I was thinking about the great ‘songs of quiet reflection’ thread and listening to the associated playlist. ‘Song for the Asking’ was mentioned by the OP and it reminded me of how great S&G are.
I get the sense that people are generally quite sniffy about them? (not here, particularly).
Anyway, as well as ‘Song for the Asking’, I love:
‘Old Friends/Bookends’
‘For Emily, whenever I may find her’
‘America’
‘Hazy Shade of Winter’
Some of these may be PS solo; I am easily confused.
Your favourites?
Growing up, my father had a very early ‘Best of…’ and I think it is etched in my my memory/heart.
I think with them, familiarity can breed contempt. They were played so much to me when I was wee I kind of had to forget about them and then rediscover them before I liked them. Even at that I can go for long long periods without playing a note by them.
However The Boxer pretty much never gets old.
Bookends and BOTW are among my top ten bestest. Magnificent achievements and better (however you like to define the term) than anything the Fabs put out.
I prefer Sounds Of Silence. For some reason, the CD issues remove Homeward Bound and put it on Parsley, Sage & Whatever.
It helps that I’ve often seen the plaque marking the place Simon wrote it, Widnes railway station.
Kathy’s Song and The Leaves That Are Green are excellent too.
“Homeward Bound” was originally on the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme album. It only appeared on the UK LP version because the Brits apparently wanted to add more “pop hits”.
Hmm. It was recorded on the same day as I Am A Rock and Richard Cory, four other songs on Sounds Of Silence were recorded the following week and Side Two of the American version is clearly a song short. I don’t know when the album was released in the UK. I thought January 1966. Homeward Bound, the single, was released in February. Work only began on all the other songs on Rosemary some time later.
In any case, I was brought up with the UK album, so the US issue came as a shock when I came to buy the CD.
I remember a school assembly on ‘friendship’ and they played BOTW and I had real trouble holding the tears back.
But I was 13 and too cool for sentimental tears, obviously so the upper lip remained in place. But it gets me every time, now. š
Oh don’t, I’m welling up and I wasn’t even there!
I remember we had a trendy Christmas service with, like, guitars and stuff, and some guys played “A most peculiar man” which struck me then, as now, as a very strange song (in a good way).
No sniffery from me RubyB. Think Paul Simon is one of Pop’s greatest writers. S&G suffer slightly from over familiarity. Endlessly compiled, ubiquitous radio play, a Karaoke staple , it’s easy to overlook the sheer brilliance of songs like Sound Of Silence or The Boxer. If there is a flaw, it’s the ethereal keening of Garfunkel’s voice lending the harmonies a slightly cloying quality. In truth, it’s why I prefer Paul Simon’s solo work, but no, I’m unsniffy about S&G.
It’s Paul Simon & Bob Dylan duking it out for greatest living songwriter
Bobby D may be the “most important” but for me “best” is a three way tussle between Macca, Simon and Joni Mitchell. With that single organism Jagger/Richards itching to get into the fight, as is Webb, Jimmy.
*Still living*. Treasure them while you can.
In any discussion of greatest living songwriters I nearly always end up mentioning Leonard Cohen mainly because nobody else does.
So there you go. Consider it done.
And I shall add Randy Newman’s name to “the greatest living…”
Please also consider Mr Declan McManus worthy of inclusion in this category…
I carry this thought like a albatross every day and fear I may blurt it out and be forever ridiculed – but I think the time has come to confess and be damned. It is my opinion, and has always been my opinion, that Paul Simon is a better songwriter than Dylan. There – that’s better.
Have no fear; it’s true.
Bless you
This.
There y’go. That’s the correct answer.
And this.
America is peerless – the playing and the lyrics – “Kathy, I’m lost” I said though I knew she was sleeping / I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
The Only Living Boy In New York – a song about their breakup “Tom get your plane right on time / I’m sure your part will go fine” (S&G originally known as ‘Tom & Jerry’, Art going to Mexico to film Catch 22 ).
Save The Life Of My Child – oh, that echo
Keep The Customer Satisfied – superb brass section, one of Paul’s best rock vocals
Richard Cory – one of Paul’s social commentary songs that isn’t too preachy, Great cover by Them too
Fakin’ It – just for that weird bit in the middle with the shop “Morning Mr Leitch…..”
A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission) – a razor sharp Dylan piss-take (“Albert, I’ve dropped my harmonica”)
My Little Town – the anger at small time values and attitudes – their last great hurrah
They also had a wicked sense of humour about themselves and toyed with calling their 2nd album “So Young, So Full Of Pain’ and also this
For an unreleased live album mixed by Al Kooper from the Hollywood Bow 1968 – go here
http://www.panicstream.net/vault/simon-and-garfunkel-8231968-hollywood-ca/
I bought all their albums last year – very little filler. I love all of them to be honest, but this one is important because when I was a teen sprog learning the guitar I tried over and over again to play that fabulous guitar part. I’m not sure I ever got there, but I learned to finger pick as a result.
We all tried to learn this too, but that took decades.
There aren’t many songs about architects.
So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
Though it was really code for former architecture student Art G.
But I was going to post this song if no-one else had
That whole BOTW is incredibly sad. I often felt that inclusion of a live Bye, Bye Love was peculiar but it makes sense in the context. They sound happy singing together a song of break up and misery, just before the closing wistful lullaby.
I link it with Rumours as an album with a gorgeous sheen on the surface whilst underneath there is turmoil.
I’m in a cafe playing First Aid Kit’s version of America. What a song. If I’d written it, I would have retired straight afterwards as it’s an untoppable achievement.
Seeing S&G live in 2004 was really something too.
Oh man, this thread has made me happy, the silly old fool that I am. *pass the HRT*
‘America’; just so, so good, as you lot have already said. š
That rotter Squeezer nabbed Only Living Boy, so I’ll go for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RiUXvEtMiQ
Fin59 makes some very good points about S & G above which I agree with.
You are not alone, Rubes. Much much big love for S&G in our house too. I was brought up on them as our kids now are- they’re simply part of the fabric of my life.
Totally agree with DFB’s comment about Paul Simon’s songwriting. It’s poetry (man).
Favourites: America, He Was My Brother, The Dangling Conversation, Only Living Boy…,Old Friends, Kathy’s Song etc etc.
In the 80’s and 90’s, it’s true that familiarity probably bred disinterest. Then, one lazy, Sunday afternoon, at my mate’s Tony’s house, with my wife and all of Tony’s family there for lunch……… The wine was flowing, I wasn’t working the next day, the sun was out, and I was enjoying slowly easing into a nice, drunken reverie. Tony was his usual ‘short attention span’ self, allowing each album he played about 2 tracks before it was hoiked off for something else. I was enjoying the first 2 tracks of the most recent Tom Petty album (that I’d bought him) when, with my brain expecting the start of track 3, instead, the jangly acoustic guitar of a long forgotten song started up. As Tony eased up the volume, the hairs on my arms stood up and Paul Simon sang that long, lazy, “Tom….” My eyes were closed, my head back on the lounger, the distant sounds of the kids playing, the girls laughing, Alex, Tony’s son-in-law rattling pots in the kitchen as he cooked an epic shoulder of lamb, and Tony, quietly singing the words. I began to weep, tears of unbounded joy and happiness. These people have all been with me on my mental journey so it was no surprise to find that the person kissing me on the forehead was Tony’s wife.
After 30 years of not listening to it, ‘The Only Living Boy….’ is now on almost every playlist I compile. It is a work of utter genius.
Lovely story, @niallb. Playing that one right now- wonderful.
What a remarkable piece of story-telling! You know how tot ell them Niall!
I’ll pick Scarborough Fair for its chilly beauty. I didn’t realize Paul Simon had learned the guitar arrangement from Martin Carthy till recently.
Paul Simon spent some time around the UK folk scene of the late 50s/early 60s. Hence the borrowing of Anji from the sui generis work of Davey Graham.
Interestingly he actuallyplays an evolution of the Bert Jansch version. Bert added the snatch of “Work song” which PS developed a bit further, but he specifically mentions Davey Graham on the album sleeve as the writer. I wonder if he’d actually heard the DG version – his is clearly based on Bert’s.
I like S&G, some timeless tunes.
Only Living Boy….
The Boxer
Hazy…
BOTW
Bless ya, Ruby, I was the chap who started the Songs of Quiet Reflection thread. At their best, Simon and Garfunkel are up there with the greatest: delicate, literate and heartfelt.
My faves, for what it’s worth:
I am a Rock
America
The Boxer
Song for the Asking
For Emily, Wherever I may find her
š Nice idea for a thread- some lovely stuff was posted.
Very good choices above; I had temporarily forgotten ‘I am a Rock’ but I would add that to my original list.
Althou I think ‘I Am A Rock’ is very much tongue in cheek, the line and the way he sings “On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow” floors me every time
@dogfacedboy Yes that really is a magnificent line; one of his best (although there are so many to choose from).
Am I right in that he once said he felt that his early work was ‘juvenilia’? Surely in jest?
Wll if he means art created when he was young then that’s the dictionary definition of juvenilia.
Sad if he means it disparagingly, I know some artist see their earlier work as somehow inferior to their later “mature” stuff (i.e. Kate Bush)
In his case I hope he means the stuff he cut his teeth writing in the Brill Building pre-Tom & Jerry and songs he released as Jerry Landis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll9LwD1Dkvs
A friend of mine mentioned it to me years ago, and I don’t know whether he meant it disparagingly or in the strict dictionary sense, and annoyingly I can’t find any online source (but I haven’t looked particularly hard yet, admittedly).
No I seem to recall him saying it too. Think he’s someone who is as hard on himself as he is with other people
It is 1975 and I’m 15. Now I know that this is very old compared to most people here but I only had an older sister who wasn’t that interested in pop music. And I bought Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. I can’t remember how I had heard them, maybe it was illicitly listening to Radio 1 but they were probably playing Showaddywaddy and the Bay City Rollers. It was the first pop record our house had ever seen.
Don’t get the impression that we weren’t a musical household. There was a lot of music around. It’s just that it was all classical. My sister and I played in orchestras. Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony was ‘dark and stormy night’ music before I even went to school. But no Top of the Pops, no Radio 1. I wondered why girls were walking around with a brand of Lard on their pencil cases (Trex) and thought that Slade was a person not a group. My mum seriously worried that I would be on drugs by the following week – not a joke, she really did. (I wasn’t and I never did.)
So, S&G were my first real exposure to popular music. In some ways they weren’t the best introduction. I have never discovered a song better than ‘America’; there have been plenty to stand equal to it, but none better. And America wasn’t even one of my favourites, but I knew it was good.
The Boxer
For Emily
Bridge
The silliness of At the zoo
Kathy’s song
Only living boy
The list goes on.
And like many have said, I know them all so well, I hardly listen to them evermore. And Paul Simons Greatest Hits with Slip Sliding Away led me onto the solo stuff. But then a few years ago a friend lent me Live 1969 with an audience hearing songs from the upcoming record for the first time. What was it like when Simon walked off stage and Art said, “Here’s another song from the new album” and a solo piano played and that voice began “When you’re weary …”? Just piano and voice for the whole song, no strings, no great crescendo. And I love it even more than the original, almost.
Now, hundreds, if not thousands of records and CDs later, for me it all begins here.
Unsurprisingly when Art was getting the ovations for singing ‘Bridge’ Paul Simon says he was standing in the wings thinking ‘Author, Author’ (no, not Arthur Arthur).
Squeezer nicked two of my favourites. Bought the Mrs Robinson single and loved the ‘where have you gone Joe DiMaggio Maggio’ section. Was too tough an adolescent to confess to enjoying the ubiquitous BOTW album, but I’ve always adored the sound, the drums and the poignant lyrics of ‘only living boy’. Went to ‘The Graduate’ on its release and the part where ‘Scarborough Fair’ was used as background music was very moving. Decades later, and not of my choosing, I ended up singing it in a karaoke bar in Brussels to several hundred baffled Chinese. I started off singing in a low rumble that had become positively subterranean by the finish. Explosive applause when I’d staggered to the end. Mainly from relief, I suspect. My Belgian mate was mightily impressed and claimed I’d sounded like a cross between Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. I think there was a bit of the Lees in there as well – Hazlewood and Marvin. Not sure Art Garfunkel would have felt his place under threat.
I called my first hamster Cicero… think that’s all I have to say re S&G. Ah, those were indeed the days.
This is peerless.
Yes; just listened to this again (about 5 times this morning) and it’s just wonderful, and so sad.
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we’ve lost.
The horns on Keep The Customer Satisfied are one of the greatest things ever recorded. The whole of BOTW is a masterpiece; anyone who disagrees must be mental. Even the title track sounds fresh and clean and perfect, when you think you couldn’t hear it again after decades of melismatic cover versions. Art’s voice was so pure and beautiful, and the songs and performances are impeccable.
‘Deputy Sheriff said to me…’
Mrs duco01 has one of the many “Complete Simon & Garfunkel Recordings” box sets.
You lot have already claimed most of the great S&G numbers, so allow me to post this little gem from the box set: a demo version of “Rose of Aberdeen”
It’s exquisite. How could it be anything else?
(and some extra points for the Youtube video for including some vintage photographs)
Where do I begin.DFB knows how highly I rate Elvis Costello. Paul Simon is the one artist I wouldn’t hesitate to put above him. Have all the S&G albums and all Paul Simon solo stuff including the awful songs from the Capeman. American Tune gets me every time I hear it. The whole of still crazy is still in my top 5 albums of all time. S&G, Hit after hit after hit.
I recall a drunken party, a girl lying on my shoulder when the chilling time bagan. The Boxer came on, I sang every word to her. ‘Wow, you know every word’ she said. How could you not.
Graceland, Darling Lorraine – with or without Art the man is a genius. Can’t believe anyone would think any differently.
with or without Art the man is a genius. Canāt believe anyone would think any differently.
Well, this is my view totally; but what prompted me (as well at the ‘quiet reflection’ thread) was the realisation that I think I know only one other person in real life who likes S&G or PS.
My view is either greeted with indifference or slight disdain.
I was going to say ‘bloody civilians’ š but this is also the view of the small number of music obsessives I know away from this here internet.
A group of us Afterworders – formerly known as The VIP Clique – all went to see Paul Simon in Hyde Park do Graceland and all that with added Jimmy Cliff. It was brills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2iXRRNPiVs
I love “Songs from the Capeman” (with the exception of the dreadful “Time is an Ocean”). I’ve never understood the oppobrium it seems to attract.
The only two Paul Simon records I don’t much care for are “One Trick Pony” and “You’re the One”.
Yes I agree Capeman is really good. It didn’t work as a Broadway musical probably because Simon wouldn’t have listened to anyone telling him how to write songs for such a beast. But as an album it’s great.
Not a dissenting voice then. Seems about right. Great songs, beautiful singing. What’s not to like?
PS died like the proverbial louse in a Russian’s beard at Cornbury. He came on after a whole day of rain so everyone was fairly pissed off anyway, and Nick Lowe, who was on in a different tent, had been told to make it quick as he wasn’t to over run – so he fired out a lethal dose of good time material for 40 mins, restoring good vibes (also I was outside a Speckled Hen and two whiskies by now, self medicating…).
PS walked on with a massive band with multiple keyboard players, several drummers, percussion, background singers, and a kitchen sink. And proceeded to play 4 (long) songs from his new musical. People fidgetted. A few looked longingly at the path back to the camp site which winds via the bar. Then the army wandered off, he picked up an acoustic guitar, and played “The sounds of silence” – and was fucking brilliant. In the night air you could almost see the notes glowing. It was one of my favourite gig experiences. He ended, and said “Now we’re going to play some more songs from the new musical…” and a tsunami of people poured down the hill to the camp site. We went via the bar and over a large Jack reflected that had the old to new musical ratio been reversed, it could have been just wonderful. As it was it was, well, a bit crap really. Festival audiences want what Nick Lowe did – a blast of all killer, no filler. Not songs from the new bastard musical ( which rightly died without trace). Whilst cliquing in London I have more than once enjoyed hating Paul Simon’s set at Cornbury with Mark Ellen, who also thought it wretched.
Still love the albums though.
‘Whilst cliquing in London with Mark Ellen….’
Between your post and and DFB’s, we’re slowly flushing out the VIP clique….:D š
*starts list*
You can’t suggest you (whispers…) met a few people for a beer without the clique police popping round, so I thought I’d fess up. Mind you I wouldn’t want to be in a clique which accepted me as a member.
I saw him at Wembley a while before Cornbury -late minute ticket, 5th row centre, lovely and it was magnificent esp when he played ‘Duncan’ . Cornbury was indeed gash.
You were there DFB? We must have been suffering barely yards from each other. It was the horrible bloated band I hated as much as anything.
America, I Am A Rock, Sounds of Silence, The Boxer – magnificent.
How about one of their later ones though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFbJYntmzD4
and from the solo catalogue
All of the above.
I’ll draw attention to one lyric, though. It’s solo Simon.
Nearly thirty years ago, when I had the distance of youth from it, I thought the lyric wry and amusing. Now? Now, thirty years on, it softly detonates within my depths:
“[W]hy am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard.”
And:
‘There was a bright light,
A shattering of shop windows,
The bomb in the baby carriage
was wired to the radio’
or just the lines ‘Diamonds on the soles of her shoes’ describing the poor working in the diamond mines of the rich and ’empty as a pocket’.
Genius
I like the joke in Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes. At least I think it’s meant to be a joke.
“And I could say 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00, and everyone would know what I was talking about.
(Looks round room, winks at audience, waits for them to nod back, sees blank incomprehension)
Yes, everyone would know what I was talking about.”
(Still no reaction)
(Sighs)
“I’m talking ’bout Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes”
Another one for the consensus here. And Simon maintained his standards for a very long time post S and G as well. I wonder what his career would have been like if he hadn’t had Garfunkel – perhaps slightly less successful commercially but slightly more respected in the way Cohen Dylan and Mitchell are. Somehow, a bit like Macca he often isnt deemed to be quite as cool as his peers, usually by people with cloth ears.
And yes ‘America’ is one of the truly great songs of the 20th century.
I agree with just about every comment on this thread. I think My little town is an under appreciated classic.
I am not familiar with one trick pony apart from one track. I think ‘Late in the evening’ is my favourite solo Paul Simon track. (Apologies for not posting it – I am a complete computer fuckwit.
Good thread. I love their music and cannot add much to what already has been said, although I would like to add in a vote for Cecilia. Not one of their greatest, a throwaway one by comparison bout always makes me smile. Their music reminds me of teenage holidays, impossibly mature Italian glamour pusses, it is music that speaks to us all I think. I recently bought the updated reissue of BOTW that came out a few years ago and for a week I couldn’t stop listening to it, however familiar it was. That is a testament to the enduring brilliance of the music.
Re: Cecilia
“Making love in the afternoon
with Cecilia, up in my bedroom”
When I was a boy, I found that to be … you know … rather a saucy lyric, I must say.
Oh, me too. I’m still a bit confused about his in-coital hygiene habits (Sorry love, hold that thought, just gotta go wash my face). And how long was he gone? Wouldn’t he have passed the ‘someone’ on the landing? Maybe it was really dark in the bedroom and the whole thing was just a silly misunderstanding.
Plus Baby Driver: “I’m not talking about your pigtails/I’m talking about your sex appeeeeal..” At the time, I didn’t know what pigtails were.
I was obsessed with this record in my early teens. For obvious reasons. š
If I can add yet another vote for America – my singl favourite lyric ever I suspect. Entirely blank verse but as I once mentioned at the old place, until it’s pointed out to you – as it was to me, I take no credit – you wouldn’t realise it. I think there’s a strong case for paul Simon as the greatest lyricist in rock/pop history, with the aforementioned America, Hazy Shade of Winter and Graceland as the three cornerstones of the prosecution. And “freshly fallen silent shroud of snow” as the most poetic phrase about the natural world since Housman’s blue remembered hills.
Sorry (the Reply thing on iPad is pants on our site) but can you scroll back up to @bargepole post of PS solo and the utterly brilliant Train In The Distance. It’s another one that my friend Tony plays and it is one of the most evocative pieces of music I know. Thank you, bargey.
Thanks.
As you were.
You’re most welcome! Just been listening to Hearts & Bones about his relationship with Carrie Fisher – great song indeed.
Let’s not overlook Mr Garfunkel though – this always brings back memories for Bargepole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1BmPuGz2LA
My parents had “Bookends” and I absolutely played it to death in my early teens – probably one of the very first albums I played.
Prissy American college folk. No, I love them (or some of them) really. But there really is quite a lot of filler on the albums.
Funny how the guy at the top wondered if Emily might be a solo Paul Simon track when it contains Art’s greatest vocal (the live one on Greatest Hits).
This is the only one you need (for S&G):
Well obviously I wasn’t referring to ‘Emily…’. ‘
‘Bright Eyes’ though? One of Paul Simon’s best, eh?
Although quite pleased that it’s not bleeding obvious that I’m a girl.
Why Ms Blue – you’re a girl??!!
*Removes spectacles, shakes out hair*
I say Ms Blue – you are a lady scientist in the Afterword laboratory #distractinglysexy
**Gazes into the middle distance, murmers”tight lab coat”**
NOW she tells us!
(scrambled) Guy can be used for girl! I apologise for insinuating you thought “Emily” was sung by the little guy….
Aw no, I’m only joshing with you. š
There’s an album called Surprise which was produced by Brian Eno of all people. I have attempted to listen to it a couple of times but it’s not very good. Anyone else?
It takes a few plays, and I’m not sure what Eno brings to the table (apart from salt oh ha!). His lyrics alone are worth the attention – the music is really background for what he has to say. Which is worth listening to, as always.
Leave Surprise alone!!!
It’s the best album anyone of Simon’s generation has made for twenty years!
Me and about three other people really really like it.
Wartime Prayers ‘not very good’? You be trippin’, Homes!
I think Iain McDonald nailed Paul Simon when he said (something along the lines of) that he was a great songwriter who worked slowly, and so was prone to substandard work when rushed.
Paul Simon is one of my favourite ever writers: the perfect example of CRAFT in songwriting, where you really feel he’s honed his songs and taken time to find the ideal combination of melody and absolute killer lyric. I love S&G, but consider it a dry run for his “mature” stuff that started with There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Faves: American Tune, Rene And Georgette Magritte, Boy In The Bubble… (but ask me on any given day and I’ll name another three completely different songs)…
Yes, some great calls there, Mr Cowslip.
And we can add Something so Right, Peace like a River, Under African Skies, Rain in the Distance, St. Judy’s Comet, Trailways Bus, Duncan, Silent Eyes, Father and Daughter, Slip Slidin’ Away, the Late Great Johnny Ace, …
… and the whole of the “Rhythm of the Saints” from start to finish. This is the great overlooked album in the Paul Simon canon, and my absolute favourite record of his.
Rene & Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War
Not only one of the strangest titles but a loving tribute from Paul to the doo-wop acts of his youth.
“They dance by the light of the moon
To The Penguins
The Moonglows
The Orioles
and The Five Satins
The deep forbidden music
They’d been longing for”
From the much undervalued Hearts & Bones whose title track is up there with America for me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBDDbE7lcQ
I agree. I think Hearts and Bones (the album) contains some of his finest songs, and Hearts and Bones (the song) is one of them.
In the cool light of day let me just say I loathe with a burning passion BOTW, saccharine, cloying, pah…
Art’s voice for me is saccharine, cloying, pah. It’s not until the solo work PS really gets going (although America is probably the best song ever written) and Graceland is probably the best album ever ever.
Thank you! I was starting to think you’d grown some taste balls unti I read this. Refreshingly wrong in part and whole!
I love S& G, me. Here’s a personal favourite thats apt for this North London morn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-fIO7_HJBo
I think Still Crazy…the album (and song) as fantastic – terrific songs with that to-die-for studio band – Steve Gadd etc.
@Twang @blue-boy I am not allowed at mingles as either men fall in love with me or I fall in love with them and it’s just generally distracting to the important and serious business of noodling about prog.
#distractinglysexy
I have this problem too.
We carry our burdens lightly. š
Well you’re welcome at the next Thames Valley Mingle as we only have eyes for @leedsboy
Excellent – I’m collecting eyes. How many have you got?
Playlist- avoiding most of the obvious big hitters, I think.
Oh poo- try again:
spotify:user:11135053036:playlist:5cm4XAlaqFTNMl9UQaCLkC
Oh Lordy.
Thanks for sharing the playlist.Following quite a few from the good people of the afterword site.
My pleasure! Hope you like it. I tried to avoid most of the obvious ones, as I guess we all know them. (Plus I don’t much like ‘You Can Call Me Al’ so that was my excuse to avoid the ‘hits’.)
If anyone has other additions, feel free to post and I’ll keep updating it. I’ve had it on periodically over the last few days and I’ve really enjoyed it; I put them up at random so the flow may be off but it doesn’t much matter.
Thanks to all for the suggestions.
It seems as though Afterworders have got something nice to say about pretty much every Simon & Garfunkel song … except “Voices of Old People” off “Bookends”!
I adore the whole of side one of Bookends – even the “Voices of old people” – it just a beautiful scene setter for the fade in of “Old Friends” – one of PS’s best. Probably my first concept album (or album side anyway)
@dogfacedboy Yes, Leeds’ height and rugged good looks will effectively distract from the beauty of Twang and myself.
*Stands tall and affects a grizzled half grin*
Did an interview last week with an S&G tribute called ‘Bookends’ – two 30 year olds who have become totally immersed in the work and perform it pretty much perfectly. I was amazed that the music should have that effect on people of that age, and it was another reminder for me that a lot of this stuff I grew up with will continue – not only to be listened to, but also performed.
“Peace like a River” is currently my favourite PS solo song FWIW followed by “American Tune”, although “Still Crazy”(particularly the middle section) gets me all emotional.
My all time favourite because of personal reasons is “Song for the Asking”. As a very young lad I recorded onto cassette, a BBC radio show called something like “The story of Simon and Garfunkel”. “Song for the Asking” concluded the show but my tape ran out cutting off abruptly the last couple of seconds, which just seemed to add to the poignancy.
I think I’ve related this before here:- Some nearly twenty years ago I was falling in love with a beautiful and much younger girl. Once, in the early, uncertain days of our relationship, she was pottering about her house dusting or something, while I sat on the sofa reading, and quite unexpectedly she began to sing “Song for the Asking” beautifully. I had no idea she even knew who S&G were, but I knew at that moment that she was “the one”. She still is.
Thanks for that playlist Ruby. Very useful!
Thanks; just updating it!
I find myself in vexed agitation. One Trick Pony is perfect from start to finish and contains some of his best songs (not least, It’s Been A Long, Long Day). Have an exlamation mark! How can fans of the great man dismiss it so lightly? I am perpelexed and I don’t mind telling you.
You could make it collaborative and see where it goes?although I make mine public some I just NEED to keep control of.?.
I could….! I don’t mind that at all. Will edit, if I can work out how to do so. Good idea!
OK, ’tis collaborative. Away you go!
That should have gone further up in reply to Ruby Blue.Smart phones are not so smart.