first class songs, such as the laid back [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7d0bIlWDLQ "Bleecker Street",]] a tribute to the Greenwich Village thoroughfare. Like the rest of the album, it's just Paul's guitar and the duo's voices, but the effect is powerful.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0 "The Sound of Silence"]] had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4 already appeared]] on ''Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.'', but only gradually found an audience, and when producer Tom Wilson put an electric guitar and rhythm section over the simple guitar-and-vocals arrangement, Simon and Garfunkel were truly here to stay. Though Garfunkel recalls that Simon was "horrified" when he first heard the electric arrangement, the extra instruments add an appropriate level of angst to the haunting lyrics about humanity's inability to communicate (a theme that runs through many songs on the album), which rank among Simon's best.

* Simon and Garfunkel's third studio album opens with the brilliantly constructed and beautifully rendered "title track", [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jj4s9I-53g "Scarborough Fair/Canticle".]] While based in England, Paul Simon was introduced to the English folk song "Scarborough Fair" by Martin Carthy, but they decided to give the song that little bit extra by re-working Simon's anti-war ballad "The Side of a Hill" from his 1965 solo album ''The Paul Simon Songbook'' with a new melody by Art Garfunkel to be sung in counterpoint as "Canticle".[[note]] Carthy was particularly upset that the song was thus credited solely to Simon and Garfunkel, feeling that at least they should have included a "Traditional" attribution for "Scarborough Fair", but he and Simon eventually made amends.[[/note]] Add a dreamlike acoustic guitar riff, harpsichord, and glockenspiel, and you have all the makings of an absolute classic.

* The [[WanderlustSong "road trip" classic]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pWK9KASwFU "America"]] is striking for being one of the few songs in Simon and Garfunkel's catalogue to feature lyrics that don't rhyme, and they certainly don't need to rhyme to paint a compelling picture of two lost souls who board a Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh to New York in search of what makes America what it is. The buildup of energy to the refrain (first on the line "It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw", then on the line "Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike") is especially powerful.

* Simon and Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970, and it hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_a46WJ1viA title track]], especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a climax that makes this song a perfect closer to the 1981 compilation ''The Simon and Garfunkel Collection''. The lyrics in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJGSHMgbB0E "The Only Living Boy in New York",]] one of several songs Simon wrote to express how much he missed Art Garfunkel while he was in Mexico filming ''Literature/Catch22'' (and another sign of their irreversible slide toward breaking up as a musical act) sticks long in the memory with its heavily echoed vocalise refrain and lyrics appealing to the memory of the duo's early years (with Simon addressing Garfunkel as "Tom", a nod to their early performances under the name Tom and Jerry) even as they grew apart.
* The album - and the duo's studio career overall - closes with the sweet, simple, direct [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmwiR7PQ_m0 "Song for the Asking".]] The theme of growing distance remains, but the overall mood is hopeful - Paul Simon's music will still be there after he and Art Garfunkel have parted ways, and we just have to ask him to tell us of all the love he holds inside. And with so much first class music, there will surely always be someone, somewhere, who will ask for the songs of Simon and Garfunkel.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0 "The Sound of Silence"]] had already appeared on ''Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.'', but only gradually found an audience, and when producer Tom Wilson put an electric guitar and rhythm section over the simple guitar-and-vocals arrangement, Simon and Garfunkel were truly here to stay. Though Garfunkel recalls that Simon was "horrified" when he first heard the electric arrangement, the extra instruments add an appropriate level of angst to the haunting lyrics about humanity's inability to communicate (a theme that runs through many songs on the album), which rank among Simon's best.
* Simon's adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" opens Side 2, the almost jaunty tune beautifully setting up the MoodWhiplash in which we learn that the title character had wealth but was so unhappy that he was finally DrivenToSuicide... not that this stops the singer from saying he wishes he could be Richard Cory.
* Following on from the previous song, "A Most Peculiar Man" is another memorable musical character portrait of a shut-in whose angry interactions with the other tenants in his building hide inner torment so terrible that, like Richard Cory, he is finally DrivenToSuicide, and all anyone can say once he has died is that he was... a most peculiar man.
* "April Come She Will" is a beautiful ballad using the passing months as a metaphor for the changing moods of a romantic attachment - content in April and especially May, withdrawing across June and July, and dead and gone (whether literally or not is ambiguous) by August and September.
* Having opened with a song lamenting humanity's inability to communicate, the album closes with a ''celebration'' of lack of communication with "I Am a Rock", described by Garfunkel as Simon's "most neurotic song". In contrast to the most peculiar man from earlier on Side 2, the singer of "I Am a Rock" is perfectly happy shutting himself off from the world, thank you very much. Rather that than be hurt again when love and friendship turn sour. The two voices mesh beautifully with each other, and the gradual ebbing of the instrumentation for the final refrain is especially potent.

* Simon and Garfunkel's third studio album opens with the brilliantly constructed and beautifully rendered "title track", "Scarborough Fair/Canticle". While based in England, Paul Simon was introduced to the English folk song "Scarborough Fair" by Martin Carthy, but they decided to give the song that little bit extra by re-working Simon's anti-war solo ballad "The Side of a Hill" with a new melody by Art Garfunkel to be sung in counterpoint as "Canticle". Add a dreamlike acoustic guitar riff, harpsichord, and glockenspiel, and you have all the makings of an absolute classic.
* "Homeward Bound" is an anthem for travelling musicians everywhere who are feeling the bite of homesickness. Simon composed the song while touring folk clubs in England, writing down the lyrics on a scrap of paper while, per the lyrics, "sittin' at the railway station" with "a ticket for [his] destination" (the railway station has variously been identified as Widnes or the now-disused Ditton, both between Liverpool and Manchester), and the sudden brightening of the mood for the refrain in which the singer dreams of returning to the land where his thoughts are escaping, his music is playing, and his love lies waiting silently for him is a particular highlight.
* Side 1 closes with the buoyant "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)", an infectiously optimistic ditty about slowing down and taking the time to appreciate life's pleasures.
* The punchy Music/BobDylan parody "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert [=McNamara'd=] Into Submission)" matches Simon's harsh vocals and deliberately meandering lyrics (with a healthy dose of HypocriticalHumor as the singer sneers at an unknown person for being so uncultured as to think that "Dylan" refers not to Bob Dylan, but to Creator/DylanThomas - "Whoever he was!") with a spiky electric score, the object of the parody emphasised further with wry use of a harmonica between verses and in the fade-out.
* The enigmatic "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" is a highlight of Side 2; just who - or what - is Emily? Simon and Garfunkel have given several possible answers - Simon's then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty, the 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, or perhaps the ideal of romantic love, or even simply some undefined aspect of life that brings fulfillment.

* The "road trip" classic "America" is striking for being one of the few songs in Simon and Garfunkel's catalogue to feature lyrics that don't rhyme, and they certainly don't need to rhyme to paint a compelling picture of two lost souls who board a Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh to New York in search of what makes America what it is. The buildup of energy to the refrain (first on the line "It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw", then on the line "Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike") is especially powerful.
* The wistful "Old Friends" gives us a truly heart-rending set of vocals (doubly so when one considers the ups and downs Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's friendship has had as they have reached the "terribly strange" age of 70 mentioned in the song) over a well-crafted orchestral score, finally leading straight into a reprise of the gentle "Bookends Theme" for solo guitar that opened Side 1 and now returns to close it, this time with lyrics that pick up the thread of "Old Friends":

* The irresistibly catchy "Mrs. Robinson", made famous by its use in ''Film/TheGraduate'', is another song in Paul Simon's catalogue that really takes off in its refrain, not least when the lyrics wonder where New York Yankees great Joe [=DiMaggio=] has gone at a time when the nation needs heroes to look up to.[[note]] Simon's own baseball idol was Mickey Mantle, but his name didn't have enough syllables to fit the tune; as for [=DiMaggio=], Simon met him by chance in a New York restaurant shortly after the song was released, and [=DiMaggio=] pointed out that he hadn't gone anywhere - he had just done commercials for Mr. Coffee and Bowery Savings Bank![[/note]]
* The driving guitar rhythm and spiky brass of "Hazy Shade of Winter" lend an appropriate level of anguish to a song about a poet lamenting his lack of professional success as time seems to pass ever more quickly, with autumn changing to winter.
* The lively "At the Zoo" is almost guaranteed to get your toes tapping with its upbeat rhythm and its wry anthropomorpisation of the various zoo animals, some of them decidedly uncomplimentary!

* Simon and Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970, and it hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the title track, especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a climax that makes this song a perfect closer to the 1981 compilation ''The Simon and Garfunkel Collection''. The lyrics in which the singer presents himself as AFriendInNeed also set up one of the main themes running through the album: the ups and, more often, downs of friendship and love that signalled the duo's impending breakup.
* "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" may be somewhat controversial for its inadvertent use of Daniel Robles' Peruvian folk-inspired tune (as arranged by Los Incas), but since Simon reached a very amicable settlement with Robles' son and later produced Los Incas' first English language album, we can enjoy the song for his own contribution, the haunting lyrics about preferring to take action rather than be acted upon.
* "Cecilia" starts with an infectious rhythm track (a tape recording of Paul and Eddie Simon and Art Garfunkel slapping their hands against a wooden piano bench, initially recorded for a lark at a party) and provides vocal harmonies as good as any the duo ever recorded for a song about a relationship not quite going as the singer hoped.
* "Keep the Customer Satisfied" features a positively explosive use of big band brass, especially in the coda following the final refrain. Though some listeners interpret the lyrics about staying "one step ahead of the shoeshine", "two steps away from the county line", and keeping the customer satisfied to refer to drug dealing, the surface interpretation is the same as that for "Homeward Bound"; like Simon and Garfunkel themselves, the singer is just a travelling musician who is tired of life on the road and wants to go home.

* "The Only Living Boy in New York" sticks long in the memory with its heavily echoed vocalise refrain and lyrics appealing to the memory of the duo's early years even as they grew apart.
* The album - and the duo's studio career overall - closes with the sweet, simple, direct "Song for the Asking". The theme of growing distance remains, but the overall mood is hopeful - Paul Simon's music will still be there after he and Art Garfunkel have parted ways, and we just have to ask him to tell us of all the love he holds inside. And with so much first class music, there will surely always be someone, somewhere, who will ask for Simon's songs.

* The punchy Music/BobDylan parody "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert [=McNamara'd=] Into Submission)" matches Simon's harsh vocals and deliberately meandering lyrics (with a healthy dose of HypocriticalHumor as the singer sneers at an unknown person for being so uncultured as to think that "Dylan" refers not to Bob Dylan, but to Dylan Thomas - "Whoever he was!") with a spiky electric score, the object of the parody emphasised further with wry use of a harmonica between verses and in the fade-out.
* The enigmatic "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" is a highlight of Side 2; just who - or what - is Emily? Simon and Garfunkel have given several possible answers - Simon's then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty, or perhaps the ideal of romantic love, or even simply some undefined aspect of life that brings fulfillment.

* The wistful "Old Friends" gives us a truly heart-rending set of vocals (doubly so when one considers the ups and downs Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's friendship has had as they have reached the "terribly strange" age of 70 mentioned in the song) over a well-crafted orchestral score, finally leading straight into a reprise of the gentle "Bookends Theme" that opened Side 1 and now returns to close it, this time with lyrics that pick up the thread of "Old Friends":

* Simon's adaptation of Edward Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" opens Side 2, the almost jaunty tune beautifully setting up the MoodWhiplash in which we learn that the title character had wealth but was so unhappy that he was finally DrivenToSuicide... not that this stops the singer from saying he wishes he could be Richard Cory.

* The punchy Music/BobDylan parody "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert [=McNamara'd=] Into Submission)" matches Simon's harsh vocals and deliberately meandering lyrics (with a healthy dose of HypocriticalHumor as the singer sneers at an unknown person for being so uncultured as to think that "Dylan" refers not to Bob Dylan, but to Dylan Thomas - "Whoever he is!") with a spiky electric score, the object of the parody emphasised further with wry use of a harmonica between verses and in the fade-out.

* The irresistibly catchy "Mrs. Robinson", made famous by its use in ''Film/TheGraduate'', is another song in Paul Simon's catalogue that really takes off in its refrain, not least when the lyrics wonder where New York Yankees great Joe [=DiMaggio=] has gone at a time when the nation needs heroes to look up to.[[note]] Simon's own baseball idol was Mickey Mantle, but his name didn't have enough syllables to fit the tune; as for [=DiMaggio=], Simon met him by chance in a New York restaurant, and [=DiMaggio=] pointed out that he hadn't gone anywhere - he had just done commercials for Mr. Coffee and Bowery Savings Bank![[/note]]

[[AC:''Bridge Over Troubled Water'' (1970)]]
* Simon and Garfunkel's fifth and final studio album deservedly won the Best Album Grammy for 1970, and it hits the ground running with the pure dynamite that is the title track, especially once Paul Simon joins Art Garfunkel on vocals and the instrumentation gets louder and prouder for a climax that makes this song a perfect closer to the 1981 compilation ''The Simon and Garfunkel Collection''.

* "Keep the Customer Satisfied" features a positively explosive use of big band brass, especially in the coda following the final refrain. Though some listeners interpret the lyrics about staying "one step ahead of the shoeshine" and keeping the customer satisfied to refer to drug dealing, the surface interpretation is the same as that for "Homeward Bound"; like Simon and Garfunkel themselves, the singer is just a travelling musician who is tired of life on the road and wants to go home.