Columbia
Produced by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and Roy Halee
Released: January 1970

TRACKLISTING

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water

02 El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

03 Cecilia

04 Keep the Customer Satisfied

05 So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

06 The Boxer

07 Baby Driver

08 The Only Living Boy in New York

09 Why Don’t You Write Me

10 Bye Bye Love

11 Song for the Asking

This last album for Simon and Garfunkel tells you everything you need to know about their history – both professional and personal, the good and the bad. The album is a masterpiece of flawless songwriting, production and performance.

Simon began writing the title track at the house George Harrison immortalised in ‘Blue Jay Way’ after hearing the Swan Silvertones’ ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’. Originally a twoverse ballad that was meant to be a gospel song, Garfunkel and co-producer Roy Halee convinced Simon to take a leaf from Phil Spector and the Righteous Brothers’ version of ‘Ol Man River’ and come in big on the final verse. The song starts with a tiny piano tinkling and an almost whispered vocal. As it progresses, Garfunkel heads off to his high register and soars against Larry Knetchel’s piano.

Knetchel spent four days just on his piano arrangement and Simon and Halee put in 100 hours on that one song alone. This is Garfunkel’s finest vocal performance – everything is precisely in the right place and the words just shine. Simon comes in for the third verse along with Moog synthesisers, pedal steel guitar, two basses and the tune sails to its epic climax.

Simon was inspired to write the song for his wife, Peggy Harper, but equally the song could be about his friendship with Garfunkel, which had begun when they were kids and was now coming apart.

The album’s creation was painstaking in every way. Sessions stretched across an entire year as each track was laboriously assembled – ‘Bridge’ alone has two bass players, other tracks had layers and layers of voices piled on top of each other. Most of the backing was done by the session supremos, the Wrecking Crew, led by drummer Hal Blaine.

Much of the rest of the album reflects Simon’s struggle with his craft. ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’ and ‘Song for the Asking’ reference the pressures of writing and recording hits. ‘Cecilia’ is a love song to St Cecilia the patron saint of music. Then there is ‘The Boxer’, ostensibly the story of a pug who has been battered around. Simon has admitted that the song is a crude metaphor for his own experience as a performer (Seventh Avenue, where the whores are, was also the headquarters of Columbia Records). ‘The Boxer’ has some of Simon’s most vivid writing, backed by an inspired mix of arpeggiated guitar, pedal steel and Moog synthesiser. This song also took Simon and Halee more than 100 hours. (‘It was like their religion,’ quipped Garfunkel.) ‘El Condor Pasa’ was a Peruvian traditional song to which Simon added lyrics about the desire for freedom. He sings that a man in bondage ‘gives the world its saddest sound’. In retrospect it’s clear that Simon felt the need to break free of his partnership with Garfunkel and to try new paths.

Just prior to recording this album, Garfunkel had embarked on an acting career with a role in Mike Nichols’ film Catch 22, which was shot in Mexico. ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’, which is addressed to ‘Tom’ – a reference to the duo’s original name as Tom and Jerry – is a wonderfully sweet ode to their friendship. ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’ is more cutting with its reference to bluntness and rigidity (Garfunkel had studied architecture), but it’s still affectionate in its lilting bossanova beat.

The penultimate song is a live recording of the Everly Brothers’ ‘Bye Bye Love’, a song about a relationship ending. It is also a sweet touchstone to Simon and Garfunkel’s early days as a duo, when they harmonised ’til dawn.