1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:09,719
Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

2
00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:12,800
Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the

3
00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:15,440
Speaker 1: show that brings you the little known details and secret

4
00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 1: histories behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.

5
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:23,200
Speaker 1: We are your folk rock duos of details, your childhood

6
00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,400
Speaker 1: frenemies of facts, your bridges over the troubled waters of Wikipedia.

7
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:29,400
Speaker 1: One of us does all the work and the other

8
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,120
Speaker 1: has curly hair, and away with the phrase. My name's

9
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:33,240
Speaker 1: Jordan Roun talk.

10
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,600
Speaker 2: That was a sick birth. Thanks, and I'm Alex Eigel.

11
00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:39,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

12
00:00:39,120 --> 00:00:41,800
Speaker 2: Sorry, guys. Hosting schedule has been my fault lately, but

13
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:44,920
Speaker 2: you know, onward and upward. The only way out is

14
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,680
Speaker 2: through once more, end of the breach, et cetera. Yes, Jordan,

15
00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:50,120
Speaker 2: what are we talking about today?

16
00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:52,920
Speaker 1: Buddy oh man, I am so excited today we're talking

17
00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:56,840
Speaker 1: about one of my favorite musical acts in history. Is

18
00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,720
Speaker 1: that a cliche take? Maybe, but I don't care. I

19
00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:02,520
Speaker 1: think the quality of their melodies, their harmonies, and their

20
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:06,039
Speaker 1: poetry has seldom been equalled, and their songs seem to

21
00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,200
Speaker 1: mean more to me with each passing year. I'm talking

22
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:13,440
Speaker 1: about the prototypical sensitive boomer band perfect for staying in

23
00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:16,600
Speaker 1: by yourself and brooding, or sitting under a tree at

24
00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:21,800
Speaker 1: recess by yourself and daydreaming, or being in transit by yourself. Basically,

25
00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:23,800
Speaker 1: if you spend a lot of time by yourself and

26
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,480
Speaker 1: any phase of your life, these guys were excellent company.

27
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,319
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Simon and Garfunkle now. To me, they

28
00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:35,560
Speaker 1: articulated a certain kind of romance that came with adolescent solitude.

29
00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: Along with Brian Wilson rhapsodizing his childhood room and his

30
00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 1: own sense of isolation, this para mythologized the teenager's inner sanctuary,

31
00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:46,399
Speaker 1: perhaps better than anyone else in this era. It's a

32
00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:50,600
Speaker 1: home with your thoughts escaping, your music playing, and sometimes

33
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,280
Speaker 1: your love life waiting quietly for you. And if there

34
00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:55,800
Speaker 1: was no love life to speak of, your sanctuary was

35
00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,160
Speaker 1: a place where you could seek solace in the silence

36
00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 1: and convince yourself that you were a rock, an island,

37
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: a fortress deep and mighty, when in reality you knew

38
00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:09,000
Speaker 1: that you were just an overly sensitive, bookish kid. Heigel,

39
00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:11,280
Speaker 1: what do you think of Simon a Garfunkle.

40
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:17,000
Speaker 2: I mean they're hilarious, like lol, the hilarity of like

41
00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:21,440
Speaker 2: two of the neediest men in recorded music. Singing songs

42
00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:24,280
Speaker 2: about about how they don't need anyone and they're tough

43
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:29,840
Speaker 2: and their survivors is so endlessly funny to me. Yes, yes, yes,

44
00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:33,240
Speaker 2: I'm a rock I'm a boxer. Also, please be nice

45
00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 2: to me at all costs. No, I mean, look, man,

46
00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:41,320
Speaker 2: Paul Simon's one of my favorite artists. I am sure that, like,

47
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:46,680
Speaker 2: because I acknowledge his ass hattery, it may come across

48
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:47,520
Speaker 2: as not that one.

49
00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:50,280
Speaker 1: It's so hard with him even I'm gonna have to

50
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:52,520
Speaker 1: like take shots in this episode. And I love him.

51
00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:56,399
Speaker 2: I think he's I mean, honestly, I know Dylan probably

52
00:02:56,440 --> 00:02:59,440
Speaker 2: got there first in terms of, you know, rewriting the

53
00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:02,600
Speaker 2: rules of the music industry as far as like making

54
00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,880
Speaker 2: songwriters composers a thing and disrupting that whole flow and

55
00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:09,760
Speaker 2: XYZ and everything else that Dylan gets credit for. But like,

56
00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:13,040
Speaker 2: Paul Simon is above Dylan for me because his lyrics

57
00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:16,919
Speaker 2: are on par and frankly like I think a little

58
00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:18,639
Speaker 2: less caricature role.

59
00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so.

60
00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:23,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, his highs are like similarly high and his lows

61
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 2: are not as low as like God gave names to

62
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:29,919
Speaker 2: all the animals or any of the other like outtakes

63
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:32,280
Speaker 2: that are not even I think that's on the record.

64
00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:34,400
Speaker 2: It's not an outtake or any of the stuff that

65
00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:37,960
Speaker 2: like Dylan, people want to ignore when they're filating him.

66
00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 2: Paul is a once in a generational talent, and because

67
00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:44,760
Speaker 2: not only is he an incredible guitarist, he writes these

68
00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,040
Speaker 2: beautiful melodies. His own voice is incredible, you know, and

69
00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:51,360
Speaker 2: regardless of how much of a little pisser he is,

70
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:57,160
Speaker 2: like he did open so many people's eyes to so

71
00:03:57,320 --> 00:04:00,240
Speaker 2: many other forms of music around the world, and that

72
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:03,240
Speaker 2: is like the most checkered part of his legacy that like, yeah,

73
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:07,000
Speaker 2: he treated some of these people poorly and made some missteps,

74
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,360
Speaker 2: and like those are not to be taken lightly, of course,

75
00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:14,200
Speaker 2: but also like people heard this from him in a

76
00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:16,320
Speaker 2: lot of cases, you know, and I think that is

77
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:18,880
Speaker 2: you can't take that away from him, for good or bad.

78
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:21,719
Speaker 2: And like, yeah, man, I go to sleep crying to

79
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:27,280
Speaker 2: American Tune sometimes, like what about it? That's how I

80
00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 2: feel about Booke NDS.

81
00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:30,039
Speaker 1: I was going to try to quote from it in

82
00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:33,440
Speaker 1: this episode, and I even just typing the lyrics out,

83
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:34,960
Speaker 1: I got choked up. I was like, oh, I can't,

84
00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:36,159
Speaker 1: I can't speak.

85
00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:38,680
Speaker 2: These Graceline that does that to me, like I don't understand,

86
00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:41,240
Speaker 2: Like like the fact that like you can call me

87
00:04:41,279 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 2: al is like such a memorable song, like the most

88
00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,000
Speaker 2: like gutting lyrics that I've Like, I why am I

89
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:49,640
Speaker 2: soft in the middle of the rest of my life

90
00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:52,480
Speaker 2: so hard? That's I mean, yeah, the whole song is

91
00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 2: like I don't want to end up a cartoon in

92
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:57,960
Speaker 2: a cartoon graveyard. Like if that doesn't dig at you

93
00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:00,880
Speaker 2: at a certain point, then and I'm just going to

94
00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:04,760
Speaker 2: assume you have no interior life or capacity for introspection.

95
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,240
Speaker 1: I feel as though so many of his songs and

96
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:09,880
Speaker 1: it's sort of how I feel about some of Brian

97
00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:14,000
Speaker 1: Wilson's songs too. You appreciate them more with each passing year.

98
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:18,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that is like a form of emotional clairvoyance.

99
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:23,920
Speaker 2: It is truly, like very few people possess that as writers. Yes,

100
00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:26,280
Speaker 2: And for him to be kind of up there is

101
00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:28,880
Speaker 2: not It's also not to be taken light.

102
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:31,599
Speaker 1: Linth There's a guy I know, a journalist. I should

103
00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:33,599
Speaker 1: be nice because I do know him, but he wrote

104
00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:36,000
Speaker 1: an op ed for NBC News a couple of years ago.

105
00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:38,880
Speaker 1: He's a big Dylan guy and he said something about

106
00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 1: how Paul Simon will be The headline was something like,

107
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:44,840
Speaker 1: Paul Simon sold this catalog to Sony for millions, he'll

108
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:48,320
Speaker 1: still end up a historical footnote to Dylan. And people

109
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:51,920
Speaker 1: went like that piece became a headline on like TMZ

110
00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:57,000
Speaker 1: and Slate like all these other places because people were furious.

111
00:05:57,279 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, Bob Dylan doesn't need any

112
00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:04,719
Speaker 2: more shooters. Yeah, like Paul Simon. You know, Paul Simon

113
00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:06,680
Speaker 2: doesn't either. Let's be frank. I mean he's like a

114
00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:09,919
Speaker 2: ruthless little power broker and richer than you know, crecious.

115
00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:13,360
Speaker 2: But like, that's a stupid take. That's a dumb take.

116
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:17,559
Speaker 2: Sorry guy. Also, we're all gonna end up in side

117
00:06:17,560 --> 00:06:20,240
Speaker 2: notes in history. The country has like fifty years left

118
00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:25,760
Speaker 2: top Uh. All of that said, I rarely, if ever

119
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:29,440
Speaker 2: listened to Simon and Garfuncle on purpose. Interesting, I grew

120
00:06:29,560 --> 00:06:32,279
Speaker 2: up the son of Boomers. Yeah, I heard all of

121
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,800
Speaker 2: these songs by Osmosis, and I would simply rather listen

122
00:06:35,839 --> 00:06:38,240
Speaker 2: to Paul Simon at this point in my life. I

123
00:06:38,279 --> 00:06:40,159
Speaker 2: also hate the song Feeling Groovy.

124
00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:41,760
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it.

125
00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:45,880
Speaker 2: That pushes me into like near inarticulate rage. And I

126
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:48,720
Speaker 2: would much rather listen to Paul Simon flex all of

127
00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:53,200
Speaker 2: his chops at once than like have him be constrained

128
00:06:53,240 --> 00:07:00,120
Speaker 2: by this tall dweeby egomaniac ginger beta male Garfum who

129
00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 2: has a lovely voice, but scoreboard like ball, don't lie, baby,

130
00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:05,880
Speaker 2: where is your career?

131
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:06,520
Speaker 4: My pal?

132
00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:09,400
Speaker 2: You're like a big He's a big book reader. I'm

133
00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 2: told that's what he's been sitting on his ass and

134
00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:16,520
Speaker 2: like doing with his residuals for like the past forty years.

135
00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:19,200
Speaker 2: Is like he like writes about the books that he reads.

136
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:22,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, his memoir, if you could call it that. I

137
00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:24,200
Speaker 1: had to read it for work and we were going

138
00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:26,040
Speaker 1: to review it, and I was like, I don't know how.

139
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:29,040
Speaker 1: It's like riddles and lists of books.

140
00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:31,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I like the songs off

141
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:34,400
Speaker 2: this record, obviously, Like there are great songs, but there

142
00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:37,640
Speaker 2: are Paul Simon songs. Sorry, ark harmony singers are not

143
00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 2: in short supply, as it turns out, And you know,

144
00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:44,120
Speaker 2: all these songs are great and you can hear all

145
00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:46,440
Speaker 2: the evidence of their genius in all of the songs

146
00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,000
Speaker 2: Paul Simon wrote without him, So I don't have any

147
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,160
Speaker 2: particular nostalgia explicitly for this band. And if I'm being like,

148
00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:56,400
Speaker 2: if I want to dig another level deeper, I find

149
00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:59,800
Speaker 2: this particular brand of like Cardigan folk to be the

150
00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:06,120
Speaker 2: absolute needier of that genre. Like I obviously, and look,

151
00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:08,400
Speaker 2: I'm fully admitting this. I'm sitting here as a guy

152
00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:11,640
Speaker 2: with tattoos who really like inside Lewin Davis, and like,

153
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:13,640
Speaker 2: of course I'm gonna be like, well, I like Dave

154
00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 2: van Wrong because he's more authentic. I realize him walking

155
00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:19,600
Speaker 2: into a trap of self parody when I say that,

156
00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:22,560
Speaker 2: But it is like the most illustrative thing that I

157
00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:24,920
Speaker 2: can describe about this is Dave van Wrong talking about

158
00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:27,760
Speaker 2: when Simon and Garfuncle would go in and with their

159
00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,680
Speaker 2: little like little teing renaissance harmonies be like hello darkness,

160
00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:35,120
Speaker 2: my friend, and just the whole coffee house would just

161
00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 2: burst out laughing at them.

162
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:37,480
Speaker 1: I'd never heard that.

163
00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:40,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's in some documentary somewhere of just him,

164
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:46,200
Speaker 2: of everyone being like, oh, like, come off it, I

165
00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:50,760
Speaker 2: you know whatever, I get it. So but sorry, I'm sorry,

166
00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:54,800
Speaker 2: I'm that guy. I'm that cliche. You know, Art's got

167
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:55,640
Speaker 2: a great voice, he.

168
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:58,160
Speaker 1: Does, but I know you're your preferred version of Bridge

169
00:08:58,559 --> 00:08:59,439
Speaker 1: lays elsewhere.

170
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:03,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, dude, you've got a great voice,

171
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:05,680
Speaker 2: but also Aretha has a better one.

172
00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:09,319
Speaker 1: Ah.

173
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my version of Bridge over Troubled Water. I mean,

174
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:14,800
Speaker 2: like she it's a complete, like almost rearrangement of this song,

175
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 2: and it's got to practically a new song. But I'm

176
00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:19,800
Speaker 2: also like, yeah, cool high notes, man, you know, like

177
00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:22,079
Speaker 2: other people can do that, right, Maybe you shouldn't have

178
00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 2: been such an.

179
00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:24,400
Speaker 5: Well.

180
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:25,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I mentioned this on a lot

181
00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:28,480
Speaker 1: of episodes. My parents kind of went out of their

182
00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:32,280
Speaker 1: way to not force the music of their youths onto me,

183
00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:35,360
Speaker 1: So by and large I found a lot of my

184
00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:38,679
Speaker 1: beloved boomer music on my own. I kind of, I mean,

185
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:40,199
Speaker 1: I hate to use this expression, but I kind of

186
00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:43,560
Speaker 1: came to it, honestly. But there were a few artists

187
00:09:43,679 --> 00:09:46,040
Speaker 1: who they kind of intimated to me were important and

188
00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:48,439
Speaker 1: worth paying attention to. And the Beatles were obviously one,

189
00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:52,080
Speaker 1: and pet Sounds was another, and obviously these guys, and

190
00:09:52,360 --> 00:09:55,560
Speaker 1: I think, perhaps more than anything else, for me, the

191
00:09:55,640 --> 00:09:58,439
Speaker 1: music of Simon and Garfunkl introduced me to, for better

192
00:09:58,520 --> 00:10:02,400
Speaker 1: or worse, the concept that nostalgia part of this was

193
00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:06,040
Speaker 1: undoubtedly how much their music was tied to boomer documentaries

194
00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:08,160
Speaker 1: and movies and other media. But I think it's more

195
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:10,720
Speaker 1: than that, and I think we kind of touched on

196
00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:13,200
Speaker 1: this earlier. A huge part of their brilliance is that

197
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:18,520
Speaker 1: for me, they provided nostalgia in real time. Like I

198
00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:20,720
Speaker 1: grew up watching The Wonder Years on Nick at Knight

199
00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:23,000
Speaker 1: and it's one of my favorite shows. And to me,

200
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:25,840
Speaker 1: the music of Simon and Garfunkle was like Daniel Stearns's

201
00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:29,640
Speaker 1: voiceover narration as the adult version of the main character,

202
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:33,000
Speaker 1: Kevin Arnold. The poetry in Simon and Garfunkle, to me,

203
00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,679
Speaker 1: was like a voice from the future urging you to

204
00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:39,720
Speaker 1: preserve your memories because at the end of the day,

205
00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,480
Speaker 1: that's all that's left you. And I mean, to me,

206
00:10:42,679 --> 00:10:45,959
Speaker 1: the definitive Simon and Garfunkel song is Bookends. It's a

207
00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:50,679
Speaker 1: fragmentary piece about a time of innocence and confidences in

208
00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:53,360
Speaker 1: all of our lives. And so to hear that in

209
00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:56,400
Speaker 1: what would I've been seventh grade, like twelve, thirteen, fourteen,

210
00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:59,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, it kind of instilled this sense of

211
00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:03,240
Speaker 1: appreciation of this moment in my life that I knew

212
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:06,319
Speaker 1: was special, and I knew was fleeting, and it was

213
00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:10,000
Speaker 1: kind of it gave me that awareness in that moment

214
00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:12,439
Speaker 1: to kind of hold on to it as much as

215
00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:16,160
Speaker 1: I could and really savor it, which is to me

216
00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:18,480
Speaker 1: a huge gift of Simon and Garfunkel's music.

217
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:25,280
Speaker 2: I got that with Kiss No No, I mean, yeah, man,

218
00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:27,480
Speaker 2: But again that's Paul Simon.

219
00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, okay, yeah, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I

220
00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:32,360
Speaker 1: mean's you know what it is though, that you forget

221
00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:34,959
Speaker 1: how young. I think we have this quote in here

222
00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:38,160
Speaker 1: somewhere where Paul Simon he's given an interview on Alec

223
00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:42,000
Speaker 1: Baldwin's podcast, and he's like, he said it slightly less

224
00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:45,440
Speaker 1: egotistically than I'm about to paraphrase. Yeah, it's crazy how

225
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:48,280
Speaker 1: much I wrote in like three years. The Simon and

226
00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:52,319
Speaker 1: Garfunkle period was like nineteen sixty five, mid mid to

227
00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,640
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixty five, t like early nineteen sixty nine.

228
00:11:56,200 --> 00:11:59,280
Speaker 1: There's an innocence to those songs that I think.

229
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:02,680
Speaker 2: But let's not you know, Credence nailed out three albums

230
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:05,960
Speaker 2: in a year, and those albums have are like wall

231
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:07,600
Speaker 2: to wall bangers, So let's dial it.

232
00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:12,120
Speaker 1: Back bangers, Yes, but I think lyrically speaking, and I'm

233
00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:13,360
Speaker 1: not even really a lyric guy.

234
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 2: Okay, does does Paul Simon have a riff that gets

235
00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:19,880
Speaker 2: placed in every single piece of media about the nineteen sixties?

236
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:24,240
Speaker 1: I mean probably sounds silence Missus Robinson.

237
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, shut up, all right, you're right. I can see

238
00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:29,679
Speaker 2: I like Cecilia. I like Cecilia. It's cool. I like

239
00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:33,240
Speaker 2: this p It's like proto Beatman cool whips.

240
00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:33,800
Speaker 1: Yeah it does.

241
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:35,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. I wonder if Art did that.

242
00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:40,120
Speaker 1: No, no he didn't. No. To all this being said,

243
00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:42,760
Speaker 1: we're not talking about Bookends, which is my favorite Simon

244
00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:45,480
Speaker 1: a Garth funk, but we're talking about Bridge over Troubled Water,

245
00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:48,600
Speaker 1: which turned fifty five earlier this year. I have to

246
00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:50,920
Speaker 1: be honest at the risk of sounding like a hater.

247
00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:53,920
Speaker 1: I know the title track has been embraced by millions

248
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:56,760
Speaker 1: as a modern hymnal. It's not one of my favorites

249
00:12:56,760 --> 00:12:58,839
Speaker 1: of theirs. It's sort of how I feel about Imagine

250
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:00,760
Speaker 1: and to a lesser that let it be.

251
00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:05,640
Speaker 2: Wow, I just engine sucks. Okay, Yeah, Imagine sucks. I'm sorry, Like,

252
00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:09,480
Speaker 2: you can't divorce that song from its hypocrisy, or it's

253
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,679
Speaker 2: like I just don't like it as a sound. Profound

254
00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:18,280
Speaker 2: thoughts for babies, like lyrical engagement level. Let it be

255
00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:21,360
Speaker 2: at least as a cooler vocal performance.

256
00:13:21,559 --> 00:13:24,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does a guitar sol.

257
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,080
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say anybody who tries to sing let it

258
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:29,400
Speaker 2: be because they think it'll be fun and or easy.

259
00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:31,080
Speaker 2: You are in for a hell of a ride on

260
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:36,320
Speaker 2: that chorus, my foolish friends. This album is yeah, No,

261
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:39,679
Speaker 2: there's incredible. There's incredible songs on here. I like Bridge

262
00:13:39,679 --> 00:13:42,400
Speaker 2: Over Trouble as a song. As a composition, I mean

263
00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:47,400
Speaker 2: that melodies so again, melodies just a beautiful, lilting melodies.

264
00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:49,800
Speaker 1: Not one of my favorites. It's weird. I know, it's

265
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,400
Speaker 1: like one of those ones that I know is an

266
00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 1: important song with a capital I and a capital S.

267
00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:58,160
Speaker 1: But to me, it's it's a little too sweet for me.

268
00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:02,160
Speaker 1: It's a little too soccer and it's churchy compared to

269
00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:04,600
Speaker 1: some of their other song. I mean, it's still obviously

270
00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:07,880
Speaker 1: gorgeous song, but but yeah, I mean the story behind

271
00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:09,960
Speaker 1: it is incredible. The album it's off of which we'll

272
00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:15,200
Speaker 1: talk about. Everything on the album is amazing. Yeah, Heigel

273
00:14:15,280 --> 00:14:16,960
Speaker 1: is a hard out, so we should probably dive in

274
00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:21,360
Speaker 1: no fact teasers for you on this episode, folks, here's

275
00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:23,680
Speaker 1: everything you didn't know about Bridge.

276
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:26,040
Speaker 2: Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle.

277
00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:33,680
Speaker 1: Wow I called this section taken it to the Bridge

278
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:34,720
Speaker 1: the early years.

279
00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:37,000
Speaker 2: There are so many great Bridge puns in here.

280
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:40,240
Speaker 1: Those are all for you. Yes, before we go any further,

281
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,520
Speaker 1: we should give a brief recap of Simon and Garfunkle's relationship,

282
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:47,280
Speaker 1: because that'll make the pettiness of their squabbles just so

283
00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:52,680
Speaker 1: much richer. Unsurprisingly, Simon and Garfunkle, we're childhood friends, or

284
00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:56,400
Speaker 1: more like childhood frenemies. They met as classmates growing up

285
00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: in Queen's and Paul Recount's meeting Art in the fourth

286
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 1: grade in a school auditorium while waiting for the buses

287
00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:05,640
Speaker 1: to come and to pass the time, they held an

288
00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:09,640
Speaker 1: impromptu talent show. Art stood up and sang and blew

289
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,320
Speaker 1: everyone away with his version of Too Young, which had

290
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,280
Speaker 1: recently been a hit for Nat King Cole, and Paul,

291
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:17,560
Speaker 1: who was the son of a musician himself, was struck

292
00:15:17,640 --> 00:15:20,680
Speaker 1: both by the beauty of Art's voice and the impact

293
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:23,520
Speaker 1: it had on girls. Art and Paul became closer when

294
00:15:23,520 --> 00:15:26,160
Speaker 1: they were cast together in a school production of Alice

295
00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:31,160
Speaker 1: in Wonderland. Simon was the White Rabbit and Garfunkel was

296
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:33,960
Speaker 1: the cheshire Cat. The casting is incredible.

297
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,040
Speaker 2: I just want to note that too Young is indeed

298
00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 2: what you think it's about.

299
00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:40,520
Speaker 1: But it's sung by a fourth grader, so that's endearing.

300
00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:47,160
Speaker 2: It was later covered by Michael Jackson. Really Oh no, oh,

301
00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:49,560
Speaker 2: I mean it's about it's about they say we're too

302
00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:53,360
Speaker 2: young to like go steady, we're too young for this relationship,

303
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:56,080
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But when I was just wiki and

304
00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:58,560
Speaker 2: I was like, Michael Jackson released a version later, I

305
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:02,480
Speaker 2: was like, as a bye hole, it was young Michael.

306
00:16:02,520 --> 00:16:05,120
Speaker 2: It was Michael in seventy three, So I guess that's fine, Okay.

307
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,080
Speaker 1: Paul and aren't used to sing together after school, honing

308
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:11,480
Speaker 1: their vocal blends somewhat obsessively. They used to sing in

309
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,000
Speaker 1: such close proximity that they were able to study how

310
00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:18,640
Speaker 1: their tongues touched the roof of their mouths and formed words,

311
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,720
Speaker 1: so that they could really really tweak that harmony.

312
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,560
Speaker 2: That harmony singing is actually really interesting to me because

313
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 2: whether they were doing this knowingly at the time, that's

314
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:31,160
Speaker 2: like indigenous folksing. Oh well, yeah, it's in a talking

315
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:34,160
Speaker 2: head song. It's in naive melody, like singing into my mouth.

316
00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:37,880
Speaker 2: And that's I believe David Byrne has at some point

317
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:39,680
Speaker 2: been like yo, I was like reading a book about

318
00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:43,119
Speaker 2: like folks singing and like various indigenous like singing practices,

319
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,360
Speaker 2: and that was like a thing that certain cultures do

320
00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:47,640
Speaker 2: where they're literally like they just they use each other's

321
00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:51,640
Speaker 2: mouths as resonating chambers. And it's like it's actually, that's

322
00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:55,040
Speaker 2: actually like you know, diseasive side, like it's a post

323
00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 2: COVID world, but like it's actually like very intimate and

324
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:02,760
Speaker 2: very I think, quite beautiful actually you know, oh yeah

325
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:04,640
Speaker 2: and really and yeah that's man. That's how you get

326
00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:07,440
Speaker 2: good at harmonies is by eliminating. You know. The thing

327
00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:09,119
Speaker 2: that I always like to that I always compare with

328
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:11,480
Speaker 2: harmonies is like the band versus like the Beach Boys

329
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:13,720
Speaker 2: or the Beatles, where it's like you have, you know,

330
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:16,439
Speaker 2: these these wide harmonies with the band where it's like

331
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,000
Speaker 2: they're not agreeing on phrasing, they are not agreeing on

332
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:22,119
Speaker 2: vibrato length, they are not agreeing on even the right

333
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:25,119
Speaker 2: way to pronounce words. Sometimes but they're just still so

334
00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:29,240
Speaker 2: in sync that it works, and it's a value neutral approach, right.

335
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,280
Speaker 2: But like close harmony singing is much harder because you

336
00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:37,639
Speaker 2: do have to like literally align your phonemes. Because I

337
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:39,560
Speaker 2: don't know if anyone's taken singing lessons or anything, but

338
00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,359
Speaker 2: like specific vowel sounds need to be placed at specific

339
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:44,760
Speaker 2: parts in your mouth to get them to come out

340
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 2: with a certain amount of resonance and with a certain

341
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,360
Speaker 2: amount of uh, with the right air control behind them

342
00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:52,560
Speaker 2: to keep them on pitch. So, like getting to that

343
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:57,200
Speaker 2: degree of indistinguishable between two people actually singing is something

344
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,000
Speaker 2: that is like, yeah, man, you see it in like

345
00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:02,280
Speaker 2: indigenous tribes and brothers and these two were like, let's

346
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:03,840
Speaker 2: just go to the basement and hammered out.

347
00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:07,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading something about I'm sure it was

348
00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 1: through the Beach Boys, because that's obviously one of my

349
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 1: other great loves. But how siblings who sing together are

350
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:17,720
Speaker 1: able to achieve a level of harmony singing that others

351
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:20,760
Speaker 1: can just by virtue of the fact that just micro

352
00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:24,119
Speaker 1: pronunciations and not to mention just the resonance of the

353
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:28,359
Speaker 1: vocal cords vibrating in such a similar way yeah, it's interesting.

354
00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:31,399
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's it was a picture of Eskimos that

355
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,160
Speaker 2: he had seen David Burne. Yeah, this is from eighty

356
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:37,480
Speaker 2: eight Rolling Stone interview. He said he had seen a

357
00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:41,320
Speaker 2: picture of Eskimo's throat singing and doing it like right

358
00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:42,359
Speaker 2: into each other's mouths.

359
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 1: I wonder if there are videos of that on YouTube.

360
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:45,919
Speaker 1: I've never seen that. I'd like to see that.

361
00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:47,480
Speaker 2: Probably. That is interesting.

362
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 1: Well, one afternoon, while Paul and Art were singing into

363
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:53,920
Speaker 1: each other's mouths trying to recall the lyrics to the

364
00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:57,800
Speaker 1: Everly Brothers Hey Doll Baby, the fifteen year olds accidentally

365
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:01,840
Speaker 1: stumbled onto words for an original song written in under

366
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:05,200
Speaker 1: an hour and it kind of sounds it. Hey Schoolgirl

367
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:09,640
Speaker 1: became their party piece, performed at amateur stages across Queens.

368
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:20,639
Speaker 6: Your Mind, Your Mind in the second row the teachers

369
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:27,919
Speaker 6: looking was the way down, he said, Bah, let's.

370
00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:33,119
Speaker 1: Meet I do that. The enterprising teams sought a record

371
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 1: deal and decided to record a demo that they could

372
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:38,399
Speaker 1: hand out to executives because performing in offices in the

373
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,840
Speaker 1: Brill building was just too awkward. Basically and in a

374
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:44,960
Speaker 1: movement seems straight out of the movies. A promoter named

375
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,879
Speaker 1: Sid Prosen happened to overhear their demo session and offered

376
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:51,920
Speaker 1: to sign the pair on the spot, but they feared

377
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:55,000
Speaker 1: their given names were quote too ethnic sounding to play

378
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:59,400
Speaker 1: in Middle America, so they picked flashy showbiz pseudonyms. Arcarf

379
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: Uncle said on Tom Graff, a reference to his love

380
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,240
Speaker 1: of mathematics and his habit of making the chart position

381
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:11,040
Speaker 1: of his favorite pop songs on graph paper. Paul Simon

382
00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:15,560
Speaker 1: christened himself Jerry Landis, after the surname of his then girlfriend,

383
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:18,679
Speaker 1: Sue Landers. It's so funny. Jerry Landis doesn't sound like

384
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:20,240
Speaker 1: a stage name now, No.

385
00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 2: It sounds like one of John land murderer John Landis's

386
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 2: extended family.

387
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 1: Together, they were Tom and Jerry, obviously. After the cartoon,

388
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 1: their new manager slipped DJ Allen Freed two hundred bucks

389
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:37,480
Speaker 1: to play Hey Schoolgirl on his influential radio program, where

390
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 1: it quickly gained traction. Alan Freed famously went down for

391
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:44,600
Speaker 1: the payola scandal a few years later. But he's also

392
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 1: the guy who is credited with coining the term rock

393
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 1: and roll, although that's probably not actually true but or stolen. Yeah, sure,

394
00:20:53,840 --> 00:20:56,280
Speaker 1: Hey Schoolgirl by Tom and Jerry got the number forty

395
00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:58,800
Speaker 1: nine on Billboard, and they even napped a spot on

396
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 1: American Bandstand and alongside Jerry Lee Lewis. So you've got

397
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:05,879
Speaker 1: like fifteen year old Paul Simon sharing a stage with

398
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,440
Speaker 1: Jerry Lee Lewis, which is incredible.

399
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 2: I must have scared the shit out of it. Did Yes,

400
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:12,440
Speaker 2: it did.

401
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 1: Paul and Art's success made them legends in their neighborhood,

402
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:18,920
Speaker 1: but Paul's teenage in security was made infinitely worse by

403
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 1: constantly being paired with Art, who was taller, more handsome,

404
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,879
Speaker 1: and had this angelic voice. Years later, Paul would recall

405
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 1: Art saying during a photo session, no matter what happens,

406
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:31,840
Speaker 1: I'll always be taller than you.

407
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:38,840
Speaker 2: That is all. That's awful, that's iconic, that is apex

408
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 2: level petty.

409
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 1: And also they're like fifteen, So that's not like strictly true,

410
00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: but it was, but it was.

411
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 7: It was.

412
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:50,440
Speaker 1: Yes, Simon was so insecure that he stopped growing. He

413
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:51,480
Speaker 1: was so anxious.

414
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 7: Oh.

415
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 1: Garfunkle meanwhile, was battling insecurities of his own. He was

416
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:59,919
Speaker 1: rarely comfortable in his role as a teen pop star.

417
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: He would say, it was all over my head. I

418
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:04,439
Speaker 1: never would have done it. If Paul hadn't pulled me along,

419
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:07,359
Speaker 1: I was too fearful of the competitive adult world of

420
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: rock and roll. After earning two thousand dollars in royalties

421
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: from Hay school Girl Art, put it in the bank

422
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 1: and resumed his studies to enroll at Columbia University. Paul

423
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,640
Speaker 1: Simon meanwhile doubled down on the life of a young

424
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,199
Speaker 1: rock star. He took his share of the royalties and

425
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:25,920
Speaker 1: bought a fire red Chevy and Pollock convertible.

426
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 2: Yes.

427
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: He also quietly inked a solo side deal and started

428
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:36,160
Speaker 1: recording under the name True Taylor. He wrote a song

429
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:38,680
Speaker 1: with his father, Lee, who he mentioned earlier was a musician.

430
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,440
Speaker 1: He was a bassist and dance bandleader, and the song

431
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: they wrote was called true or False And to hear

432
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:47,439
Speaker 1: it now, maybe I'll splice it in. It sounds like

433
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: a song that a kid in the fifties would write

434
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: with his dad. The lyrics consist of questions put to

435
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:56,439
Speaker 1: a potential love interest. Do you like to call me

436
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: on the telephone? Are you excited to make a date?

437
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: Are you sad when I go away? Terrible?

438
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 2: Is he talking to a dog?

439
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 8: He acted, gentleman, Uncle, Please an answer as you acted

440
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 8: Jimble last way, please answer Afons.

441
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 1: But the name True Taylor would prove ironic because when

442
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: Art Garfunkle learned of his musical partners extracurricular endeavors, he

443
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 1: took it as a serious betrayal. Things got even uglier

444
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 1: when their parents got involved, creating tension between the neighboring families.

445
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: And in Art's memoir he said that his friendship with

446
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: Paul had been quote shattered. And this was nineteen fifty eight.

447
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:57,720
Speaker 1: This was many years before Simon and Garfunkle. He already

448
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:02,640
Speaker 1: said that their relationship was shattered. This whole True Tailor's

449
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: Side Deal incident would be a sore point between them

450
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: for decades to come, establishing a pattern of distrust and

451
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 1: ego blows that would underscore their entire relationship kind of

452
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: to this day. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I

453
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: don't think Paul did anything that egregious, but karma came

454
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 1: from young Paul Simon. In the midst of the True

455
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: Tailor fallout, Paul's Prize Chevy and Paula exploded. He was

456
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: cruising through Queen's one night and a freak electrical accident

457
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: caused the car to overheat, smoke billowed from under the hood,

458
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: and the terrified team barely managed to escape the vehicle

459
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: before it burst into flames just outside the Garfunkle's house.

460
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 2: He like looks up and arts slowly closes a curt

461
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 2: non everything in Rosemary's Baby or something. He's like, I

462
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 2: did that, arguably even worse.

463
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,439
Speaker 1: Paul Woul ultimately become extremely embarrassed by these early songs

464
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: in the wake of his career as you know, way

465
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 1: serious voice of a generation songwriter. He even went to

466
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 1: court in nineteen sixty seven to successfully block the release.

467
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: Here's a I think really good even though I know

468
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: it is objectively bad song released under the name Jerry

469
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: Landis in nineteen sixty two called there Goes the Lone

470
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,400
Speaker 1: teen Ranger, which basically parodies the Lone Ranger TV show.

471
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 2: The bopp.

472
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 9: Relay, the.

473
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 2: The Launting Rangers.

474
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 6: This same soul I can't get at and you know

475
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 6: who's to blame. It's the naughty rangel Jane around. My

476
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 6: girlfriend's not the same.

477
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 2: She even kiss the TV said, Oh, it's.

478
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 6: A crying shame goes He Goes.

479
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 9: Bank Bank lo Ranger.

480
00:25:57,720 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that song sucks. I was going to try and

481
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 2: listen to that good faith, and I didn't make it

482
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 2: all the way through. I respect that, though, man, Like,

483
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 2: no one's entitled to your rough drafts.

484
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:07,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.

485
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 2: No, that's how I know. That's how like stand culture

486
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 2: works these days. And like you know, obviously we have

487
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 2: the president of like Kurt Cobating writing in his now

488
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 2: published journals. Please don't publish my journals when I'm dead.

489
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 2: But yeah, man, I respect that. It's like if it's

490
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 2: like I died, someone went in and found out my

491
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 2: like dog like logic demos that I made super baked

492
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night in twenty thirteen, like

493
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 2: I would haunt you.

494
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: How do you feel about, uh, Paul inking a side

495
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: deal while art was clearly not all that into being

496
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: a musician and was preparing to go off to college.

497
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not a bad movie, I dud. Yeah him,

498
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 2: I'd like funny if your loser buddy is like I

499
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 2: would like to go and study books, like and you

500
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 2: have all this talent literally flowing out of every orifice

501
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 2: and limb of your body, Like yeah, oh ethic, No,

502
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: Paul Simon does me any terrible things later, Let's not

503
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 2: start castigating him for his ethics at this juncture.

504
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: Okay, good, I agree with you.

505
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 2: So based on all of that, Simon and Garfunkle would

506
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 2: not have a meaningful conversation again for years. Art went

507
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: to Columbia and Paul spent time at the Brill Building

508
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 2: with Carol King, another Queen's college student, must be said,

509
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 2: trying to sell demos, which he would later describe hilariously

510
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 2: as fodder for you. Nux is away with words. I mean, yeah, dude,

511
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 2: great American lyricist. The pair drifted. Simon and garfunk well

512
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 2: not Carol King, drifted in and out of each other's

513
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 2: orbit until they came together in nineteen sixty three as

514
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: a Greenwich Village folk act. It was another case of

515
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: putting the talent and music ahead of their own relationship,

516
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 2: which Art admitted was already quote strained. They were signed

517
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: to Columbia Records in late nineteen sixty three and recorded

518
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 2: the album that would become Wednesday Morning, three Am with

519
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 2: producer Tom Wilson a short time later. The album tanked

520
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 2: upon its release in the fall of nineteen sixty four,

521
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 2: selling an abysmal three thousand copies at a time when

522
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 2: you know any person with a Bone Structure was making

523
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 2: a recording If I Had a Hammer and selling out

524
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 2: Carnegie Hall. Simon went abroad to England and Artie went

525
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 2: back to school. Then a year later, producer Tom Wilson

526
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 2: went back and added a twelve string electric guitar part

527
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 2: and drums and bass guitar to Sound of Silence to

528
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 2: make it sound more like the then trendy folk rock

529
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 2: Sounds of the Birds and the Buffalo Springfield and like

530
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: a rolling Stone. So out of nowhere, Simon and Garfunkle

531
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,719
Speaker 2: had a hit on their hands and almost an unwelcome

532
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 2: interruption for their solo lives. Art and his Precious Little

533
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: Books and Paul's time abroad where he was having sex.

534
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: And he released an album over there too, called The

535
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: Paul Simon's Song Book, which.

536
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:45,479
Speaker 9: Good for him.

537
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard that? It's a lot of early

538
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: like Kathy's Song and Flowers that Ever Bound Fall type

539
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: stuff like stuff on the first two Simon and Garfunkle records,

540
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: But it's just him. It's pretty good. It's it's interesting, yeah,

541
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's so weird to me that

542
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: Sarmon Garfunkle very nearly never happened had this producer not thought, Okay,

543
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: I'll just take this song and without the knowledge of

544
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: the people who wrote it or performed it, just completely

545
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: redo it with electric guitar and release it.

546
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 2: Tom Wilson was a genius, ye, I mean, he like

547
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 2: was seeing things that they and hearing things that they

548
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: did not. Yeah, so I'm I mean, I guess is

549
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 2: an artist. I would be somewhat red asked about that,

550
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 2: but sure he was correct.

551
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's just weird to me that they they

552
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: had a hit and they didn't know basically, like, that's

553
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: so great, and they had already moved on with their

554
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: lives and then suddenly they were just yoped back together

555
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: and you know, you knew it in that lens, it

556
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. I mean, I'm almost surprised that

557
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: they made as much music as they did in the

558
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: next five years.

559
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, Well, as you mentioned this, yoking had a

560
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 2: largely negative effect on Paul and Artie's already shaky frente

561
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 2: of me sh By the end of the nineteen sixties,

562
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 2: creative differences and long held resentments made the union a

563
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 2: ticking time bomb. They both envied each other's place in

564
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 2: the team. Art resented that Paul got first billing, complaining

565
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 2: that Simon and Garfunkle sounded like a law firm. Paul,

566
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 2: having done everything in the band, had the correct opinion,

567
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 2: which is that he thought the audience saw Art as

568
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 2: the star because he was the featured singer, and some

569
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 2: people probably thought Art even wrote the songs. But Artie

570
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: knew that Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the

571
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 2: pair's future. And what's more, he never got over what

572
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 2: had happened with Tom and Jerry.

573
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: You really got mad when that frying paint came down

574
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: on that mouse. That was really just a bridge too far.

575
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: Oh that different Tom and Jerry.

576
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 2: Okay, Art mustering his entire chest to say this in

577
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: a trembling voice barely above the snores of a kitten.

578
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 2: I never forget and I never forget Ooh anyway, Paul,

579
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: for his part, thought that Art was phoning it in.

580
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 2: He was continuing coursework for a mathematics doctorate at Columbia,

581
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: and Paul's rejoinder to that was, Okay, I'll go teach

582
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 2: a songwriting course at NYU in nineteen seventy love it.

583
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: He felt Art was also a little bit too much

584
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 2: on the old wacky Tobaccy, which had an effect on

585
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 2: his vocals and made him less than professional regarding deadlines.

586
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 2: He showed up late to rehearsals and he wants even

587
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 2: completely missed a flight to London that forced a sold

588
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 2: out concert to be canceled. Yeah, I mean sorry, man,

589
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 2: You know I gotta go ahead and say that, like

590
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 2: Paul actually gave Garfuncle so much more than he was due.

591
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 2: Because this is also the era when like you had

592
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 2: a hit and then you sent out a band that

593
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 2: wasn't the actual artist, ye to go capitalize on the

594
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 2: hit if the artist was not available, like without promo

595
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 2: photos and from the back of a hall. You know,

596
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 2: people didn't know that it wasn't the five to seven

597
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 2: Jumpstart boys performing there smash hit Let's get happy together

598
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 2: in a car like so this was already an established practice.

599
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 2: This happened all over the place. And for Simon to

600
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 2: be like, I'm sorry, I'm going to pull an audible

601
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: and find another tall guy with a high voice, like

602
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: very generous art is infuriating. He's a deeply infuriating human. Jordan,

603
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 2: this is where you will punch in about thirty seconds

604
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 2: to a minute of art Garfunkle's studio Chatter, in which

605
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: he waxes poetic on a single take of a song

606
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 2: from the single Yes, a single vocal take of a song.

607
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: He is hilariously in a reverb chamber. So as he's

608
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: doing this, he's in a big plate reverb chamber, and

609
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 2: you can hear the this saint of an engineer occasionally

610
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 2: punching in and going, So, did you want to do

611
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 2: another take? Should we maybe move on to the next one? Well,

612
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 2: Garfunkle just wax is poetic about the heart and element

613
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: of the song that has now been gotten away from it.

614
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 5: Never it wanted to have air to mix with its

615
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 5: I don't know start. I think I'm starting to hate it,

616
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 5: but except I know I love it. It's been chased

617
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 5: away somehow, somehow, something wonderful was lurking behind all of

618
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 5: the pausing and the techno realities of our job. That

619
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 5: here's a classic case of whatever.

620
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 4: Was fertile about the song which I was connected with

621
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 4: about an hour and a half ago, has ground down.

622
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,479
Speaker 4: I can't find well you want to put down one

623
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 4: take like that will take out all these extra drum things,

624
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 4: something like starting from the beginning feels like the right

625
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 4: thing to do, because it is it seems to me

626
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 4: to be tremendously respected. What does the singer feel like

627
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 4: singing it at? Where since he knows his own chops,

628
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 4: will he be pacing most naturally? And then the rest

629
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 4: is for you to say, I see the kind of

630
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 4: record that would lead to. But let me try something

631
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 4: and then I'll take direction. But first I would think

632
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 4: comes this fat, fabulous.

633
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 5: Thing called what comes natural, which is really to be respected.

634
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 9: I think we should move on, and we have.

635
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 4: The way I sang the opening is a good interpretation.

636
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 4: It's it's very close to the mic and easy. It's

637
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 4: not pushed at all, but it's a good way to

638
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 4: record me. It's one of my sounds, and I think

639
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 4: it worked good on that take, and that's a good

640
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 4: frame of reference.

641
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 5: As a vocal. Let's move on, Okay, let's move ahead.

642
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 2: More light footedly anyway. One incident that Jordan feels worth

643
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 2: highlighting is recounted in journalist Robert Hilburn's book Paul Simon

644
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: The Life, which comes with the caveat that it is

645
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 2: a book so packed with gratuitous spawning over Paul and

646
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 2: cheap potshots at art that one could assume it was

647
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 2: originally supposed to be a ghost written Paul Simon memoir.

648
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,320
Speaker 1: Have you read it? I have not. It's pretty egregious.

649
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 2: In the wake of the gargantuan success of the Graduate

650
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 2: soundtrack in nineteen sixty eight, Simon and Garfunkle were booked

651
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,320
Speaker 2: to play prestigious gig at Boston's Symphony Hall. Their manager

652
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 2: hired a private plane for them as a treat, but

653
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 2: Artie wanted to hitchhike to quote the book that made

654
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 2: everyone else nervous, because then something could happen and he

655
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 2: might not get to the show on time, but Garfunkle insisted.

656
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 2: On the day of the concert, Garfuncle headed for the highway,

657
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 2: where a young Boston bound couple in a VW gave

658
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 2: him a ride. Garfuncle was sitting in the back seat

659
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 2: when he noticed the husband who was driving staring at

660
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 2: him in the review mirror. Finally, the driver said, uh,

661
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 2: you look like that singer in Simon and you know

662
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 2: Simon and the other guy. Garfunkle replied, that's me, Art Garfuncle.

663
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 2: Somewhere a single spring lily bloom. The driver counter, don't

664
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 2: kid me. There's no way Art Garfunkle would be hitchhiking,

665
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 2: and Garfuncle spent the rest of the trip trying to

666
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 2: convince the couple that he really was the pop star,

667
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 2: but the driver of the car refused to even look

668
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 2: at Artie's driver's license. When they let him off at

669
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 2: the outskirts of Boston, Garfuncle gave it one final try,

670
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 2: give me your name and I'll leave a couple of

671
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 2: comps for you at the box office. As he drove away,

672
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 2: the husband snapped, why don't you grow up? It's even

673
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 2: funnier if he was just give him the classic just

674
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: like few.

675
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: It's gonna do it a Boston Yeah, honk, Why don't

676
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 1: you grow up? Like? That's a hard one to say

677
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: in a Boston.

678
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 2: Good though, Garfunkle managed to get to Symphony Hall just

679
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 2: in time for the five o'clock soundcheck, but Simon didn't

680
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 2: enjoy that kind of suspense.

681
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 1: No thanks on the private jet, I think on it

682
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: sh so.

683
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: Just like art Garfuncle, the eternal Beto male, like in

684
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 2: a car in the back seat, desperately trying to convince

685
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 2: people who knew who he was who he was and

686
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 2: failing and in fact infuriating them.

687
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: Yes, the process believing them. I prefer to think they

688
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 1: just left him on like a toll plaza.

689
00:36:58,000 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 2: He hitched him out of the car. It was like,

690
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: get out of it here, not Art.

691
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: That's why I included a ancdote. I just love it

692
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 1: so much. But the main fissure in Paul on Art's

693
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: relationship occurred in late in nineteen sixty eight, when director

694
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,320
Speaker 1: Mike Nichols, who'd worked with the pair on the Graduate,

695
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: offered them both roles in his next project, an adaptation

696
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: of the book Catch twenty two by Joseph Hiller. Art

697
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: was cast as Captain nately Well. Paul was initially approached

698
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: to play the character of Dunbar. Naturally, we were thrilled.

699
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: Paul recalled to Mojo in twenty eleven. Then, a few

700
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,439
Speaker 1: weeks before shooting was due to start, Mike Nichols called

701
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: me up and said, look, the screenplays so long. We're

702
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: gonna have to write your character out, and I guess

703
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 1: that means ARTI will be out too. I said, no,

704
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: don't take him out just because I'm out.

705
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 2: What a sweet thing to do for his tall, dorky,

706
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 2: lame ass friend Annie.

707
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: And Paul added that was the main reason Simon A.

708
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: Garfunkle broke up, But I think we would have broken

709
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: up anyway. All duos do. It's just too hard when

710
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: one person does all the the stress is very difficult

711
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: to manage. Art meanwhile, did not see the big deal.

712
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 1: I think for him, he thought this was his true

713
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: tailor moment. He said in a nineteen ninety interview with

714
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: song Talk magazine. Our way of working was for Paul

715
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: to write while we recorded, so we'd be in the

716
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: studio for the better part of two months working on

717
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: two or three or four songs that Paul had written,

718
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 1: recording them, and then when they were done, we'd knock

719
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: off for a couple months while Paul worked on his

720
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: next group of songs. Rather than wait for Paul to

721
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: write the next bunch of songs, I went off and

722
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: did this movie.

723
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 2: Okay, I agree with his justification, Yure.

724
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: Moreover, Art viewed himself as the junior partner in Simon

725
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: and Garfunkle, and he saw this as an opportunity to

726
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: boost his standing. In the same song Talk interview, he

727
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: likened it to George Harrison taking on an acting role

728
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: to quote balance out the Lennon McCartney contribution. I thought

729
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: I was gonna help give my side of the group

730
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: a little more interest, and I'd be bringing it back

731
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 1: to the duo after we had our rest from each

732
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: other and we go on and make more albums. He

733
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: thought he was gonna up his own popularity and bring

734
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: a new crowd to Simon and Garfunkle.

735
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 2: Sure, man, But like you know, George Harrison was writing

736
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 2: songs that were actively being suppressed by the other two,

737
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 2: and you know you weren't.

738
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: He wrote for Emily Wherever I may find her just

739
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: not one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkle songs. But

740
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: he wrote us song Is it really that?

741
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 9: Is it like.

742
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 2: Forty seven to one?

743
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: Check me? I feel like there's a second one that

744
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: I don't like even more check me. I think there's

745
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: like maybe one more. But for Paul, getting cast in

746
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: this Hollywood movie was just another instance of him being

747
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: the good looking heart throb. Paul at this stage was

748
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: starting to visibly bald and apparently found Art's halo of

749
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: blonde curls enormously annoying. So this was already a tense

750
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: thing that Art was gonna go be a movie star

751
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: and Paul was gonna be, you know, locked away in

752
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: the studio with his hair thinning. But then but then

753
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: Art forced him to wait, and that really pissed Paul off.

754
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: There were delays on the Catch twenty two, said in Mexico,

755
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 1: and it soon became apparent that the three month shooting

756
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: schedule was overly optimistic, and ultimately the shoot for Catch

757
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,760
Speaker 1: twenty two stretched into eight months. That's some like Wizard

758
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: of Oz delays right there.

759
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 2: Sorry. I'm also just now finding out that Art Garfrinkle's

760
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 2: cousin is lou Pearlman of one of the biggest Ponzi

761
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 2: scams in history and founder of the Backstreet Boys and

762
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 2: n Sync. WHOA, that's okay, that's Barfrenkle was not a songwriter,

763
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,240
Speaker 2: although he did write the poem Canticle as a rewrite

764
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,720
Speaker 2: of a Paul Simon's song for his own debut album

765
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 2: Oh Yeah. He worked as the vocal arranger for the duo,

766
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 2: which seems like something he wrote in his own Wikipedia

767
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 2: as it is unsourced, and is also credited as having

768
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 2: written the arrangement on the Boxer and creating Voices of

769
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 2: Old People, which is an audio montage on Bookends. I

770
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 2: don't even think he wrote this. This is this wiki

771
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 2: is not even giving him credit for writing that song

772
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: that you said he didn't write for Emily wherever I

773
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:18,879
Speaker 2: may find her, I mean, I keep looking, but check

774
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 2: me on that.

775
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: I think it's on.

776
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:25,280
Speaker 2: I think it's on Parsley Sage, rosemar In Time Ostle Sage.

777
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: It sucks.

778
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 2: Who's may and you know what it is is I

779
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 2: don't really like English folk, and there's so much English

780
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: folk in there, like little lilting like let's dance around

781
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: the maypole.

782
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: I could see you liking Bert Chance though.

783
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 2: I do like her. I was literally about to say,

784
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 2: like I do like Burt Jansch and I love and

785
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 2: I love Nick Drake. I just have like that pentangle

786
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 2: like again, if it's dance around the if it's dance

787
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 2: around the maypole, hard.

788
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: Past, who knows where the time goes? Sandy Danny song

789
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 1: is gorgeous and there's there's some good stuff there.

790
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 2: But I know it's you mean for Emily has an

791
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 2: uncredited it's uncredited on Wikipedia. The song entry itself says

792
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: it was written by Paul Simon. Really, oh wow, song

793
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 2: by art so he is zero for four hundred. Okay, okay,

794
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 2: she let me find I did have the actual discography.

795
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: Wow, I could have sworn there was one.

796
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 2: Nope. Art did not even grant you that, my friend.

797
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, making it that much harder for you

798
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 2: to defend him.

799
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with you. So the shoot for

800
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 1: Catch twenty two was delayed from three months to about

801
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: eight and future screenwriting icon Nora Efron profiled the troubled

802
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: production and a colorful piece for The New York Times

803
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: where she detailed disasters ranging from bad food in the

804
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: mess hall to horrible hotel accommodations and problems with telephones.

805
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,280
Speaker 1: Her piece featured a memorable quote from comedian Bob Newhart,

806
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: who was casting film. We make bets on who's going

807
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: to go insane or who's already gone insane. In fact,

808
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: maybe we've all gone insane, and we're all together and

809
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: we don't know it, and we'll go home and my

810
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: wife will call Paramount and say, listen, my husband is insane.

811
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:16,760
Speaker 1: We have no norm here, We have no way of judging.

812
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: Art later admitted that he felt bad for just hanging

813
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: out in Mexico as this production dragged on, while he

814
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: knew that his musical partner was at home growing angrier

815
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: and angrier by the day. He would say. Mike held

816
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: me in Mexico for like four or five and a

817
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: half months, and I should have really said to him,

818
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 1: you know, you don't need me this long. I've got

819
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: to work in New York City. Call Paul Simon, what

820
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: am I doing down here? I should have said that,

821
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: but I was many miles away. And you don't realize

822
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: what you're missing when you're out there. You're not in

823
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: knom like I mean, were you in the sheep?

824
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 2: He would say, so, yes, yeah, yes, yes, I was

825
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 2: in the shop Craft.

826
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: Services was terrible. As production on the film stretched through

827
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,879
Speaker 1: the early months of nineteen sixty nine, Paul Simon found

828
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,720
Speaker 1: himself under considerable pressure from Columbia Records chief Clive Davis

829
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: to begin work on their next album in order to

830
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: capitalize on the success of the Graduate Soundtrack, the recent

831
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: Grammy win, and the huge sales of their previous album Bookends.

832
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,879
Speaker 1: For a time, Simon de Garfunkle had the top three

833
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: album positions in the US, with Bookends at number one,

834
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: the Graduate Soundtrack at number two, and their nineteen sixty

835
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: six album Parsley Say Ageos Mary in Time at number three.

836
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 2: Also known as PSrT.

837
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 3: Is it no?

838
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: I was like the real heads call a PSrT bro.

839
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 1: That's really impressive, Like I'm hard. That's crazy to name

840
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: another act who's had the three top albums. I don't

841
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: think the Beatles even did that.

842
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 2: This isn't definitive, but Bob Newhart had the number one

843
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: and number two albums simultaneously on the Billboard two hundred

844
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 2: with the Button Down Mind and the Button Down Mind

845
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,080
Speaker 2: Strikes Back. Guns n' Roses had used Your Illusion one

846
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 2: in two at number one and two respectively in nineten

847
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 2: ninety one and two thousand and four. Nelly had Suit

848
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 2: and Sweat at number one and two. But those are

849
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 2: all double albums or like combined albums, right, I believe, so.

850
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone's had three separately released albums.

851
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:14,280
Speaker 2: That is wild.

852
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: That's a crazy stat.

853
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 2: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with

854
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 2: more too much information after these messages.

855
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: Woo, one of the earliest songs that Paul wrote with

856
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: the album that would become Bridge Over Troubled Water was

857
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: the Only Living Boy in New York, one of my favorites.

858
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: Originally he pended as a kind of good luck message

859
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 1: to his old friend Art. He would say, I was saying,

860
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: go do it, go off and do the movie, a

861
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: kind of Hey Jude type song. I feel compelled to

862
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: mention that Paul Simon is dramatically misinterpreting the meaning of

863
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: Hey Jude, which, as we all know, was written by

864
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: Paul mc cart need to cheer up John Lennon's son

865
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: Julian after John left Julian's mom to go be with Yoko.

866
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: Thank you. In order to make the meaning of the

867
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 1: song slightly less obvious, Paul Simon evokes their childhood alter

868
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,800
Speaker 1: ego in the opening line Tom as in Tom and

869
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: Jerry catch your plane right on time. I know your

870
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: part will go fine. In other words, go off, do

871
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: this movie. The role's gonna go great. It's very sweet,

872
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: it's very jalous.

873
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 9: Yeah.

874
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: But despite this encouragement, traces of Paul's own alienation and

875
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 1: loneliness managed to bleed through. Art would sum up Paul's

876
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 1: message as I'm the only living boy in New York.

877
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: You used to be the other one, and now you're gone.

878
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: Despite the small hints of jealousy and the lyrics, it

879
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: is undoubtedly a gorgeous song. Artie contributed the melody of

880
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: the backing vocal, later recalling it's us around eight times screaming,

881
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: and we mixed it down very softly. I started getting

882
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 1: into open math off harmony, which you're describing earlier, in

883
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 1: a very loud, strident way. We were screaming at the

884
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: top of our lungs and inside an echo chamber. I

885
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: remember that day Dylan, Bob Dylan dropped by to visit.

886
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: We came out of the booth after all this screaming,

887
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: and there he was also of note instrumentally speaking. On

888
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: The Only Living Boy in New York is the exquisite

889
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:23,320
Speaker 1: bassline played by session player Joe Osborne of the iconic

890
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: group of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. He's

891
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: playing it on an eight string bass, and I love this,

892
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: he would remember years later when he tried to play

893
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 1: it on stage, he couldn't quite do it, and he

894
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out why he couldn't nail his own part,

895
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: And then he realized that his bass part on the

896
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: record had been camped together and was therefore impossible to

897
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: play exactly.

898
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and this wouldn't have been an eight

899
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 2: string bass the way that like six string basses exist now,

900
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 2: this would have been like a twelve string guitar, where

901
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 2: it's four strings of the bass guitar with another string

902
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 2: either a unison or tune in octave above it. That's

903
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,760
Speaker 2: crazy because the five string bass and six string basses

904
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 2: them today didn't really exist until the eighties, seventies or eighties.

905
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just want to highlight the production on

906
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 2: these albums, man, Like, it's really down to like a

907
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 2: couple of God yes, you know, it's Hal Blaine of

908
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 2: the Record Crew, one of the most prolific and iconic

909
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 2: drummers of all time. The aforementioned Joe Osborne, who I

910
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 2: think the same thing happened in with his baseline on America.

911
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 2: They also comped together some basslines with that, so you like,

912
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 2: if you're trying to play those like upper register fills

913
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,800
Speaker 2: that he plays, it's not it's a it's a studio trickery.

914
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: And then Larry Necktell I believe.

915
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 1: Is also.

916
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 2: Was he also in Muscle Shoals.

917
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: I know he was definitely in the rerec and crew

918
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: because he played on Pet Sounds and all the Beach

919
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 1: Boys studio stuff and Phil Spector's studio stuff.

920
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,439
Speaker 2: I don't know about muscle shoals. No, he wasn't. Okay,

921
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 2: my mistake, so yeah. And Larry Nekchdel, who was just

922
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 2: like their utility guy because he's played geys and bass,

923
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 2: but you know a lot of the other stuff too,

924
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 2: and especially on these songs, is is Roy Haley Man, Yeah,

925
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 2: the producer on this. I really like it is crazy

926
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 2: to actually think about what he was doing with these. Interestingly,

927
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 2: he never had Simon and garfer go on separate mics.

928
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:13,759
Speaker 2: He only ever had them on one mic.

929
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 1: Well, we talk about this in a bit. There was

930
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: some documentary as watching with him where he would always

931
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: have them sing their parts together on one mic, like

932
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: Everly Brothers style, and then to thicken it he would

933
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: then individually have them do their own parts separately.

934
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And I mean like only Living Boy for example,

935
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 2: is like eight times there's like eight overdubs of them

936
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 2: singing together in an entire echo chamber, which I think

937
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 2: is very cool. Yeah, but yeah, I mean that's Roy Haley.

938
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,320
Speaker 2: Should get a lot of credit with that. Same with

939
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 2: you know, same with just doing this stuff on Bridge.

940
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: The drum sound on the Boxer that sounds like a

941
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 1: cannon shot, like, Yeah, a lot of this cool stuff.

942
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Boxer. For me, the craziest thing is all

943
00:49:58,200 --> 00:49:59,800
Speaker 2: the guitar layers on there. But we'll get to that.

944
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know, yeah, there's I think it's

945
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: in here later. But in some interview I think both

946
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: Paul and Art separately said, yeah, it was Simon and Garfunkle,

947
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: but we were really a trio with Roy Halley.

948
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 5: I mean it was.

949
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:12,439
Speaker 9: Yeah.

950
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: Another song that directly addresses ARTI on Bridge over Troubled

951
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: Water is So Long Frank Lloyd Wright, which is basically

952
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: a semi affectionate kiss off from Paul to his friend,

953
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,320
Speaker 1: who was a one time architecture student. Simon later admitted

954
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: in a twenty eleven interview with Mojo, I guess the

955
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: bigger picture was that him flying down the Mexico was

956
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: a disappointment that I was trying to block out, and

957
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: the nostalgic refrain to the song I'll remember Frank Lloyd Wright,

958
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: all of the nights we'd harmonized till dawn. I never

959
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 1: laughed so long. So Long, So Long seems too surrendered

960
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: to the inevitable. As Art would later say, that's a

961
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: wink from Simon to Garfunkle. So long Arty will be

962
00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,839
Speaker 1: splitting up next year. You may not know it yet.

963
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 2: Oh I'm advancing a new theory here, which is that

964
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 2: maybe Art Garfuncle is an idiot.

965
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: Uh. He later said that he had no idea that

966
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: the song was in reference to him. This is what

967
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: I'm yes, this is what I'm yes, yes, uh, he said,

968
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,360
Speaker 1: Paul quote never let me in on that. I find that.

969
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: I find that to be a secretive and unpleasant thing

970
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: to have done.

971
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 2: To you, because that presupposes a very stoned Art Garfuncle

972
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 2: sitting around and singing these lines and going, man, it's

973
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 2: crazy that you used to sing in the in your

974
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 2: basement with Frank Lloyd Wright, just like me. That's wild,

975
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 2: and then never addressing that, like not retaking that case later. Yes,

976
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 2: of course that was But no, I was deceived by Paul.

977
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: He later chilled, saying in the liner notes to a

978
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: twenty twelve compilation that he's able to ignore the unpleasant

979
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 1: subtext of the song because it's quote just so much

980
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: fun to sing, And he says of Paul that quote

981
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: one loves the giver of a beautiful gift. I don't

982
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: know fine the lyric All of the Nights We'd Harmonize

983
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:12,760
Speaker 1: Till Dawn is a sweet reflection of their early days together,

984
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 1: made all the more poignant by the fact that they

985
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: don't harmonize on this song, which is kind of heartbreaking

986
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: when you think about it. Art sings a solo, except

987
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: when Paul takes a section of the bridge. Architects may

988
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: come and architects may go, and never change your point

989
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: of view. I think that's very interesting that Paul takes

990
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: that one line. People come, people go, They don't change

991
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 1: your point of view. That's I don't know. I find

992
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:39,800
Speaker 1: it telling that he chose that line out of the

993
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: entire song. I don't know if that was strictly a

994
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: musical decision. The pair in general don't really harmonize much

995
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 1: on Bridge over Troubled Water the whole album in general.

996
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: Unlike the Everly Brothers style harmonies on their earlier records,

997
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: Bridge was a showcase for separate voices. Paul Simon would

998
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 1: explain in the twenty eleven documentary The Harmony Game. It's

999
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 1: more like a Beatles record than an Everly's record. You

1000
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: knew the two voices and the two characters well enough

1001
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: that we could each have our own songs that's the

1002
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 1: first time we did that, and that probably would have

1003
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: been the pattern for the next album or two. Have

1004
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 1: we stayed together? And yeah, we talked about earlier about

1005
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:17,399
Speaker 1: their specific way of recording their harmonies, how they would

1006
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: gather around one mic and sing together and then each

1007
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: double track their vocal part individually afterwards, and Roy Halley

1008
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:26,720
Speaker 1: would say, people would say, why don't you just record

1009
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: them individually so you'll have more control, which makes sense

1010
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 1: when you're mixing, but that sounds was never the same.

1011
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:36,479
Speaker 1: They needed to look at each other's mouths and see

1012
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: the way that their tongues touch their soft palate and

1013
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: really get those phonemes.

1014
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, those fricatives, it's true elves. Yeah, no, I know.

1015
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: And speaking of the Beatles, much like John and Paul

1016
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: struggling to make room for their romantic relationships, Paul and Artie,

1017
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: Paul Simon and Arc Garfunkle were becoming more involved with

1018
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 1: serious partners of their own. While art was on his

1019
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: way to a session for the Bridge Over Troubled Water

1020
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 1: track The Boxer in the fall of nineteen sixty eight,

1021
00:54:06,719 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: he was recognized while stepping out of a cab by

1022
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: part time actress Linda Grossman, he was recognized. He must

1023
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: have been so happy that he was recognized.

1024
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 5: This time.

1025
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: Artie was smitten by Linda Grossman and took the bold

1026
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 1: move of inviting her on the spot to the session

1027
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:25,480
Speaker 1: he was going to. He'd say, I was ready, My

1028
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: rhythm was already going. I think I asked I think

1029
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: I asked her to marry me in the second sentence.

1030
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 2: What a weird thing to say.

1031
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when they split up, he would later insist

1032
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 1: that he never loved her.

1033
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, like, honestly, anyone please tweeted us right in

1034
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 2: if we're if you think have listened to this episode

1035
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 2: and think that we're being unfair to this guy, Yes,

1036
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 2: come on.

1037
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: So Paul wasn't exactly thrilled that art just showed up

1038
00:54:55,239 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: to their session with a stranger. Yeah, I mean that

1039
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: makes the whole like John bringing Yoko, who at least

1040
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: was known to the rest of the band, seem you know.

1041
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1042
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: Also, Linna Grossman lived in Boston, and if you have

1043
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 1: an artistic career in New York, it is really hard

1044
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: to keep commuting back up to Boston. It's really it's

1045
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 1: it's it's a time suck. It's a money suck. It

1046
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 1: makes it really really hard to keep things going in

1047
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,239
Speaker 1: New York, especially if that's where you your your finances

1048
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 1: are and you make your money and all the opportunities are.

1049
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: It's really really, really difficult, let me tell you. And

1050
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: you know already he was really determined to make that

1051
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: relationship work, and he commuted back and forth between New

1052
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: York and Boston at great personal expense, I'm sure, and

1053
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: tremendous cost to his own sanity. But one of the

1054
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: downsides of this is that he had even less free

1055
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: time to record with Paul, who you'll remember was already

1056
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: pissed about the Catch twenty two shoots. So now he

1057
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:00,080
Speaker 1: finally had already back and he was going back and

1058
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: forth to Boston to be with this rando who stopped

1059
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:03,840
Speaker 1: him on the street and say, hey, aren't you our

1060
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 1: Garfuncle And he was like, you're pretty yes, I am.

1061
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: Is presumably how that went down, So now anywhere with you,

1062
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 1: Paul was doubly mad. Meanwhile, Paul, this is quite a choice.

1063
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 1: He was cementing a relationship with Peggy Harper, who at

1064
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: the time was married to Simon and Garfuncle's manager mart Lewis.

1065
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: Once their relationship heated up, Peggy left her husband, who,

1066
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 1: may I remind you, was Simon and Garfuncle's manager, Mart Lewis,

1067
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,319
Speaker 1: and divorced him so she could marry Paul. I can

1068
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: only assume this was some kind of weird music industry

1069
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: ediple thing. Yeah, marrying your manager's wife is. That's a

1070
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 1: hell of a thing. Paul apparently actively pursued her despite

1071
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 1: his personal friendship and professional relationship with her now ex

1072
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:57,839
Speaker 1: husband mart Lewis, the manager of Simon and Garfuncle, who

1073
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 1: continued to manage Simon and Garfuncle Paul solo after the

1074
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 1: breakup of the duo. This Mort guy. This guy either

1075
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: he was extremely open minded about all this, or he

1076
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 1: knew a meal ticket when he saw one. Rather than

1077
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: feel that Paul had quote taken Peggy from him, Mort

1078
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 1: said that he was quote relieved about the divorce and

1079
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: held no animosity towards Simon when the pair started dating.

1080
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 1: He said he and Simon even had a heart to

1081
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: heart conversation, agreeing not to let the matter disrupt their

1082
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: business ties, and with that, Paul and Peggy married in

1083
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: late autumn nineteen sixty nine.

1084
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,080
Speaker 2: Look, Paul, you can my wife, but don't fit the money.

1085
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: Let's go to fifteen percent. You want the divorce signed?

1086
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: All right.

1087
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 2: Paul probably didn't appreciate already bringing in, you know, just

1088
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 2: some woman from the street, because she was pretty invalidated him.

1089
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 1: I must have that wrong, Like that's from the hell

1090
00:57:56,400 --> 00:57:59,240
Speaker 1: Burn book, which is extremely pro Paul. There must be

1091
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 1: something I'm going maybe not maybe not? What's over Linda Grossman?

1092
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 2: What There's a line in his Wikipedia page. I'm so excited.

1093
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:19,120
Speaker 2: Garfuncle has undertaken several long walks in his life. Yeah,

1094
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 2: h writing poetry along the way. Just what a hilarious

1095
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:25,479
Speaker 2: thing to put.

1096
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: I think they were like extremely long, Like I think, yes.

1097
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 2: They're like forty miles. They're like it's like a long

1098
00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 2: he's marathon walking. Yeah, just like you know, getting all

1099
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 2: the way down there on to personal life. But it's

1100
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 2: just he's taken long walks, several long baths. Okay, Sorry.

1101
00:58:44,800 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 2: So I found a nineteen seventy three Rolling Stone interview

1102
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 2: where our Carfuncle said I invited Linda to the studio

1103
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,280
Speaker 2: that night we were working on the Boxer. She was reluctant,

1104
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 2: but she thought she'd try it. She came sat over

1105
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 2: the engineering console with her chin on her wrist, staring

1106
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 2: at me, Paul and Roy for four hours. She was

1107
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 2: going to know everything. I was impressed and flattered. I

1108
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 2: like people who third degree me, who stare at me.

1109
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:12,480
Speaker 2: I feel they're interested. And we went out afterwards and

1110
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:14,680
Speaker 2: I was very charmed and we dated a lot. It

1111
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 2: took us about three years though, before I had the

1112
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 2: courage to ask her to marry me. And the following

1113
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:22,680
Speaker 2: sentence is They divorced in nineteen seventy five, with Garfunkle

1114
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 2: later claiming he never really loved her.

1115
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: So wait, why she was a singer. So I was

1116
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 1: going to bring her to the studio to weigh in.

1117
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 2: Was that what he means certainly adds to your notion

1118
00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 2: of Paul Simon not being thrilled that a random person

1119
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 2: pulled up and just plopped down at the console. Oh,

1120
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 2: they worked on this song. Who's this again, Artie? I

1121
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:50,919
Speaker 2: just met her in the street. Her name is Linda.

1122
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: We had Bob Dylan in here yesterday, arn and I

1123
00:59:56,120 --> 01:00:02,160
Speaker 1: didn't listen to him. Yeah, no offense, London. I'm sure

1124
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 1: I'm sure you lovely, I'm sure he never loved you. God,

1125
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 1: sorry to that woman, all right, all right, all right,

1126
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:11,680
Speaker 1: all right.

1127
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 2: The sessions for The Boxer were one of the most

1128
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:17,520
Speaker 2: difficult songs that Simon and Garfunk put together. Sessions lasted

1129
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 2: well over one hundred hours, spread out over Columbia Studios

1130
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 2: in Nashville, New York, and also Saint Paul's Chapel at

1131
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:28,480
Speaker 2: Columbia University. The church had a tiled dome which was

1132
01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 2: beloved by the band for the l lailai parts, and

1133
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 2: this created a fun challenge for the engineers, who viewed

1134
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,120
Speaker 2: the excursion as a bit of a field trip because

1135
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 2: mobile recording technology was not quite where it is today.

1136
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 2: Simon would recall that the recording for The Boxer began

1137
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 2: in Nashville, where they played with pro session guys like

1138
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 2: Charlie McCoy on harmonica, who played on Dylan's Blonde on

1139
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:53,120
Speaker 2: Blonde on many other things, Pete Drake on pedal steel

1140
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 2: no relation to Nick Drake, the similarly kitten voiced but

1141
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 2: virtuosic fingerpicking British guitarist, and Fred Carter, who played the

1142
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 2: fingerpick and guitar part along with Simon. The first line

1143
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 2: is a lick he wrote while his guitar was in

1144
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 2: a special tuning Simon later said, ever since guitarists get

1145
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 2: their fingers all twisted up trying to play that part

1146
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:14,600
Speaker 2: and they can't because they don't know the tuning, I.

1147
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:15,280
Speaker 1: Won't tell them.

1148
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 2: No, I have the detail on those. Actually, the two

1149
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 2: of us played sitting about three feet apart and completely

1150
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 2: locked into it. We did it over and over until

1151
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 2: we got to take you here on the record. It's

1152
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 2: live on the record. No edits Roy and Lardy were

1153
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 2: in the control room and they were really happy with

1154
01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 2: the way the guitars meshed together. That is beautiful. Fred Carter,

1155
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:37,120
Speaker 2: in a two thousand and eight interview with Fred Boord Journal,

1156
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 2: explained it thusly. When we started to record in New York,

1157
01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 2: I had a baby Martin, it's a smaller bodied model,

1158
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,439
Speaker 2: and Paul Simon was playing his Martin a DA team.

1159
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 2: He was tuned regular in standard tuning EADGB E. So

1160
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:51,480
Speaker 2: all I was here in was bits and pieces of

1161
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:54,000
Speaker 2: the songs while he was doing his fingerpicking. So I

1162
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 2: tried two or three things and then picked up this guitar,

1163
01:01:56,400 --> 01:01:59,360
Speaker 2: which was about a third above his guitar, and I

1164
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:01,680
Speaker 2: turned the first string down to D and I turned

1165
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 2: the bass string up to a G which put my

1166
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 2: guitar in an open G tuning. He says that Paul

1167
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:10,479
Speaker 2: was in open C at this point, so if that's true,

1168
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 2: what they were essentially doing was playing guitars a fifth

1169
01:02:14,320 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 2: off of each other, which is very interesting. And that's

1170
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 2: a studio tactic that you do see in a lot

1171
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:21,280
Speaker 2: of places where people will, I think in Nashville as well,

1172
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 2: where you kpo your capo one guitar at the seventh

1173
01:02:25,720 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 2: threat and then played the same guitar part just a

1174
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 2: fifth hire to thicken the sound. As long as you're

1175
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 2: not doing any kind of really complicated harmonies, it works out.

1176
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:35,160
Speaker 2: And so he said, at the end of the day,

1177
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 2: we were just still on the song on my guitar.

1178
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:42,560
Speaker 2: They had me miked with about seven mics. They had

1179
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 2: a near mic, a distant mic, a neck mic, a

1180
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 2: mic on the guitar hole. They even miked my breathing.

1181
01:02:47,440 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 2: They micd the guitar in back. Roy Halley was a

1182
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,640
Speaker 2: genius at getting around the first time we were listening,

1183
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:55,080
Speaker 2: they killed the breathing mic and they had an ambient

1184
01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 2: mic overhead which picked up the two guitars together. So

1185
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 2: I was breathing, I guess pretty heavy in rhythm, and

1186
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:02,080
Speaker 2: they wanted to take it out, and they took it

1187
01:03:02,200 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 2: out and then said, no, we have to leave that in.

1188
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 2: And it now sounds like an additional layer rhythm on

1189
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:11,000
Speaker 2: the record. So you can actually hear guitarist Fred Carter

1190
01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 2: Junior's breathing as part of those guitar tracks.

1191
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 1: I never noticed that. I got to re listen to that.

1192
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 2: He also played telly and twelve string guitar on that track,

1193
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:23,320
Speaker 2: three or four guitars in total, and a six string Doughbro,

1194
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 2: which is like the resonator style guitar that you hear

1195
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:30,600
Speaker 2: in bluegrass music, not on a slide, he says. So

1196
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 2: there are so many guitars on that, which is why

1197
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 2: it sounds magic. And one of that central lick is

1198
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 2: them playing in two different tunings at once. So cool.

1199
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: That song I used to always kind of think was

1200
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 1: like long and slow and would skip to like Missus

1201
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:52,080
Speaker 1: Robinson whatever. Although I get the more that's like, that's

1202
01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 1: the one that is a magical song. I mean to me,

1203
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: it's like the musical equivalent of like cool hand Luke too.

1204
01:03:57,400 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 2: It's just like that, yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, And

1205
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 2: just I don't know, man, I think I do think that,

1206
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 2: you know Howie deserves like a lot of recognition for

1207
01:04:06,040 --> 01:04:09,439
Speaker 2: this he talks about on the Boxer. Also, he put

1208
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 2: the brass and the rest of the voices on the

1209
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:14,760
Speaker 2: end of that, and then he made this decision to

1210
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 2: mix the pedal steel track with a piccolo trumpet part.

1211
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 2: So the pedal steel was recorded down in Nashville and

1212
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:25,520
Speaker 2: this boc esque piccolo trumpet part done in the Columbia church.

1213
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 2: And so he had two remote sessions of these two

1214
01:04:29,720 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 2: very distinct instruments and bounce them into one track together.

1215
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,200
Speaker 2: That's just I love studio magic.

1216
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 1: And it's very much a Phil Specter or Brian Wilson

1217
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:09,160
Speaker 1: technique of putting two instruments together playing the exact same line,

1218
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: and the effect is a completely new third sound that

1219
01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 1: your brain puts together. I mean, I had no idea

1220
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: what that sound was. I thought, I think I assumed

1221
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:21,120
Speaker 1: it was a pedal steel, but there was something off

1222
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: about it. I didn't realize that there was a pickle

1223
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:25,480
Speaker 1: of trumpet on top of it. Pickle trumpets what they

1224
01:05:25,560 --> 01:05:28,480
Speaker 1: use in penny Land too. It's I mean, it's it's

1225
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 1: a it's unusual to be used in like a country.

1226
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:32,080
Speaker 1: Tinged record like this.

1227
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:34,840
Speaker 2: It's mostly a I mean, you probably wouldn't hear it

1228
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 2: on any rock no poke record unless somebody was trying

1229
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 2: to make it sound annoyingly baroke. Yeah, yeah, like the Beatles. Yes, continue,

1230
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 2: I think you're up. We've got to talk about the drums.

1231
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:49,439
Speaker 2: Oh yes, so sorry.

1232
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:50,960
Speaker 1: That's the other great part of the song.

1233
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 2: So the famous drum beat for the Bronxer. It only

1234
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:55,640
Speaker 2: has one drum part, and it is played during the

1235
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:59,400
Speaker 2: lie live part, and it is an amazing drum part

1236
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 2: because it sounds like the hammer of God. It is

1237
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 2: played by famed Wrecking Crew player how Blaine, who drummed

1238
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 2: on probably ninety five percent of things throughout the nineteen sixties,

1239
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty top ten US hits, forty of

1240
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:18,840
Speaker 2: which were number ones. He authored the beat that is

1241
01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 2: now just called the be My Baby beat from the

1242
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 2: ron Ads. Wouldn't it be nice? I Got you babe,

1243
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:32,040
Speaker 2: mister tambourine man, Agent of Aquarius, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The

1244
01:06:32,240 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 2: effect of this sound was achieved not by any kind

1245
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:40,040
Speaker 2: of intense like metering of reverb lengths or echo anything.

1246
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 2: Hal Blaine said that Roy Halley would just walk around

1247
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 2: clapping until he found the sound that he wanted, and

1248
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:47,640
Speaker 2: so ultimately he decided to put the drums in the

1249
01:06:47,680 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 2: studio hallway by an elevator shaft for this maximum reverb

1250
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:55,640
Speaker 2: in echo and Columbia's records hallways were just always known

1251
01:06:55,680 --> 01:06:58,640
Speaker 2: as apparently being great sources of echo and reverb. Halle

1252
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:01,120
Speaker 2: would later joke, I bet Barbara Dreyisen's voice is still

1253
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 2: echoing in that hallway somewhere. And so Hal Blaine would

1254
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:08,200
Speaker 2: pound the drums at the well, really just one drum

1255
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:09,800
Speaker 2: snare right In.

1256
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:12,800
Speaker 1: Different interviews, he said snare and tom tom, But I

1257
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:14,880
Speaker 1: mean he was just also super old, so he might

1258
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 1: have I don't know, not to be awful, but you know, yeah,

1259
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: I think it was a snack.

1260
01:07:18,680 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 2: I mean the definitive I think the definitive one is

1261
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:23,160
Speaker 2: the snare, but they might have mixed a low tom

1262
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:24,640
Speaker 2: into it to give it a little bit of body.

1263
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 2: That actually makes sense anyway, so they would be how

1264
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:30,520
Speaker 2: Blaine was just he said, they were all around me

1265
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:33,160
Speaker 2: with all these mike cables, my drums, a set of headphones.

1266
01:07:33,480 --> 01:07:36,120
Speaker 2: When the chorus came around the lie Lie bit Roy

1267
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:37,880
Speaker 2: had me come down on my snare drum as hard

1268
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 2: as I could in that hallway by the elevator shaft.

1269
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,200
Speaker 2: It sounded like a cannon shot, which was just the

1270
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:46,240
Speaker 2: kind of sound that we were after. Unfortunately, at this

1271
01:07:46,360 --> 01:07:49,120
Speaker 2: exact moment, during one take, the elevator doors open and

1272
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:52,360
Speaker 2: an elderly man stepped out, just as how Blaine came

1273
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 2: down on a snare drum with all of the force

1274
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 2: he could summon. It nearly scared him to death. Blaine recalled,

1275
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 2: he jumped back into the elevator, the door and took off.

1276
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 2: We never saw him again. He later died. No, but

1277
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 2: I think I think about his face every time I

1278
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 2: hear the boxer and again like this is again just

1279
01:08:26,120 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 2: these guys, Hal Blaine, Larry Nechdel, Joe Osborne, engineer, producer,

1280
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 2: Roy Halley. And this was the first Simony Garfunkle album

1281
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:37,640
Speaker 2: that credited these back musicians in their liner notes. And

1282
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 2: this was also an era when that was not even

1283
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 2: standard practice, you know. So this is because Motown musicians

1284
01:08:42,040 --> 01:08:44,719
Speaker 2: were famously not credited. So this is like a measure

1285
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:47,960
Speaker 2: of faith that you know they had in crediting these guys,

1286
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:51,040
Speaker 2: which I think is wonderful. With all of this material,

1287
01:08:51,200 --> 01:08:53,880
Speaker 2: A standard eight track recorder wasn't cutting it, so Roy

1288
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 2: Halle brought Columbia boss Clive Davis into the studio to

1289
01:08:56,560 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 2: lobby for the novel sixteen track recorder. Davis op his

1290
01:09:00,320 --> 01:09:04,719
Speaker 2: purse strings and bought another eight track recorder, which made

1291
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:07,959
Speaker 2: Simon and Garfunkle among the first musicians to use sixteen

1292
01:09:08,040 --> 01:09:10,760
Speaker 2: track recording. But what they were actually doing was doing

1293
01:09:10,880 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 2: two separate eight track recorders that were manually synchronized and

1294
01:09:14,720 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 2: brought together. Hallie talking to Sound on Sound says we

1295
01:09:18,479 --> 01:09:21,200
Speaker 2: linked up two eight track machines to make sixteen and

1296
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 2: going out and making work tapes. The second eight track

1297
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:26,080
Speaker 2: would be used as a work tape to go in

1298
01:09:26,160 --> 01:09:28,519
Speaker 2: overdub voices in the church, do that as a remote,

1299
01:09:28,680 --> 01:09:30,720
Speaker 2: bring it back to the studio and overdub on it.

1300
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:33,320
Speaker 2: That wasn't being done at the time, so it was great.

1301
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:36,439
Speaker 2: It was very innovative and very creative at that standpoint.

1302
01:09:36,920 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 2: So I don't know how you're gonna handle that. They

1303
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 2: edit God Love You and now we have the lost.

1304
01:09:42,520 --> 01:09:45,599
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there's actually a missing verse of the Boxer

1305
01:09:46,040 --> 01:09:50,479
Speaker 1: that was removed after already wrote that Bach like steel guitar, trumpet, melody,

1306
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 1: that was his line. That's his saw right, Yeah, okay.

1307
01:09:54,120 --> 01:09:57,679
Speaker 2: He gets one separate part of one song.

1308
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:04,400
Speaker 1: The verse. The Lost Verse is occasionally reinserted during live

1309
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:06,840
Speaker 1: versions of The Boxer and I heard it with them

1310
01:10:06,960 --> 01:10:10,240
Speaker 1: when I saw Simon and Garfunkle live in two thousand

1311
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 1: and three, and it blew my mind because I assumed

1312
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:16,479
Speaker 1: that Paul had written it especially for the occasion. It

1313
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 1: goes as follows. It's actually very sweet. It actually was

1314
01:10:20,560 --> 01:10:23,559
Speaker 1: cool that they added it as men in their twilight years.

1315
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 1: Now the years are rolling by me. They're rocking evenly.

1316
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:30,720
Speaker 1: I'm older than I once was and younger than i'll be.

1317
01:10:31,120 --> 01:10:36,040
Speaker 1: That's not unusual, No, it isn't strange. After changes, upon changes,

1318
01:10:36,520 --> 01:10:39,600
Speaker 1: we are more or less the same. After changes, we

1319
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:42,960
Speaker 1: are more or less the same. That was cool to

1320
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:46,880
Speaker 1: see them at like you know, age seventy or whatever

1321
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:50,000
Speaker 1: singing that to each other. That was really cool. It

1322
01:10:50,080 --> 01:10:52,679
Speaker 1: was my sixteenth birthday present for my dad seeing Simon

1323
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:56,000
Speaker 1: and garfunk and so we went together, which was really cool.

1324
01:10:56,120 --> 01:10:58,720
Speaker 1: And also as a special guest at the show, they

1325
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:01,639
Speaker 1: had the Everly Brothers and then all four so I'm

1326
01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:03,880
Speaker 1: on a Garfunkle and the two Everly brothers came out

1327
01:11:03,920 --> 01:11:06,559
Speaker 1: and sang songs together. It was unreal. It was one

1328
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 1: of the coolest concerts I've ever been to, one of

1329
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:13,880
Speaker 1: the best presents I've ever received, really amazing. Yes lyrics, Yes, Yes,

1330
01:11:14,479 --> 01:11:17,639
Speaker 1: lyrics to the Boxer. Paul reportedly wrote an early draft

1331
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:20,120
Speaker 1: of the lyrics of this song on the back of

1332
01:11:20,200 --> 01:11:27,520
Speaker 1: an airsickness bag related note about sixties songs involving airsickness

1333
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,760
Speaker 1: bags by people named Paul. It was pointed out to

1334
01:11:30,840 --> 01:11:33,599
Speaker 1: me that the line from back in the USSR all

1335
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:35,280
Speaker 1: the way the paper bag was on my knee.

1336
01:11:36,120 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 2: I always thought it was like contraband or something.

1337
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:40,439
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was. It's an airsickness bag,

1338
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:42,720
Speaker 1: That's what that line means. I never knew that. I

1339
01:11:42,880 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 1: never never really made sense to me. Is that I

1340
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: just blow your mind? Or did you?

1341
01:11:46,600 --> 01:11:48,479
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever really parsed the lyrics. I

1342
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:50,800
Speaker 2: don't think about that, my friend. No, I don't think

1343
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:51,439
Speaker 2: about it at all.

1344
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:56,599
Speaker 1: Yes, okay the Boxer again. I'm not a big lyrics guy,

1345
01:11:56,680 --> 01:12:00,160
Speaker 1: but the lyrics to the Boxer always stunned me. The

1346
01:12:00,240 --> 01:12:03,679
Speaker 1: words tell the story of a man struggling to overcome poverty,

1347
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 1: and loneliness in New York City. After being presented in

1348
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:09,639
Speaker 1: the first person for the first few verses, the final

1349
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:14,000
Speaker 1: verse uses the third person sketch of a boxer and

1350
01:12:14,080 --> 01:12:16,880
Speaker 1: the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,

1351
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:19,960
Speaker 1: and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid

1352
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:22,120
Speaker 1: him down or cut him till he cried out in

1353
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:25,559
Speaker 1: his anger and his shame. I am leaving. I am leaving,

1354
01:12:26,040 --> 01:12:29,320
Speaker 1: but the fighters still remain. It's the fight seeing cool Endlop,

1355
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:33,760
Speaker 1: That's what I always see. Simon has suggested that at

1356
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:38,840
Speaker 1: least the spirit of the lyrics are autobiographical. Ah sad

1357
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: news for anyone who ever clung to this song for

1358
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:45,479
Speaker 1: strength when they were struggling to overcome major life events.

1359
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:49,440
Speaker 1: Paul wrote it after feeling like he was being unfairly

1360
01:12:49,560 --> 01:12:56,880
Speaker 1: criticized in the press. So no, not the loss of

1361
01:12:56,960 --> 01:13:01,720
Speaker 1: a loved one or a parent, or grow poverty, just

1362
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:04,960
Speaker 1: people were mean to him in the music newspapers.

1363
01:13:05,400 --> 01:13:09,599
Speaker 2: I mean that that whole first verse, which never really

1364
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:13,040
Speaker 2: made much sense to me, suddenly clicked into place. Though

1365
01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 2: my story is seldom told, I have squandered my resistance

1366
01:13:16,880 --> 01:13:20,880
Speaker 2: for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises all

1367
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:23,719
Speaker 2: lies in jest? Is this just him winging about people

1368
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 2: in the press being mean to him that whole first verse?

1369
01:13:26,760 --> 01:13:30,120
Speaker 1: It could be read that way, he says in a

1370
01:13:30,200 --> 01:13:32,960
Speaker 1: nineteen to eighty four interview with Playboy. I think I

1371
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:35,519
Speaker 1: was reading the Bible around that time. That's where I

1372
01:13:35,560 --> 01:13:38,760
Speaker 1: think phrases like workmen's wages come from and seeking out

1373
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:42,120
Speaker 1: the poor recorders. That was biblical. I think the song

1374
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:45,000
Speaker 1: was about me. Everybody's beating me up, and I'm telling

1375
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:47,479
Speaker 1: you now, I'm going to go away if you don't stop.

1376
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:50,920
Speaker 2: And I never did.

1377
01:13:51,680 --> 01:13:54,880
Speaker 1: But by that time we had encountered our first criticism.

1378
01:13:55,280 --> 01:13:57,519
Speaker 1: For the first few years, it was just pure praise.

1379
01:13:57,920 --> 01:13:59,719
Speaker 1: It took two or three years for people to realize

1380
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:02,680
Speaker 1: that we weren't strange creatures that emerged from England, but

1381
01:14:02,880 --> 01:14:05,200
Speaker 1: just two guys from Queens who used to sing rock

1382
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 1: and roll. And maybe we weren't real folkies at all,

1383
01:14:08,680 --> 01:14:12,679
Speaker 1: maybe we weren't even hippies. But yeah, Paul's been cagy

1384
01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 1: over the years about whether or not the lyrics were

1385
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 1: strictly literal. In Robert Hilbert's biography, which again grain of Salt,

1386
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:23,280
Speaker 1: he participated, and he gave many interviews for Paul said,

1387
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:26,040
Speaker 1: looking back, I don't recall thinking that I went through

1388
01:14:26,120 --> 01:14:28,479
Speaker 1: years of struggle. I was never poor and I had

1389
01:14:28,520 --> 01:14:30,720
Speaker 1: a family that loved me. But I have to say

1390
01:14:30,880 --> 01:14:34,840
Speaker 1: singing his anger and his shame still makes me feel uncomfortable.

1391
01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:38,000
Speaker 1: So there must have been some anger and shame. I

1392
01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:40,400
Speaker 1: think some of the feelings in the song started when

1393
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 1: I was a kid. It wasn't a traumatic injury you

1394
01:14:43,320 --> 01:14:47,160
Speaker 1: can point to, but there was something. And Hilburn then

1395
01:14:47,200 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 1: takes the opportunity to theorize that this something he speaks

1396
01:14:50,479 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 1: of included matters of his size, his hair, his failure,

1397
01:14:55,080 --> 01:14:58,400
Speaker 1: and occasional humiliation of the Jerry Land's solo years as

1398
01:14:58,439 --> 01:15:01,439
Speaker 1: a kid being snubbed by the Greenwich Village folk crowd,

1399
01:15:01,640 --> 01:15:04,640
Speaker 1: and later having to fight to gain respect in the

1400
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:09,240
Speaker 1: rock community. Another biographer, Eric Elliott, that's not his name,

1401
01:15:09,280 --> 01:15:11,880
Speaker 1: that's a guy with the middle school with another biographer,

1402
01:15:11,960 --> 01:15:15,080
Speaker 1: Mark Elliott, reads into the lyrical story in a much

1403
01:15:15,120 --> 01:15:18,720
Speaker 1: more literal way by relating it to Simon's own biography.

1404
01:15:19,439 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 1: Like the quote this and full, he writes, the second

1405
01:15:22,120 --> 01:15:25,280
Speaker 1: verse of The Boxer connects with the album's recurring theme

1406
01:15:25,400 --> 01:15:29,360
Speaker 1: of abandonment. Set in an autobiographical back to the beginning frame,

1407
01:15:30,040 --> 01:15:32,679
Speaker 1: The singer is a poor boy leaving home, as Paul

1408
01:15:32,760 --> 01:15:35,560
Speaker 1: did when he went to England, surrounded by strangers in

1409
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:39,280
Speaker 1: a railway station, probably a reference to his girlfriend Kathy

1410
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:41,639
Speaker 1: Chitty and the song he would write around that time.

1411
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:46,000
Speaker 1: Homeward bound. Once at his destination, the narrator lays low

1412
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:48,800
Speaker 1: the house he shared in the East End. Looking to

1413
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:51,120
Speaker 1: fit in, he tries to join the clique of artists

1414
01:15:51,200 --> 01:15:54,720
Speaker 1: he found there. The song then switches locales again, back

1415
01:15:54,760 --> 01:15:57,000
Speaker 1: to New York, but the only offers he gets there

1416
01:15:57,120 --> 01:15:59,840
Speaker 1: are from the street walkers, an allusion to perhaps the

1417
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:03,080
Speaker 1: bands only into making money, the ones that are the

1418
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:04,679
Speaker 1: ones that horr themselves out.

1419
01:16:05,680 --> 01:16:06,080
Speaker 2: Okay.

1420
01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:08,960
Speaker 1: The song then breaks into a vocal and instrumental run

1421
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,480
Speaker 1: of Lila laies. They are a fade in in cinematic

1422
01:16:12,600 --> 01:16:16,280
Speaker 1: terms that becomes, for a moment, a purely non chronological

1423
01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:21,400
Speaker 1: exultation the joy of singing now ohk. Next, the singer

1424
01:16:21,479 --> 01:16:23,920
Speaker 1: laments the passing of the years. This is the lost verse,

1425
01:16:24,000 --> 01:16:26,960
Speaker 1: the passing of the years and the acknowledgment of changes,

1426
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:31,439
Speaker 1: already's leaving to make a movie, etc. And sighs to

1427
01:16:31,560 --> 01:16:34,439
Speaker 1: acknowledge the bandonment as nothing new in his life, that

1428
01:16:34,560 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 1: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

1429
01:16:37,720 --> 01:16:40,040
Speaker 1: And finally, in the final verse, the singer longs to

1430
01:16:40,120 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 1: go home, yet not home, to somewhere where the harsh

1431
01:16:43,200 --> 01:16:46,960
Speaker 1: New York winters won't bleed him dry. Mexico. Perhaps we're

1432
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:50,439
Speaker 1: already's filming his movie, all of which resolves with the

1433
01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:53,680
Speaker 1: vision of a boxer, a fighter who desperately wants to

1434
01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:56,360
Speaker 1: get out of the ring, but despite the beating he

1435
01:16:56,400 --> 01:16:59,519
Speaker 1: has taken, remains in the fight. He is what he

1436
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:03,360
Speaker 1: is and will somehow make it through. Are you family

1437
01:17:03,439 --> 01:17:03,560
Speaker 1: with that?

1438
01:17:03,680 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 2: Charlie Brown had hose tweet?

1439
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:06,360
Speaker 1: Not No.

1440
01:17:06,880 --> 01:17:10,519
Speaker 2: I can theorize though it's a classic bit of Twitter Twitter.

1441
01:17:10,520 --> 01:17:13,280
Speaker 2: It's just passed into one of those tweets that has

1442
01:17:13,320 --> 01:17:16,559
Speaker 2: passed into common lore. And I'm reading I'm remembering as

1443
01:17:16,600 --> 01:17:18,960
Speaker 2: best I can. But it's people will get on here

1444
01:17:19,080 --> 01:17:22,920
Speaker 2: and just say anything Charlie Brown had hose. No, he didn't,

1445
01:17:23,400 --> 01:17:28,519
Speaker 2: that's not true. And in similarly, people can just write anything.

1446
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sorry, I don't. I think I feel

1447
01:17:33,479 --> 01:17:36,360
Speaker 2: like a lifelong New Yorker who probably took some buses

1448
01:17:36,439 --> 01:17:39,439
Speaker 2: around the port authority is probably more likely to just

1449
01:17:39,600 --> 01:17:43,639
Speaker 2: be writing about actual street walkers and poor people than

1450
01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:48,479
Speaker 2: veiled criticisms of bands just in it for the money,

1451
01:17:48,880 --> 01:17:50,920
Speaker 2: particularly when Paul Simon is like one of the most

1452
01:17:50,960 --> 01:17:54,000
Speaker 2: money minded cats from when he was a seventeen year old.

1453
01:17:54,960 --> 01:17:57,479
Speaker 2: That's losers that should have gone back to the editor.

1454
01:17:57,600 --> 01:17:58,120
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

1455
01:17:59,439 --> 01:18:03,639
Speaker 1: The course of the Boxer contains non lexical syllables. That's

1456
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:07,960
Speaker 1: a great term. Lie la lie. They are extremely effective,

1457
01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:11,920
Speaker 1: especially following the extremely literate verses. I think it's a

1458
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:15,639
Speaker 1: cool way to follow it up. But Paul only intended

1459
01:18:15,640 --> 01:18:18,680
Speaker 1: the lila lies as a placeholder. He would say, I

1460
01:18:18,760 --> 01:18:21,439
Speaker 1: didn't have any words. But it's not a failure of

1461
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 1: songwriting because people like that and they put enough meaning

1462
01:18:24,479 --> 01:18:26,519
Speaker 1: into it, and the rest of the song has enough

1463
01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:28,720
Speaker 1: power and emotion I guess to make it go. So

1464
01:18:28,840 --> 01:18:31,160
Speaker 1: it's all right. But for me, every time I sing

1465
01:18:31,280 --> 01:18:33,719
Speaker 1: that part, I'm a little embarrassed, which is cute.

1466
01:18:34,520 --> 01:18:36,040
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, it's just kind of interesting that he

1467
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:38,519
Speaker 2: went with that because like, coming from a folk background,

1468
01:18:38,600 --> 01:18:40,519
Speaker 2: like there's so much like there is a lot of

1469
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:45,080
Speaker 2: non lexical stuff in that, and it's all like, you know, diity, diity,

1470
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:47,519
Speaker 2: like whatever. I guess what I should say is it's

1471
01:18:47,560 --> 01:18:51,320
Speaker 2: interesting that he took a non lexical word that also

1472
01:18:51,439 --> 01:18:54,120
Speaker 2: has like a double meaning to it, you know, right,

1473
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:57,880
Speaker 2: instead of simply singing law or like any of that.

1474
01:18:58,280 --> 01:19:01,160
Speaker 2: Like hearing lie as part of the folk tradition doesn't

1475
01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:03,599
Speaker 2: exactly square up to me. I'm not sure how many

1476
01:19:03,640 --> 01:19:04,880
Speaker 2: other instances there are of.

1477
01:19:04,960 --> 01:19:08,040
Speaker 1: That, you know, And maybe it's just because it's so

1478
01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:11,360
Speaker 1: ingrained in my head right now, a law or a

1479
01:19:11,600 --> 01:19:15,840
Speaker 1: daw or something like that, just even just phonetically, it

1480
01:19:16,040 --> 01:19:21,599
Speaker 1: seems too uplifting. Yeah, li lah lay seems like something

1481
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 1: an accusation. Well, yes, there are theories out there, and

1482
01:19:25,280 --> 01:19:25,800
Speaker 1: this is like.

1483
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:28,160
Speaker 2: People who oh, I wasn't even gonna give space to

1484
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:30,639
Speaker 2: the Dylan theory. But I meant like, I'm not sure

1485
01:19:30,720 --> 01:19:32,840
Speaker 2: on this song. I think this song is incredible. I'm

1486
01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:38,120
Speaker 2: sure that guy his assessment of yes, but like I think,

1487
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:41,040
Speaker 2: you know, so much of this song is kind of

1488
01:19:41,120 --> 01:19:44,760
Speaker 2: about the tension of like I'm just trying to do

1489
01:19:44,920 --> 01:19:50,280
Speaker 2: this one thing, like why has everything been so hard?

1490
01:19:51,640 --> 01:19:53,479
Speaker 2: Why was I sold this myth that I could do

1491
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:57,240
Speaker 2: these things? And then to me, it's like almost like

1492
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 2: a cosmic cry back, like you've all lied to me,

1493
01:20:01,040 --> 01:20:04,439
Speaker 2: but I'm still gonna stick around because you haven't killed

1494
01:20:04,479 --> 01:20:07,880
Speaker 2: me yet, you know, asking only for workman's wages, looking

1495
01:20:08,080 --> 01:20:10,800
Speaker 2: only for a job. You people all lied to me,

1496
01:20:11,800 --> 01:20:15,720
Speaker 2: but I'm still here. Don't look at me like that. No,

1497
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:18,320
Speaker 2: I mean that's with that emotion in your eyes.

1498
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:25,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, that's a varianize, a deeper

1499
01:20:25,360 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 1: level of ar connection.

1500
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:27,599
Speaker 10: Yeah.

1501
01:20:28,520 --> 01:20:33,240
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a much better theory than this ridiculous

1502
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:33,880
Speaker 1: theory that.

1503
01:20:34,720 --> 01:20:36,640
Speaker 2: The Dylan theory is so funny, please go on.

1504
01:20:37,720 --> 01:20:40,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, Apparently there are some people who think that the

1505
01:20:40,479 --> 01:20:43,280
Speaker 1: Eli La Lae chorus is meant to be Paul Simon

1506
01:20:43,360 --> 01:20:48,960
Speaker 1: accusing Bob Dylan about of lying about his musical intentions,

1507
01:20:49,200 --> 01:20:50,719
Speaker 1: which I oh, I mean.

1508
01:20:50,680 --> 01:20:53,120
Speaker 2: This would have been on the heels of the Judas concert, right,

1509
01:20:53,160 --> 01:20:57,000
Speaker 2: which was preceded by somebody yellingly literally like you lie, right.

1510
01:20:58,000 --> 01:20:59,600
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's a good point. I hadn't thought. But

1511
01:20:59,640 --> 01:21:01,920
Speaker 1: that was like teen sixty six. This was late nineteen

1512
01:21:01,960 --> 01:21:04,639
Speaker 1: sixty eight. I mean that he had already released Jean.

1513
01:21:04,640 --> 01:21:09,599
Speaker 2: Was like a turbulent It was a turbulent decade. Brownier

1514
01:21:10,800 --> 01:21:13,599
Speaker 2: Brown here second reference. Wow.

1515
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:13,920
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1516
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:18,960
Speaker 1: Simon himself rejected this theory because it's dumb. Bob Dylan

1517
01:21:19,600 --> 01:21:22,320
Speaker 1: ended up covering this song on self Portrait, although he

1518
01:21:22,439 --> 01:21:25,640
Speaker 1: replaced the word glove from every Glove that Laid him

1519
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:29,040
Speaker 1: down with every blow that laid him down, which I

1520
01:21:29,080 --> 01:21:32,799
Speaker 1: would imagine if your Paul Simon and Bob Dylan changes

1521
01:21:32,880 --> 01:21:36,280
Speaker 1: your lyrics, that's got to be a tweak, right, Like well,

1522
01:21:36,320 --> 01:21:36,880
Speaker 1: I mean it's.

1523
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,840
Speaker 2: Also like probably the one person where Paul Simon would

1524
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:43,920
Speaker 2: actually sing go true. That's a good edit, Jim.

1525
01:21:45,040 --> 01:21:47,720
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about their relationship, No, neither. Yeah,

1526
01:21:47,800 --> 01:21:51,920
Speaker 1: that's interesting you. I Yeah, great song, great song, And

1527
01:21:52,040 --> 01:21:56,639
Speaker 1: I think that was if I recall that, that would

1528
01:21:56,680 --> 01:22:00,280
Speaker 1: probably have been the first song recorded for uh yeah,

1529
01:22:00,320 --> 01:22:03,040
Speaker 1: it was the first song recorded for these sessions in

1530
01:22:03,439 --> 01:22:04,840
Speaker 1: November nineteen sixty eight.

1531
01:22:07,080 --> 01:22:07,560
Speaker 2: Don't do it?

1532
01:22:08,000 --> 01:22:08,240
Speaker 1: Do it?

1533
01:22:09,800 --> 01:22:13,280
Speaker 2: Okay? Well you punched it in for me. So while

1534
01:22:13,320 --> 01:22:15,559
Speaker 2: they recorded the Box or the Fall of nineteen sixty eight,

1535
01:22:31,160 --> 01:22:33,960
Speaker 2: sessions for what became Bridge Over Troublewater began in earnest

1536
01:22:34,200 --> 01:22:37,880
Speaker 2: in the summer of nineteen sixty nine. Oh, summer of

1537
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:38,479
Speaker 2: sixty nine.

1538
01:22:38,640 --> 01:22:40,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, now it's Not'spratt Adam.

1539
01:22:40,560 --> 01:22:43,680
Speaker 2: Soon Simon decided to use La as the base of

1540
01:22:43,760 --> 01:22:46,840
Speaker 2: operations to make it easier for Art, who was, as

1541
01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:49,799
Speaker 2: you recall, filming Catch twenty two on the West Coast.

1542
01:22:50,200 --> 01:22:53,479
Speaker 2: He really you know, he might have been grumbly about it,

1543
01:22:53,600 --> 01:22:55,760
Speaker 2: but he did try to make this work.

1544
01:22:55,880 --> 01:22:58,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, That's the main thing I came away

1545
01:22:58,400 --> 01:22:59,439
Speaker 1: with after researching this.

1546
01:23:00,160 --> 01:23:01,840
Speaker 2: The pair settling in la was one of the reasons

1547
01:23:01,840 --> 01:23:03,680
Speaker 2: why they declined to perform at Woodstock.

1548
01:23:04,160 --> 01:23:07,439
Speaker 1: And they also kind of bombed at the Monterey Pop

1549
01:23:07,520 --> 01:23:10,639
Speaker 1: Festival too, I think if I remember correct, well.

1550
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:14,000
Speaker 2: I mean, were they slated between like Otis Redding and

1551
01:23:14,120 --> 01:23:17,360
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrix and like several of the other most electrifying

1552
01:23:17,439 --> 01:23:19,160
Speaker 2: performances of all time, and then they just got on

1553
01:23:19,200 --> 01:23:22,719
Speaker 2: there and saying about feeling groovy, cooking spices and feeling groovy.

1554
01:23:24,479 --> 01:23:26,920
Speaker 2: Sometimes festival programming, I'm just like, when when I hear

1555
01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:29,880
Speaker 2: about people being like, oh, they bombed at this famous festival,

1556
01:23:29,920 --> 01:23:32,880
Speaker 2: I'm like, that was the promoter's fault. Don't put come

1557
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:37,400
Speaker 2: next to that anyway. In a sense, Bridge is Paul

1558
01:23:37,439 --> 01:23:40,920
Speaker 2: Simon's equivalent of Paul McCartney's Yesterday. In other words, it

1559
01:23:41,040 --> 01:23:43,400
Speaker 2: arrived to him so quickly. There's a great phrase that

1560
01:23:43,520 --> 01:23:46,960
Speaker 2: I remember from the reading The Grateful Dead annotated lyrics

1561
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:50,760
Speaker 2: and the intro to by Robert Hunter. He has this

1562
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 2: great phrase where he talks about songs like that and

1563
01:23:54,479 --> 01:23:57,719
Speaker 2: the turn is fast as the pen would pull.

1564
01:23:58,439 --> 01:24:00,840
Speaker 1: Oh wow, great, that is great.

1565
01:24:01,640 --> 01:24:03,439
Speaker 2: So Paul Simon would say an all timer of a

1566
01:24:03,520 --> 01:24:06,080
Speaker 2: quote from twenty eleven. I have no idea where it

1567
01:24:06,120 --> 01:24:08,439
Speaker 2: came from. It came all of a sudden. It was

1568
01:24:08,479 --> 01:24:10,719
Speaker 2: one of the most shocking moments of my songwriting career

1569
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:13,920
Speaker 2: at the time. I remember thinking, this is considerably better

1570
01:24:14,000 --> 01:24:16,800
Speaker 2: than I usually write. He'd say that the essence of

1571
01:24:16,880 --> 01:24:19,720
Speaker 2: the song, presumably the melody and the lyrical theme, took

1572
01:24:19,720 --> 01:24:22,360
Speaker 2: about twenty minutes, and the first two verses were completed

1573
01:24:22,439 --> 01:24:25,680
Speaker 2: in two hours. He continued, The melody was something like

1574
01:24:25,760 --> 01:24:28,760
Speaker 2: fifteen notes, which is long. It just seemed to flow

1575
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:31,120
Speaker 2: through me in a way you don't feel where you

1576
01:24:31,160 --> 01:24:33,360
Speaker 2: can really even call it your own. But then again,

1577
01:24:33,560 --> 01:24:36,599
Speaker 2: it's nobody else's. I didn't know where it came from,

1578
01:24:36,800 --> 01:24:39,639
Speaker 2: but I knew it was exceptional. It's as if there's

1579
01:24:39,680 --> 01:24:42,840
Speaker 2: this chemical feeling the creation of something that is so exceptional.

1580
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:45,160
Speaker 2: It's addictive. It's one of the things that keeps you

1581
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:47,360
Speaker 2: writing your whole life. You're trying to get to that

1582
01:24:47,400 --> 01:24:47,880
Speaker 2: place again.

1583
01:24:48,040 --> 01:24:48,439
Speaker 1: That's cool.

1584
01:24:48,520 --> 01:24:50,280
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that and being the nerd

1585
01:24:50,320 --> 01:24:52,479
Speaker 2: that I am. I've heard so many musicians talk about that.

1586
01:24:52,960 --> 01:24:56,000
Speaker 2: Like I've heard about like everyone from like Tom Waits

1587
01:24:56,040 --> 01:25:00,320
Speaker 2: to Benjo Virtuoso Bay Laflex talking about just try getting

1588
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:03,360
Speaker 2: into like their floasting and just being like just sitting

1589
01:25:03,360 --> 01:25:07,680
Speaker 2: around and you know, plucking and noodling and chewing over

1590
01:25:07,760 --> 01:25:09,839
Speaker 2: a phrase or a thing and then all of a sudden,

1591
01:25:11,080 --> 01:25:14,160
Speaker 2: fast as the pen would pull, you know, beautiful. Who

1592
01:25:14,200 --> 01:25:16,240
Speaker 2: said you've got to grab them before they get to

1593
01:25:16,520 --> 01:25:18,320
Speaker 2: Burt Bachack or some other son of a bitch.

1594
01:25:18,920 --> 01:25:21,080
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know, but that's amazing.

1595
01:25:22,439 --> 01:25:23,560
Speaker 2: Damn, I've never heard that.

1596
01:25:23,720 --> 01:25:27,240
Speaker 1: That's great. I mean, Michael Jackson would say that he

1597
01:25:27,320 --> 01:25:29,080
Speaker 1: didn't like to go to sleep because he was afraid

1598
01:25:29,120 --> 01:25:31,040
Speaker 1: that when he slept God, they'd give the good ideas

1599
01:25:31,080 --> 01:25:33,840
Speaker 1: the Prince. Oh, I've never heard that. That's amazing.

1600
01:25:34,520 --> 01:25:39,760
Speaker 2: I might be said Alex Eigel, said Alex Higle a rich, No,

1601
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:43,920
Speaker 2: it was, man, I'm so hard pressed. It was. Yeah,

1602
01:25:44,240 --> 01:25:46,160
Speaker 2: but I think that was like the gist of the quote, like,

1603
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:49,040
Speaker 2: you know, there are all these songs just floating around

1604
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:50,599
Speaker 2: out in the air, and you've got to grab them

1605
01:25:50,640 --> 01:25:53,080
Speaker 2: before somebody else like Burt Backack or it does.

1606
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:54,360
Speaker 1: That's true.

1607
01:25:55,520 --> 01:25:58,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was this where we should.

1608
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:01,880
Speaker 1: Punch it in which, oh yeah, folks, we're not about

1609
01:26:01,880 --> 01:26:04,400
Speaker 1: to head to Really one of my favorite segments of

1610
01:26:04,479 --> 01:26:04,880
Speaker 1: this show.

1611
01:26:13,600 --> 01:26:17,040
Speaker 2: It's Heigel's Woke Corner. Yes, that's right, folks, it's time

1612
01:26:17,120 --> 01:26:19,360
Speaker 2: to come on down to Heigel's Woke Corner, where I

1613
01:26:19,439 --> 01:26:22,400
Speaker 2: advance the radical theory that people who aren't straight white

1614
01:26:22,479 --> 01:26:23,719
Speaker 2: men deserve rights.

1615
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:26,679
Speaker 1: Uh Paul.

1616
01:26:27,800 --> 01:26:30,960
Speaker 2: Paul is a checkered cat, right, Like, he has a

1617
01:26:31,120 --> 01:26:34,760
Speaker 2: long history of engaging with other people's art as a

1618
01:26:34,840 --> 01:26:39,160
Speaker 2: playground for his own and then taking it and doing

1619
01:26:39,439 --> 01:26:42,639
Speaker 2: cool stuff with it. Yes, again, creating Banker.

1620
01:26:42,800 --> 01:26:46,880
Speaker 1: It's where it's just like I'm gonna make this louder. Okay,

1621
01:26:47,600 --> 01:26:51,880
Speaker 1: hold on, buddy, that's that's not you say things.

1622
01:26:53,360 --> 01:26:58,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have a problem. Zepp rolls up cityus tattoos.

1623
01:26:59,840 --> 01:26:59,920
Speaker 7: Uh.

1624
01:27:00,640 --> 01:27:03,040
Speaker 2: Paul would later say that he has was listening to

1625
01:27:03,040 --> 01:27:05,120
Speaker 2: a lot of gospel music in this period, which obviously

1626
01:27:05,240 --> 01:27:08,640
Speaker 2: influenced the musical feel bridge over Troubled Water, but that

1627
01:27:08,760 --> 01:27:11,880
Speaker 2: also inspired the title. He was listening to a nineteen

1628
01:27:11,920 --> 01:27:14,400
Speaker 2: fifty nine track by the Swan silver Tones called Mary

1629
01:27:14,479 --> 01:27:17,439
Speaker 2: Don't You Weep that is a very old spiritual and

1630
01:27:17,560 --> 01:27:19,560
Speaker 2: that he heard a vocal ad lib from one of

1631
01:27:19,640 --> 01:27:22,200
Speaker 2: the singers saying, I'll bring your bridge over deep water

1632
01:27:22,320 --> 01:27:23,439
Speaker 2: if you trust in my name.

1633
01:27:24,479 --> 01:27:26,360
Speaker 6: Whis that handsomebody to have me?

1634
01:27:26,520 --> 01:27:26,920
Speaker 9: Call me?

1635
01:27:27,840 --> 01:27:37,040
Speaker 4: Yeah? May Hill he agree over deep water in trust

1636
01:27:37,120 --> 01:27:37,760
Speaker 4: in my name?

1637
01:27:40,960 --> 01:27:49,000
Speaker 6: I'm gonna weird. I don't know, lazy, How did you.

1638
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:49,960
Speaker 7: About a call of.

1639
01:27:54,439 --> 01:28:03,080
Speaker 2: Me till you may remember the Swan Silvertones from another

1640
01:28:03,200 --> 01:28:05,800
Speaker 2: song that Paul wrote called she Loves Me Like a

1641
01:28:05,960 --> 01:28:10,960
Speaker 2: Rock That sounds a whole lot like an old gospel song.

1642
01:28:11,880 --> 01:28:17,760
Speaker 2: In fact, the Swan Silverstones recording that I just mentioned.

1643
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:21,040
Speaker 1: Is that an out there thing like I'd never seen

1644
01:28:21,120 --> 01:28:23,040
Speaker 1: that or read that. But I was just listening to

1645
01:28:23,040 --> 01:28:25,680
Speaker 1: that Swan Silvertones song today just to hear.

1646
01:28:25,800 --> 01:28:28,240
Speaker 2: You can punch it in, dude like you you have

1647
01:28:28,439 --> 01:28:28,880
Speaker 2: the power.

1648
01:28:55,080 --> 01:29:02,479
Speaker 6: I'm gonna wear. I don't belive it.

1649
01:29:10,960 --> 01:29:13,240
Speaker 2: What's funny is that when he went to go record

1650
01:29:13,320 --> 01:29:15,720
Speaker 2: Love Me Like a Rock, he got background vocals from

1651
01:29:15,760 --> 01:29:20,080
Speaker 2: the Dixie Hummingbirds, who are contemporaries of the Swan silver Tones,

1652
01:29:20,600 --> 01:29:22,880
Speaker 2: so that a score to settle, I mean just but

1653
01:29:23,080 --> 01:29:28,439
Speaker 2: like the brass Ones on him, like, yeah, I'm gonna

1654
01:29:28,560 --> 01:29:33,240
Speaker 2: basically rewrite this other gospel songs, and can I get

1655
01:29:33,240 --> 01:29:36,200
Speaker 2: this other gospel group to just do what they did

1656
01:29:36,360 --> 01:29:38,600
Speaker 2: on it? I mean that's there's such a level of

1657
01:29:38,680 --> 01:29:41,920
Speaker 2: like disconnect between the level of empathy and warmth that

1658
01:29:42,000 --> 01:29:45,080
Speaker 2: he achieves in his vocals and how he just seems

1659
01:29:45,120 --> 01:29:51,320
Speaker 2: to view intellectual property and folk traditions and people's art

1660
01:29:51,520 --> 01:29:54,080
Speaker 2: and people themselves as just things that he can move

1661
01:29:54,120 --> 01:29:57,439
Speaker 2: around and play with. But then again, this is a

1662
01:29:57,479 --> 01:30:01,400
Speaker 2: guy who broke apartheid Boycott's because Henry Kissinger told him

1663
01:30:01,439 --> 01:30:06,559
Speaker 2: it was okay. So anyway, to his credit, at this point,

1664
01:30:06,640 --> 01:30:08,960
Speaker 2: Paul was very open about this lift. I had an

1665
01:30:09,000 --> 01:30:11,280
Speaker 2: interview in the Dick Cavit Show where he said, I

1666
01:30:11,360 --> 01:30:12,160
Speaker 2: guess I stole that.

1667
01:30:14,439 --> 01:30:17,400
Speaker 1: That is the exactly exact quote from nineteen seventy too,

1668
01:30:17,560 --> 01:30:19,400
Speaker 1: So I mean it's like, yeah, it wasn't like this

1669
01:30:19,560 --> 01:30:21,680
Speaker 1: thing that got dredged up in the woke era. Like

1670
01:30:21,800 --> 01:30:22,920
Speaker 1: he was very open about it.

1671
01:30:23,200 --> 01:30:25,920
Speaker 2: But this is also cool, according to gospel producer and

1672
01:30:26,040 --> 01:30:29,920
Speaker 2: historian Anthony Heilbutt, who wrote this book called The Gospel Sound,

1673
01:30:29,960 --> 01:30:33,679
Speaker 2: which I've read. It is the definitive history of gospel

1674
01:30:33,760 --> 01:30:37,640
Speaker 2: music in America. It's wonderful hours of enjoyment for not

1675
01:30:37,800 --> 01:30:39,639
Speaker 2: just the stories, but all the rabbit holes that will

1676
01:30:39,640 --> 01:30:41,680
Speaker 2: send you down for musicians, So I highly recommend that.

1677
01:30:42,520 --> 01:30:46,040
Speaker 2: But Simon later acknowledged this debt to Claude Jeter of

1678
01:30:46,120 --> 01:30:50,440
Speaker 2: the Swan Silvertones in person handed him a check as compensation.

1679
01:30:51,400 --> 01:30:54,680
Speaker 2: Of course, does that guy's name pop up in the

1680
01:30:54,720 --> 01:30:59,559
Speaker 2: writing credits, Sure doesn't. Classic. Here's a Cadillac for all

1681
01:30:59,640 --> 01:31:05,160
Speaker 2: the right to your songs. Yeah, this is you know. Oh,

1682
01:31:05,280 --> 01:31:07,599
Speaker 2: and now we go right over to the other corner

1683
01:31:08,200 --> 01:31:12,000
Speaker 2: of Jordan's obligatory beatles shoehorning in Jordan, what do you

1684
01:31:12,040 --> 01:31:12,759
Speaker 2: have for us today?

1685
01:31:12,920 --> 01:31:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah? This hole is just like cutting the guy a check.

1686
01:31:15,439 --> 01:31:17,640
Speaker 1: Move is the same thing that Paul McCartney did to

1687
01:31:17,960 --> 01:31:22,200
Speaker 1: Jimmy Scott, a Nigerian conga player, an acquaintance in the

1688
01:31:22,280 --> 01:31:25,800
Speaker 1: mid sixties who taught Paul the phrase oh bloody, oh

1689
01:31:25,840 --> 01:31:29,800
Speaker 1: blood doah, life goes on brah. His name does not

1690
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:33,960
Speaker 1: appear on oh bloody Obla dah. In fact, John Lennon's does,

1691
01:31:34,000 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: although he had absolutely nothing to do with the song,

1692
01:31:36,040 --> 01:31:38,600
Speaker 1: Yeah go figure, Paul cut the guy a check. He

1693
01:31:38,720 --> 01:31:42,439
Speaker 1: also had another phrase, nothing too much, just out of sight,

1694
01:31:42,600 --> 01:31:45,559
Speaker 1: which Paul also wrote a song about for the two

1695
01:31:45,640 --> 01:31:48,000
Speaker 1: thousand and eight album that he did with the producer

1696
01:31:48,120 --> 01:31:49,879
Speaker 1: Youth called Electric Arguments.

1697
01:31:50,280 --> 01:31:52,280
Speaker 2: There are also people who contended that Jimmy Scott might

1698
01:31:52,320 --> 01:31:54,160
Speaker 2: be the guy playing congos and sympathy for the devil.

1699
01:31:54,360 --> 01:31:56,839
Speaker 1: That would make sense because he played at Ronnie Scott's

1700
01:31:56,920 --> 01:31:59,439
Speaker 1: Jazz club in Soho and London in the sixties and

1701
01:31:59,479 --> 01:32:02,640
Speaker 1: that was where all the Stones and the Beatles and

1702
01:32:02,680 --> 01:32:04,800
Speaker 1: the Who all hung out, so that would make sense.

1703
01:32:05,840 --> 01:32:07,479
Speaker 2: But maybe we're coming about this whole thing from the

1704
01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:10,120
Speaker 2: wrong angle, because after all, Paul Simon also stole from

1705
01:32:10,160 --> 01:32:12,760
Speaker 2: white people. He admitted that some of the melody for

1706
01:32:12,840 --> 01:32:16,200
Speaker 2: Bridge Over Trouble Water was stolen from Johann Sebastian Bach's

1707
01:32:16,880 --> 01:32:47,400
Speaker 2: Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded. Paul originally wrote the song

1708
01:32:47,439 --> 01:32:49,800
Speaker 2: on guitar, but he transposed it to the piano to

1709
01:32:50,000 --> 01:32:54,320
Speaker 2: maximize the gospel effect. He hired Wrecking Crew session player

1710
01:32:54,400 --> 01:32:57,479
Speaker 2: Larry Nektel, a favorite of Elvis Ray, Charles the Doors,

1711
01:32:57,560 --> 01:33:00,880
Speaker 2: Brian Wilson, and many others and garfam remember that they

1712
01:33:00,920 --> 01:33:03,719
Speaker 2: worked hard on the turnarounds or the embellishments that happened

1713
01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:05,320
Speaker 2: from the end of the chorus to the beginning of

1714
01:33:05,360 --> 01:33:08,280
Speaker 2: the new verses. They also booked fellow Wrecking Crew members

1715
01:33:08,320 --> 01:33:12,120
Speaker 2: Hal Blaine and Joe Osbourne, who we mentioned earlier. Joe

1716
01:33:12,200 --> 01:33:14,599
Speaker 2: Osborne once again Hallie put him back to his favorite

1717
01:33:14,600 --> 01:33:17,840
Speaker 2: task of over dubbing two basslines. I do wonder though,

1718
01:33:18,479 --> 01:33:20,800
Speaker 2: the famous bit about Walk on the wild Side is

1719
01:33:20,840 --> 01:33:24,080
Speaker 2: that Herbie Flowers recorded two basslines on that to claim

1720
01:33:24,160 --> 01:33:26,439
Speaker 2: that he was playing two instruments and collect double his

1721
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:29,720
Speaker 2: session fee. I wonder if that's just a British thing,

1722
01:33:29,760 --> 01:33:33,520
Speaker 2: because Transformer was cut in England and if Joe Osborne

1723
01:33:33,600 --> 01:33:35,160
Speaker 2: tried to do that, they would have laughed him out

1724
01:33:35,160 --> 01:33:35,679
Speaker 2: of the office.

1725
01:33:35,880 --> 01:33:36,240
Speaker 1: Aha.

1726
01:33:37,840 --> 01:33:40,400
Speaker 2: Anyway, just a fun little note. Co producer Roy Holly

1727
01:33:40,439 --> 01:33:43,120
Speaker 2: gave a demo of the song to arranger Ernie Freeman,

1728
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:46,320
Speaker 2: who had worked with people like Frank Sinatra and Old.

1729
01:33:46,479 --> 01:33:48,960
Speaker 2: Ernie apparently phoned it in for this one because when

1730
01:33:49,000 --> 01:33:51,040
Speaker 2: he came back with the score, Paul discovered that Art's

1731
01:33:51,120 --> 01:33:54,719
Speaker 2: name was spelled wrong, which probably gave Paul a thrill

1732
01:33:55,040 --> 01:33:58,200
Speaker 2: right up all five foot three of him. The title

1733
01:33:58,200 --> 01:34:00,000
Speaker 2: of the song was listed not as like a bridge

1734
01:34:00,080 --> 01:34:03,640
Speaker 2: over troubled water, but like a picture of water. He

1735
01:34:03,760 --> 01:34:06,080
Speaker 2: was less amused by this. I was pissed off, he

1736
01:34:06,200 --> 01:34:09,840
Speaker 2: told Robert Hilburn, and Hilburn's lotioned hand job of a book.

1737
01:34:10,840 --> 01:34:12,920
Speaker 2: It looked like he didn't listen to the demo long

1738
01:34:13,040 --> 01:34:15,679
Speaker 2: enough to get the right title. I hated the arrangement

1739
01:34:15,760 --> 01:34:17,640
Speaker 2: so much that I walked out of the studio. I

1740
01:34:17,760 --> 01:34:19,760
Speaker 2: was abrasive at times in the studio, but that's my

1741
01:34:19,920 --> 01:34:22,840
Speaker 2: job to protect the music. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks

1742
01:34:22,880 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 2: of me. I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to

1743
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:28,439
Speaker 2: a piece of work. It's like your child. Hallie tinkered

1744
01:34:28,439 --> 01:34:29,880
Speaker 2: with the arrangement in the mix, so it wasn't a

1745
01:34:29,920 --> 01:34:32,040
Speaker 2: total loss and they didn't have to call session musicians

1746
01:34:32,120 --> 01:34:35,200
Speaker 2: back in for another pass. But even so, Simon apparently

1747
01:34:35,280 --> 01:34:37,479
Speaker 2: isn't thrilled with the arrangement to this day, believing the

1748
01:34:37,520 --> 01:34:39,080
Speaker 2: strings to be too syrupy.

1749
01:34:39,479 --> 01:34:43,240
Speaker 1: I think that's correct. The final chord that Bridge over

1750
01:34:43,280 --> 01:34:46,160
Speaker 1: Troubled Water ends on is let me check this is

1751
01:34:46,240 --> 01:34:51,200
Speaker 1: insanely mawkish. It's I find it cringey, Like it's not

1752
01:34:51,320 --> 01:34:53,360
Speaker 1: my favorite song, but like I admit that it's a

1753
01:34:53,479 --> 01:34:56,600
Speaker 1: great song and whatever. But that last chord that it

1754
01:34:56,760 --> 01:35:02,080
Speaker 1: ends on is so corny and so dramatic and so bad,

1755
01:35:02,600 --> 01:35:04,760
Speaker 1: Like even if it just faded a little early.

1756
01:35:31,080 --> 01:35:33,280
Speaker 2: I mean, half of that is just that this Every

1757
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:36,760
Speaker 2: single instrument on here is peaking so hard to tape.

1758
01:35:36,880 --> 01:35:38,439
Speaker 2: They pushed this so hard.

1759
01:35:38,640 --> 01:35:41,440
Speaker 1: You're right, it's just a bad move, like that's hallmark,

1760
01:35:43,120 --> 01:35:45,120
Speaker 1: even if they just brought the cello back in to

1761
01:35:45,400 --> 01:35:47,280
Speaker 1: play a couple octaves lower to ground it.

1762
01:35:47,439 --> 01:35:49,280
Speaker 2: I haven't listened to this in a while. This sounds

1763
01:35:49,360 --> 01:35:52,920
Speaker 2: like Norwegian black metal. It is so blown out. Yeah

1764
01:35:53,120 --> 01:35:55,240
Speaker 2: yeah yeah yeah. Like I said, I don't listen to

1765
01:35:55,320 --> 01:35:57,760
Speaker 2: this version, but it's just so pinned in the red,

1766
01:35:57,920 --> 01:36:01,519
Speaker 2: like every single thing in here fighting for space. It's

1767
01:36:01,640 --> 01:36:06,120
Speaker 2: all like his voice is distorted so much. Yeah, and

1768
01:36:06,200 --> 01:36:08,960
Speaker 2: that high note is like a Disney voicing for sure.

1769
01:36:09,120 --> 01:36:12,040
Speaker 2: That last chord isn't like a when you wish upon

1770
01:36:12,080 --> 01:36:13,439
Speaker 2: a story like Disney voicing.

1771
01:36:13,800 --> 01:36:15,680
Speaker 1: All right, I'm glad we agreed about this.

1772
01:36:16,520 --> 01:36:18,120
Speaker 2: Great Moving forward, the.

1773
01:36:18,200 --> 01:36:21,240
Speaker 1: Instrumental track for Bridge over Troubled Water is recorded over

1774
01:36:21,360 --> 01:36:24,559
Speaker 1: five days in Los Angeles, and Garfunckle's vocal was recorded

1775
01:36:24,600 --> 01:36:26,639
Speaker 1: over two days in New York a short time later,

1776
01:36:27,479 --> 01:36:31,160
Speaker 1: and of course Paul and Art fought about it. From

1777
01:36:31,200 --> 01:36:34,519
Speaker 1: the jump. Paul imagined Art singing his precious neo hymnal

1778
01:36:34,640 --> 01:36:39,439
Speaker 1: in his quote white choir boy way. Unfortunately, Artie wasn't

1779
01:36:39,479 --> 01:36:40,400
Speaker 1: all that into.

1780
01:36:40,280 --> 01:36:43,679
Speaker 2: It, could I just I'm going to fully own something here. Yeah,

1781
01:36:44,320 --> 01:36:46,880
Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of Keith Jarrett, and I don't

1782
01:36:46,880 --> 01:36:49,640
Speaker 2: think I learned until like four years ago that he

1783
01:36:49,800 --> 01:36:53,719
Speaker 2: was a white man. So it is just a hilarious

1784
01:36:53,760 --> 01:36:56,880
Speaker 2: bit of Miles Davis apocrypha that at one point when

1785
01:36:57,000 --> 01:37:00,639
Speaker 2: Keith Jarrett was playing in Miles seventies band, Miles toward

1786
01:37:00,680 --> 01:37:04,240
Speaker 2: everyone else that when Keith quote starts playing that Catholic

1787
01:37:04,320 --> 01:37:09,479
Speaker 2: schoolboys layout, don't follow him, which is essentially, if he

1788
01:37:09,600 --> 01:37:13,559
Speaker 2: starts doing that, pop out and make him and keep

1789
01:37:13,640 --> 01:37:16,120
Speaker 2: him out there on his own for as long as

1790
01:37:16,160 --> 01:37:18,439
Speaker 2: he's willing to do it before he gets back in Dune.

1791
01:37:18,479 --> 01:37:22,639
Speaker 2: It gets back to the rest of the god that's

1792
01:37:22,760 --> 01:37:25,160
Speaker 2: very funny at Catholic schoolboyshit yep.

1793
01:37:26,640 --> 01:37:30,439
Speaker 1: Continue Unfortunately, Art really didn't much care for the song.

1794
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:34,759
Speaker 1: Paul was so thrilled that he wanted he was offering

1795
01:37:34,880 --> 01:37:38,519
Speaker 1: his dear friend what he thought was his finest piece

1796
01:37:38,560 --> 01:37:43,160
Speaker 1: of work to sing and Art he offered this devastating quote.

1797
01:37:43,640 --> 01:37:46,479
Speaker 1: Paul felt it was his best song. I felt it

1798
01:37:46,560 --> 01:37:49,639
Speaker 1: was something less than his best song, but a great song,

1799
01:37:50,360 --> 01:37:54,240
Speaker 1: which is kind of my take. Art was apparently very

1800
01:37:54,320 --> 01:37:57,800
Speaker 1: diplomatic in the studio. It's a great song. Art reportedly said,

1801
01:37:57,960 --> 01:38:00,720
Speaker 1: you wrote it, you sing it beautifully, serve to do it,

1802
01:38:01,640 --> 01:38:05,200
Speaker 1: and Paul last Dance Voice, took this personally. He took

1803
01:38:05,240 --> 01:38:08,120
Speaker 1: this as an insult. He would later complain in an interview,

1804
01:38:08,479 --> 01:38:10,080
Speaker 1: it's my best song and it's not good enough for

1805
01:38:10,200 --> 01:38:13,360
Speaker 1: Arty to want to do it. Kim and even worse,

1806
01:38:14,080 --> 01:38:18,320
Speaker 1: Artie had some notes, here is my best song. I

1807
01:38:18,400 --> 01:38:19,040
Speaker 1: want you to do it.

1808
01:38:19,479 --> 01:38:20,160
Speaker 9: Nah, you do it?

1809
01:38:20,360 --> 01:38:24,599
Speaker 1: Also, I got some thoughts on it. Yeah, already felt

1810
01:38:24,640 --> 01:38:27,639
Speaker 1: that the tuverse song was too short and it needed

1811
01:38:27,720 --> 01:38:29,719
Speaker 1: one more verse for a bigger ending.

1812
01:38:30,800 --> 01:38:33,479
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, Paul, you do those, So

1813
01:38:33,640 --> 01:38:35,880
Speaker 2: do you go off to do that. I'll just nip

1814
01:38:35,960 --> 01:38:36,519
Speaker 2: off for a bit.

1815
01:38:37,439 --> 01:38:38,439
Speaker 1: Go one are my walks.

1816
01:38:39,120 --> 01:38:40,160
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go burn one.

1817
01:38:42,200 --> 01:38:45,759
Speaker 1: Thus, Paul banged out a quick third Stanza in the studio,

1818
01:38:45,920 --> 01:38:49,040
Speaker 1: which he really hated doing and rarely, if ever did.

1819
01:38:50,120 --> 01:38:52,400
Speaker 1: He still doesn't like this verse, believing it to be

1820
01:38:52,560 --> 01:38:55,400
Speaker 1: less cohesive than the first two, and he was also

1821
01:38:55,560 --> 01:38:57,680
Speaker 1: likely turned off by a rumor that spread across the

1822
01:38:57,840 --> 01:39:00,519
Speaker 1: United States, where it was believed that the soul he

1823
01:39:00,600 --> 01:39:05,080
Speaker 1: sings about is a reference to a heroin Needle. In reality,

1824
01:39:05,160 --> 01:39:07,880
Speaker 1: it's a reference to his new wife, Peggy Harper, who

1825
01:39:07,960 --> 01:39:11,000
Speaker 1: had just discovered her first grace. She'd been married to

1826
01:39:11,080 --> 01:39:13,840
Speaker 1: Paul Simon for less than a year and discovered her

1827
01:39:13,880 --> 01:39:18,960
Speaker 1: first grades. Why Paul decided to immortalize them and what

1828
01:39:19,080 --> 01:39:22,840
Speaker 1: he believed was his greatest song, I'll never know The

1829
01:39:22,920 --> 01:39:25,200
Speaker 1: song Bridge over Troubled Water would be a sore point

1830
01:39:25,240 --> 01:39:28,519
Speaker 1: between Paul and Art for many years to come. Paul

1831
01:39:28,600 --> 01:39:32,280
Speaker 1: complained bitterly about Garfunkle's association with Bridge. In a nineteen

1832
01:39:32,439 --> 01:39:35,400
Speaker 1: seventy two Rolling Stone interview. He said he didn't want

1833
01:39:35,400 --> 01:39:37,679
Speaker 1: to sing it himself, he couldn't hear it for himself.

1834
01:39:38,000 --> 01:39:40,320
Speaker 1: He felt I should have done it, and many times

1835
01:39:40,520 --> 01:39:43,360
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I didn't do it. The way they handled

1836
01:39:43,400 --> 01:39:47,759
Speaker 1: this beef is a true masterclass in simmering passive aggression,

1837
01:39:47,880 --> 01:39:51,439
Speaker 1: which should probably be taught in New England schools. When

1838
01:39:51,520 --> 01:39:54,519
Speaker 1: they came to perform the song in concert, Simon would

1839
01:39:54,520 --> 01:39:59,080
Speaker 1: graciously insist on leaving the stage, giving Garfuncle the full spotlight.

1840
01:39:59,479 --> 01:40:01,720
Speaker 1: But at the same same time, Paul couldn't help feel

1841
01:40:01,760 --> 01:40:04,760
Speaker 1: a sense of envy at the thunderous applause. This was

1842
01:40:04,880 --> 01:40:08,560
Speaker 1: his song and he could have easily sung it, but

1843
01:40:08,720 --> 01:40:10,439
Speaker 1: garfunk could never have written it.

1844
01:40:11,160 --> 01:40:12,680
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if he could easily have sung it.

1845
01:40:12,760 --> 01:40:15,040
Speaker 2: The highest note in that is an F above two

1846
01:40:15,120 --> 01:40:16,120
Speaker 2: octaves above middle C.

1847
01:40:16,600 --> 01:40:20,200
Speaker 1: There's a demo, there's a guitar demo from Paul where

1848
01:40:20,520 --> 01:40:21,920
Speaker 1: that's out there, and if you've heard it, maybe i'll

1849
01:40:21,920 --> 01:40:22,400
Speaker 1: punch it in here.

1850
01:40:22,439 --> 01:40:24,080
Speaker 2: I'm sure you could do it falsetto. I don't think

1851
01:40:24,120 --> 01:40:25,240
Speaker 2: he could have done it as a belt.

1852
01:40:26,760 --> 01:40:29,360
Speaker 1: Oh no, you're totally right. But there was an arrangement

1853
01:40:29,439 --> 01:40:32,080
Speaker 1: that Paul had of this song. It was very, very good.

1854
01:40:32,280 --> 01:40:34,559
Speaker 2: But you need that chest belt like that's I think

1855
01:40:34,640 --> 01:40:37,160
Speaker 2: what's even though it sounds like horrible in that mix,

1856
01:40:37,280 --> 01:40:40,639
Speaker 2: Like that's what you need to sell carry that song forward.

1857
01:40:41,439 --> 01:40:42,880
Speaker 2: If you just have someone hitting it in like a

1858
01:40:42,960 --> 01:40:46,840
Speaker 2: quavering falsetto, like that's not you know, I think, I

1859
01:40:46,920 --> 01:40:48,280
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know. I see both way.

1860
01:40:48,280 --> 01:40:50,960
Speaker 1: I think it was pitched down where he wasn't in

1861
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:53,360
Speaker 1: a falsetto. He's in his chest voice, and it was

1862
01:40:53,439 --> 01:40:55,040
Speaker 1: it was good. I got to relisten and listen in

1863
01:40:55,120 --> 01:40:58,200
Speaker 1: a while. But he had an affecting version of it.

1864
01:41:00,560 --> 01:41:13,280
Speaker 7: When you're weary, feel sad, when he's say, you see.

1865
01:41:15,120 --> 01:41:29,640
Speaker 9: I would be there, do bring you see winters up

1866
01:41:33,680 --> 01:41:45,840
Speaker 9: and may a life to trouble waters.

1867
01:41:46,520 --> 01:41:58,320
Speaker 3: Are wary me, No, my god, rouble waters are.

1868
01:41:58,280 --> 01:42:05,040
Speaker 1: Ward, Paul would say many times on stage though, when

1869
01:42:05,040 --> 01:42:07,200
Speaker 1: I'd be sitting off to the side and Larry Nektall

1870
01:42:07,200 --> 01:42:09,880
Speaker 1: will be playing piano and already would be singing bridge,

1871
01:42:10,240 --> 01:42:12,560
Speaker 1: people would stomp and cheer when it was over, and

1872
01:42:12,640 --> 01:42:15,840
Speaker 1: I would think, that's my song man, thank you very much.

1873
01:42:16,040 --> 01:42:19,559
Speaker 1: I wrote that song. Paul's wife, Peggy, would frequently grumble

1874
01:42:19,600 --> 01:42:22,720
Speaker 1: about the fact that Art never once invited Paul out

1875
01:42:22,800 --> 01:42:25,880
Speaker 1: to take a bow for the song, which it's literally

1876
01:42:26,200 --> 01:42:27,439
Speaker 1: it's kind of a weird thing to do.

1877
01:42:27,760 --> 01:42:29,280
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's a bitch.

1878
01:42:29,439 --> 01:42:31,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got well, I mean I don't know. I

1879
01:42:31,560 --> 01:42:33,639
Speaker 1: think it would be weird for you to just bring

1880
01:42:33,720 --> 01:42:35,240
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote the song out on stage to

1881
01:42:35,280 --> 01:42:37,920
Speaker 1: tick a bow when he's already coming back on stage

1882
01:42:37,960 --> 01:42:38,880
Speaker 1: to sing with you anyway.

1883
01:42:39,040 --> 01:42:41,479
Speaker 2: I mean, god forbid you mentioned he wrote this song.

1884
01:42:41,840 --> 01:42:45,519
Speaker 1: Like everybody would assume that. I don't know, all right, most.

1885
01:42:45,320 --> 01:42:47,320
Speaker 2: People didn't, though. I mean, look at some of these

1886
01:42:47,360 --> 01:42:52,400
Speaker 2: album covered there's literally the Celia Celia single. The front

1887
01:42:52,479 --> 01:42:55,560
Speaker 2: cover is our carl uncle's face. True, that cover is

1888
01:42:55,600 --> 01:42:58,640
Speaker 2: Paul Simon's face. Yes, I would be a little miffed.

1889
01:42:58,439 --> 01:43:01,320
Speaker 1: Too, Okay, you're right, oh. Paul Simon's belief in the

1890
01:43:01,360 --> 01:43:03,840
Speaker 1: song Bridge over Troubled Water. He did not believe it

1891
01:43:03,960 --> 01:43:06,880
Speaker 1: had hit single potential. I didn't think it was a smash,

1892
01:43:07,000 --> 01:43:09,360
Speaker 1: but I thought it was something exceptional. I thought it

1893
01:43:09,479 --> 01:43:12,160
Speaker 1: was probably too long for a commercial record. It was

1894
01:43:12,200 --> 01:43:14,760
Speaker 1: all piano up until the last verse. I didn't think

1895
01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:18,479
Speaker 1: it was a hit. Art unsurprisingly agreed, saying as a

1896
01:43:18,520 --> 01:43:21,920
Speaker 1: single it was too long, too slow, but Clive Davis

1897
01:43:22,080 --> 01:43:25,519
Speaker 1: got behind it all the way, embolded by Columbia's success

1898
01:43:25,600 --> 01:43:29,080
Speaker 1: with Like a Rolling Stone five years earlier, a five

1899
01:43:29,200 --> 01:43:32,280
Speaker 1: plus minute song in an era when commercial radio mandated

1900
01:43:32,439 --> 01:43:36,439
Speaker 1: songs under three minutes. Davis insisted that they released Bridge

1901
01:43:36,479 --> 01:43:43,600
Speaker 1: Over Troubled Water uncut, Bigger, Longer, and uncut. We're going

1902
01:43:43,680 --> 01:43:45,760
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we'll be right back

1903
01:43:45,840 --> 01:43:48,440
Speaker 1: with more too much information in just a moment.

1904
01:44:01,520 --> 01:44:03,680
Speaker 2: And the rest. Now, we have to get to all

1905
01:44:03,720 --> 01:44:07,640
Speaker 2: the other songs, starting with El Condor de Pezza. As

1906
01:44:07,680 --> 01:44:10,920
Speaker 2: we touched on, Paul Simon was inordinately proud of writing

1907
01:44:11,000 --> 01:44:14,200
Speaker 2: Bridge over Troubled Water. So let's touch on a song

1908
01:44:14,320 --> 01:44:18,240
Speaker 2: that he didn't write, although he initially did claim credit

1909
01:44:18,280 --> 01:44:21,080
Speaker 2: for doing so. Yes, folks, let's bring it right around

1910
01:44:21,240 --> 01:44:24,120
Speaker 2: back to Heigel's woke Corner, where we advance the radical

1911
01:44:24,200 --> 01:44:27,080
Speaker 2: notion that people who aren't straight white men should have rights.

1912
01:44:35,760 --> 01:44:39,799
Speaker 2: It's Heigel's woke corner, folks may remember from our Graceland episode.

1913
01:44:39,840 --> 01:44:43,120
Speaker 2: Even leaving aside the whole breaking an international boycott over

1914
01:44:43,120 --> 01:44:45,639
Speaker 2: at Parthid because Henry Kissinger said it was a cool

1915
01:44:45,680 --> 01:44:48,360
Speaker 2: thing to do. Old Polly Walnuts doesn't have the best

1916
01:44:48,439 --> 01:44:51,040
Speaker 2: track record when it comes to, let's call them charitably,

1917
01:44:51,200 --> 01:44:54,479
Speaker 2: his collaborations with black or brown people. Members of the

1918
01:44:54,520 --> 01:44:57,160
Speaker 2: band Los Lobos contend that they were fresh off a

1919
01:44:57,200 --> 01:44:59,760
Speaker 2: Grammy of their own. Their label pushed them to work

1920
01:44:59,800 --> 01:45:02,759
Speaker 2: with Simon, who was in a fallow point of his career.

1921
01:45:03,600 --> 01:45:05,800
Speaker 2: He just came and, according to them, sat in the

1922
01:45:05,840 --> 01:45:09,200
Speaker 2: control room for a few days silently just watching them play.

1923
01:45:09,920 --> 01:45:10,360
Speaker 5: I liked it.

1924
01:45:12,640 --> 01:45:15,519
Speaker 2: He perked up when he heard David guitarist David Hitaligo

1925
01:45:15,600 --> 01:45:17,720
Speaker 2: playing a song that the band had been working on

1926
01:45:17,880 --> 01:45:20,840
Speaker 2: for their next album. That song would eventually appear on

1927
01:45:20,960 --> 01:45:23,960
Speaker 2: Graceland as All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints,

1928
01:45:24,120 --> 01:45:28,120
Speaker 2: credited solely to Simon. Band member Jeff Berlin said that

1929
01:45:28,160 --> 01:45:30,879
Speaker 2: when Los Lobos reached out to Paul's team for more information,

1930
01:45:31,280 --> 01:45:36,680
Speaker 2: Paul's reaction was, sue me see what happens anyway. As

1931
01:45:36,720 --> 01:45:39,240
Speaker 2: we mentioned with some of the Swan silvertone stuff, that

1932
01:45:39,439 --> 01:45:45,160
Speaker 2: trend started so much earlier than eighty six. Elcandor Pezza

1933
01:45:45,760 --> 01:45:49,360
Speaker 2: was written by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robrez, who

1934
01:45:49,439 --> 01:45:51,519
Speaker 2: based it off the traditional music of the Andes and

1935
01:45:51,600 --> 01:45:55,880
Speaker 2: specifically Peru. This song partially because yes, I mean I

1936
01:45:55,960 --> 01:45:58,400
Speaker 2: might as well saying this song because of Paul Simon,

1937
01:45:58,920 --> 01:46:02,760
Speaker 2: has become something of the national anthem of Peru. But

1938
01:46:03,000 --> 01:46:06,439
Speaker 2: it's interesting because Robez was a bit of an Alan

1939
01:46:06,479 --> 01:46:10,439
Speaker 2: Lomax character. He ditched his a career in medicine to

1940
01:46:10,640 --> 01:46:14,720
Speaker 2: just journey through the Andes and study folk music. So

1941
01:46:14,920 --> 01:46:16,760
Speaker 2: right away we have a bit of this conflict of

1942
01:46:16,960 --> 01:46:19,200
Speaker 2: like an Alan Lomax situation of like, did this guy

1943
01:46:19,320 --> 01:46:22,320
Speaker 2: just actually notate a song that had been circulated for

1944
01:46:22,439 --> 01:46:26,720
Speaker 2: centuries and then claim credit for it? So there's there's layers, man,

1945
01:46:26,800 --> 01:46:28,000
Speaker 2: there's layer layers.

1946
01:46:28,080 --> 01:46:28,240
Speaker 1: You know.

1947
01:46:30,840 --> 01:46:35,479
Speaker 2: So Daniel Alomio Robez premiered the song of Condo Pazza

1948
01:46:35,560 --> 01:46:39,360
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirteen at the Tiatro Mazie in Lima as

1949
01:46:39,400 --> 01:46:42,880
Speaker 2: part of a Zarzuela, a Spanish light opera that featured

1950
01:46:42,920 --> 01:46:47,080
Speaker 2: social commentary in a hilarious bit of irony. This zarzuela,

1951
01:46:47,240 --> 01:46:51,600
Speaker 2: in particular concerned Peruvian miners in Cerl do Pasco and

1952
01:46:51,680 --> 01:46:56,040
Speaker 2: their struggle with a foreign mining company. Do you guys

1953
01:46:56,160 --> 01:47:00,759
Speaker 2: get it? Do you get the resonance? My favorite gags

1954
01:47:00,800 --> 01:47:03,320
Speaker 2: in Don't Be a Menace, the parody movie by the

1955
01:47:03,320 --> 01:47:05,439
Speaker 2: Ways Brothers that they have one of the Wayans constantly

1956
01:47:05,479 --> 01:47:10,479
Speaker 2: popping in from out of frame going message I forgot

1957
01:47:10,520 --> 01:47:14,960
Speaker 2: about that. Marcella Rolls granddaughter of Daniel contends that this

1958
01:47:15,120 --> 01:47:18,640
Speaker 2: operetta was performed something like three thousand times at that

1959
01:47:18,760 --> 01:47:22,240
Speaker 2: opera house. Twenty years later, piano arrangement of the melody

1960
01:47:22,400 --> 01:47:26,080
Speaker 2: was legally registered by Roblas courtesy of the Edward Bimurk's

1961
01:47:26,160 --> 01:47:29,759
Speaker 2: Music Corporation with the Library of Congress under the number

1962
01:47:30,240 --> 01:47:33,880
Speaker 2: ninety six four three. So you can probably guess where

1963
01:47:33,920 --> 01:47:37,000
Speaker 2: this is all going. Regarding Paul Simon, while in Paris

1964
01:47:37,040 --> 01:47:39,640
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five, Simon heard a version of this

1965
01:47:39,840 --> 01:47:43,280
Speaker 2: song by the band Los Incas, who, interestingly enough, were

1966
01:47:43,320 --> 01:47:47,000
Speaker 2: formed in Paris nine years prior by an Argentinian and

1967
01:47:47,120 --> 01:47:52,439
Speaker 2: two Venezuelans, no Peruvians. When he asked the band about it,

1968
01:47:52,840 --> 01:47:54,560
Speaker 2: they told Simon that the song was a piece of

1969
01:47:54,640 --> 01:47:58,800
Speaker 2: Andean folk music, but that their arrangement was by Jorge Milchberg,

1970
01:47:59,760 --> 01:48:05,080
Speaker 2: who was an Argentinian born to Polish immigrants. Simon took

1971
01:48:05,160 --> 01:48:09,040
Speaker 2: this white man at face value, wrote his own English

1972
01:48:09,400 --> 01:48:12,479
Speaker 2: lyrics to the tune and didn't credit Robles as the

1973
01:48:12,560 --> 01:48:18,160
Speaker 2: initial composer. However, Milchberg, I'm so sorry. The guy's name

1974
01:48:18,240 --> 01:48:22,719
Speaker 2: is Milchberg. At least they weren't Nazis, right, Maybe is Italian.

1975
01:48:24,680 --> 01:48:28,320
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, dude, Polish German, last name in Argentina.

1976
01:48:28,479 --> 01:48:31,960
Speaker 2: The guy was born in nineteen twenty eight. What's the

1977
01:48:32,040 --> 01:48:35,240
Speaker 2: over under on that anyway? Now, I frontloaded this with

1978
01:48:35,320 --> 01:48:37,640
Speaker 2: a lot of salt, but it actually had quite a

1979
01:48:37,720 --> 01:48:42,200
Speaker 2: happy ending. In nineteen seventy, Armando Robles Godoy, the original

1980
01:48:42,240 --> 01:48:45,719
Speaker 2: composer's son and who's since become a filmmaker in Peru,

1981
01:48:46,000 --> 01:48:48,680
Speaker 2: filed suit against Simon, pointing out that his dad had

1982
01:48:48,720 --> 01:48:51,519
Speaker 2: held the copyright to the song in America since nineteen

1983
01:48:51,600 --> 01:48:54,920
Speaker 2: thirty three. It was an almost friendly court case because

1984
01:48:54,920 --> 01:48:58,200
Speaker 2: Paul Simon was very respectful of other cultures. This man said,

1985
01:48:58,880 --> 01:49:02,840
Speaker 2: according to a wicked I can no longer verify it

1986
01:49:02,960 --> 01:49:05,800
Speaker 2: was not carelessness on his part, And then he called

1987
01:49:05,800 --> 01:49:08,760
Speaker 2: the entire court thing a court case without further complications,

1988
01:49:09,439 --> 01:49:11,800
Speaker 2: adding that he held no ill will towards Simon for

1989
01:49:11,880 --> 01:49:15,400
Speaker 2: what he considered a misunderstanding and an honest mistake. Paul

1990
01:49:15,479 --> 01:49:19,040
Speaker 2: Simon amended the writing credits and went away, vowing never

1991
01:49:19,200 --> 01:49:22,639
Speaker 2: ever to be so weak as to credit an original

1992
01:49:22,680 --> 01:49:25,800
Speaker 2: writer of a song, and we are so much the

1993
01:49:25,920 --> 01:49:28,880
Speaker 2: richer for it. Then to add insult to injury, Perry

1994
01:49:28,960 --> 01:49:34,240
Speaker 2: Como released a version of Alcondo Pesa also in nineteen seventy.

1995
01:49:34,320 --> 01:49:40,080
Speaker 1: Oh god, what yeah, I mean, I assume it's horrendous.

1996
01:49:40,479 --> 01:49:41,040
Speaker 2: Take a listen.

1997
01:49:43,400 --> 01:49:49,840
Speaker 10: I'd rather biggest sparrow than a slam. Yes, I would,

1998
01:49:54,320 --> 01:49:55,679
Speaker 10: I surely would.

1999
01:50:00,400 --> 01:50:01,480
Speaker 2: Nope, this is unlistenable.

2000
01:50:01,600 --> 01:50:01,760
Speaker 9: Wow.

2001
01:50:01,840 --> 01:50:05,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, that blows. That's terrible. Okay, yeah, all right, now

2002
01:50:05,400 --> 01:50:08,519
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about Cecilia, a song until this afternoon

2003
01:50:08,600 --> 01:50:11,839
Speaker 1: I thought was Cilia. I don't hear the first syllable

2004
01:50:11,880 --> 01:50:14,760
Speaker 1: in the chorus. Nope, okay, I don't eare good, thank you?

2005
01:50:14,840 --> 01:50:15,400
Speaker 2: I feel better.

2006
01:50:15,960 --> 01:50:17,760
Speaker 1: This is a song that I used to hate, but

2007
01:50:17,840 --> 01:50:19,880
Speaker 1: it's kind of grown on me in recent years. It

2008
01:50:20,000 --> 01:50:22,960
Speaker 1: originated at a small party that Paul Simon held in

2009
01:50:23,040 --> 01:50:26,200
Speaker 1: the summer of sixty nine. I can't even say it, sorry,

2010
01:50:26,800 --> 01:50:30,920
Speaker 1: first reed six streme modulate tone. Not long after the

2011
01:50:31,080 --> 01:50:33,040
Speaker 1: Manson murders occurred nearby.

2012
01:50:33,360 --> 01:50:35,120
Speaker 2: I got my first real six string.

2013
01:50:38,479 --> 01:50:41,360
Speaker 1: The gathering took place at Paul's rented home at fifteen

2014
01:50:41,520 --> 01:50:44,760
Speaker 1: sixty seven Blue Jay Way. And if that street name

2015
01:50:44,840 --> 01:50:47,759
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, that's because it's the same house George Harrison

2016
01:50:47,800 --> 01:50:50,800
Speaker 1: rented in nineteen sixty seven, which led him to write

2017
01:50:50,840 --> 01:50:53,439
Speaker 1: the Magical Mystery Tour track of the same name, Blue

2018
01:50:53,520 --> 01:50:53,880
Speaker 1: Jay Way.

2019
01:50:54,120 --> 01:50:56,679
Speaker 2: Dude, I love that song. That is such a great

2020
01:50:56,760 --> 01:51:00,160
Speaker 2: deep cut. I find it so like sinister in free be.

2021
01:51:00,320 --> 01:51:04,240
Speaker 1: Like boom long please do.

2022
01:51:06,960 --> 01:51:09,320
Speaker 2: It's uh it shivers thinking about it.

2023
01:51:09,600 --> 01:51:13,080
Speaker 1: But Cello or whatever that is, it's like, yeah, yeah, I.

2024
01:51:13,160 --> 01:51:15,639
Speaker 2: Listened to it a lot and on acid in college.

2025
01:51:15,680 --> 01:51:16,920
Speaker 2: That might have something to do with it.

2026
01:51:17,080 --> 01:51:19,840
Speaker 1: But you know, that's that's an odd choice. It seems

2027
01:51:19,880 --> 01:51:24,360
Speaker 1: like you were actively seeking out bad trips A yeah.

2028
01:51:24,360 --> 01:51:26,280
Speaker 2: I mean, there's definitely like a couple like you know,

2029
01:51:26,360 --> 01:51:28,240
Speaker 2: when you're like tripping, you don't really want to hear

2030
01:51:28,400 --> 01:51:30,439
Speaker 2: like the early chit. You want to hear the like

2031
01:51:30,800 --> 01:51:33,240
Speaker 2: I'm a Tibetan monk singing from the mountainous stuff.

2032
01:51:33,360 --> 01:51:33,560
Speaker 9: You know.

2033
01:51:33,720 --> 01:51:35,599
Speaker 2: So Magical Mystery Tour has a couple of good ones

2034
01:51:35,640 --> 01:51:38,240
Speaker 2: on that white album, you know, good, good trippy.

2035
01:51:39,920 --> 01:51:42,840
Speaker 1: Anyway, back to Blue Jay Way, Paul Simon is having

2036
01:51:42,880 --> 01:51:45,960
Speaker 1: a house party. Let's all take ourselves there. Wayne's World

2037
01:51:47,560 --> 01:51:50,680
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. The Manson murders just happened nearby, but

2038
01:51:50,760 --> 01:51:52,400
Speaker 1: at Paul Simon's house on Blue Jay Way.

2039
01:51:52,960 --> 01:51:53,599
Speaker 2: It's a party.

2040
01:51:53,720 --> 01:51:55,000
Speaker 1: It is. It is a party.

2041
01:51:55,800 --> 01:51:56,960
Speaker 2: The room smells terrible.

2042
01:51:57,360 --> 01:51:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yes, Paul's there.

2043
01:52:00,200 --> 01:52:02,639
Speaker 2: You hear a gentle squeak at your shoulder. You look down.

2044
01:52:03,080 --> 01:52:07,240
Speaker 2: It's all four foot six of Paul side our garf

2045
01:52:07,320 --> 01:52:09,320
Speaker 2: uncle towers over him, stoned out.

2046
01:52:09,160 --> 01:52:11,240
Speaker 1: Of his mind with a road map in his hand,

2047
01:52:11,320 --> 01:52:16,120
Speaker 1: looking for places to go on extended walks. Yeah, Paul

2048
01:52:16,120 --> 01:52:18,960
Speaker 1: and Art are there. Paul's brother Eddie, Eddie Simon. We

2049
01:52:19,000 --> 01:52:22,080
Speaker 1: all know Eddie Simon. He's there. Perhaps a few others.

2050
01:52:22,479 --> 01:52:25,800
Speaker 1: Memories are hazy. They all came to play with this

2051
01:52:25,960 --> 01:52:29,160
Speaker 1: new fangled Sony Real, the Real tape deck, which came

2052
01:52:29,240 --> 01:52:32,559
Speaker 1: equipped with a reverb switch, and so they all started

2053
01:52:32,640 --> 01:52:36,880
Speaker 1: doing these improvised percussion patterns on their legs. And because

2054
01:52:36,920 --> 01:52:39,360
Speaker 1: this tape machine had a reaver effect, it added a

2055
01:52:39,400 --> 01:52:43,519
Speaker 1: little more punch to their their thighs slapping. And as

2056
01:52:43,560 --> 01:52:46,120
Speaker 1: the party progressed, Paul and Art they slapped their thighs.

2057
01:52:46,479 --> 01:52:48,760
Speaker 1: Eddie Simon offered a four to four beat on a

2058
01:52:48,840 --> 01:52:53,040
Speaker 1: padded piano bench. Another friend strummed the d TUN's guitar

2059
01:52:53,240 --> 01:52:55,960
Speaker 1: with slack strings that was basically just a rhythm instrument.

2060
01:52:56,040 --> 01:52:59,280
Speaker 1: Could chuck it, Yeah, exactly apparently they did this for

2061
01:52:59,360 --> 01:52:59,960
Speaker 1: a few hours.

2062
01:53:00,520 --> 01:53:02,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what you do.

2063
01:53:02,520 --> 01:53:06,200
Speaker 1: Paul would say, Perhaps we lost track of time, but

2064
01:53:06,360 --> 01:53:08,240
Speaker 1: for days to come. Paul would come back to this

2065
01:53:08,360 --> 01:53:11,080
Speaker 1: infectious groove that he had on the tape, and he

2066
01:53:11,160 --> 01:53:14,400
Speaker 1: composed a simple melody and guitar line to it. He

2067
01:53:14,520 --> 01:53:17,240
Speaker 1: excized a minute and fifteen second section of the original

2068
01:53:17,280 --> 01:53:20,920
Speaker 1: tape and turned it into a loop, which in pre

2069
01:53:21,080 --> 01:53:23,519
Speaker 1: digital times was a very literal thing. You had a

2070
01:53:23,720 --> 01:53:26,800
Speaker 1: giant loop of tape that stretched around the studio because

2071
01:53:26,800 --> 01:53:28,840
Speaker 1: it was a minute in fifteen seconds. That's a lot

2072
01:53:28,920 --> 01:53:32,839
Speaker 1: of tape. This formed the bed of the track Cecilia,

2073
01:53:32,920 --> 01:53:36,720
Speaker 1: the percussive bed, onto which Paul and already improvised other

2074
01:53:36,800 --> 01:53:40,680
Speaker 1: rhythmic elements, like dropping drumsticks onto a parquet floor in

2075
01:53:40,760 --> 01:53:44,280
Speaker 1: the studio, and also doing random notes on a xylophone

2076
01:53:44,360 --> 01:53:47,640
Speaker 1: that were somehow compressed to such an effect that the

2077
01:53:47,720 --> 01:53:50,880
Speaker 1: actual note didn't matter anymore. It was just became another

2078
01:53:50,960 --> 01:53:51,800
Speaker 1: percussive sound.

2079
01:53:52,800 --> 01:53:55,720
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's actually so. When you're doing that, you know,

2080
01:53:55,800 --> 01:53:59,839
Speaker 2: compressors have a tack and release function, and that basically

2081
01:54:00,120 --> 01:54:03,800
Speaker 2: is how quickly the squashing of the note happens and

2082
01:54:03,880 --> 01:54:06,479
Speaker 2: then how you know how much it takes before it

2083
01:54:06,560 --> 01:54:11,320
Speaker 2: releases that effect. So if you're diming those or if

2084
01:54:11,360 --> 01:54:12,680
Speaker 2: you're turning one of those all the way they up,

2085
01:54:12,680 --> 01:54:14,120
Speaker 2: but the other way the other you get these really

2086
01:54:14,160 --> 01:54:17,439
Speaker 2: wacky effects where you can literally just get like just

2087
01:54:17,560 --> 01:54:20,400
Speaker 2: the percussive hit on a note that doesn't have any

2088
01:54:20,479 --> 01:54:22,519
Speaker 2: real body or pitch to it. It's just sort of

2089
01:54:22,560 --> 01:54:25,000
Speaker 2: a side trick of how they get those gated drums

2090
01:54:25,040 --> 01:54:28,519
Speaker 2: that are so popular, where you compress the shit out

2091
01:54:28,560 --> 01:54:31,840
Speaker 2: of the drums and then like a really really fast attack,

2092
01:54:31,920 --> 01:54:35,840
Speaker 2: so it's an ultra fast attack and then a really

2093
01:54:35,960 --> 01:54:38,880
Speaker 2: short reverb tail and then you gate, so you cut

2094
01:54:38,960 --> 01:54:40,920
Speaker 2: off the tail the reverb. So all of those phil

2095
01:54:41,000 --> 01:54:42,840
Speaker 2: call In songs and like a lot of the shit

2096
01:54:42,920 --> 01:54:45,360
Speaker 2: on Gracelaine that we talked about, you get that gated

2097
01:54:45,480 --> 01:54:49,040
Speaker 2: snared gated percussion sound by sort of the same effect

2098
01:54:49,080 --> 01:54:52,480
Speaker 2: where you're essentially compressing it to the point where you've

2099
01:54:52,920 --> 01:54:56,520
Speaker 2: squashed out all pitch and just shortening it to the attack.

2100
01:54:56,840 --> 01:54:58,920
Speaker 2: It's a neat trick. Yeah, And I love this because

2101
01:54:59,000 --> 01:55:01,480
Speaker 2: like this is the it was making bone machine with

2102
01:55:02,320 --> 01:55:05,520
Speaker 2: its It's literally the exact same process where he was like,

2103
01:55:05,600 --> 01:55:08,080
Speaker 2: I just go into a room and I just go like, oh, merger,

2104
01:55:10,160 --> 01:55:12,400
Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah, well, Paul Simon got there first.

2105
01:55:12,720 --> 01:55:36,520
Speaker 2: Pal is the fun song some Nights not alarmingly similar

2106
01:55:36,600 --> 01:55:36,840
Speaker 2: to this.

2107
01:55:37,000 --> 01:55:40,360
Speaker 1: Though, Oh yeah, I think that's been commented on, possibly

2108
01:55:40,440 --> 01:55:41,800
Speaker 1: with Okay lawyers involved.

2109
01:55:41,960 --> 01:55:45,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, worth a punch because it I just checked

2110
01:55:45,120 --> 01:55:46,800
Speaker 2: it out again and it still pisses.

2111
01:55:46,520 --> 01:55:47,480
Speaker 9: Me any.

2112
01:56:23,240 --> 01:56:23,360
Speaker 4: Well.

2113
01:56:23,400 --> 01:56:26,720
Speaker 1: By Simon's own admission, the lyrics to Cecilia were something

2114
01:56:26,760 --> 01:56:30,040
Speaker 1: of an afterthought, so he explained an interview with Rolling Stone.

2115
01:56:30,360 --> 01:56:32,400
Speaker 1: Every day I'd come back from the studio working on

2116
01:56:32,480 --> 01:56:34,839
Speaker 1: whenever we were working on, and I played this pounding

2117
01:56:34,920 --> 01:56:37,440
Speaker 1: thing on tape. And then I said, let's make a

2118
01:56:37,520 --> 01:56:39,560
Speaker 1: record out of that. So we copied it over and

2119
01:56:39,640 --> 01:56:41,880
Speaker 1: extended it. So now I pick up the guitar and

2120
01:56:41,960 --> 01:56:44,560
Speaker 1: I start to go, well, this will be like the guitar.

2121
01:56:44,400 --> 01:56:47,040
Speaker 2: Part Dunk Chicken, Dunk Chicken, Dunk Chicken, and.

2122
01:56:47,160 --> 01:56:49,840
Speaker 1: Lyrics were virtually the first lines. I said, you're breaking

2123
01:56:49,880 --> 01:56:52,680
Speaker 1: my heart. I'm down on my knees. They're not lines

2124
01:56:52,720 --> 01:56:54,280
Speaker 1: at all, but it was all right for the song,

2125
01:56:54,400 --> 01:56:56,320
Speaker 1: and I liked that it was like a little piece

2126
01:56:56,360 --> 01:57:01,360
Speaker 1: of magical fluff, but it works. I theorized by my friend,

2127
01:57:01,480 --> 01:57:04,680
Speaker 1: the music journalist David Brown, a wonderful journalist, that the

2128
01:57:04,800 --> 01:57:07,760
Speaker 1: name Cecilia is derived from Saint Cecilia.

2129
01:57:07,320 --> 01:57:09,880
Speaker 2: The patron saint of music, which I think is interesting.

2130
01:57:11,440 --> 01:57:13,600
Speaker 1: One line that did stick out to listeners at the

2131
01:57:13,680 --> 01:57:17,080
Speaker 1: time was making love in the afternoon with Cecilia up

2132
01:57:17,120 --> 01:57:20,440
Speaker 1: in my bedroom. The lyric was Simon's most explicit to date,

2133
01:57:20,560 --> 01:57:23,520
Speaker 1: and he'd recall a conversation with a veteran who'd recently

2134
01:57:23,600 --> 01:57:27,160
Speaker 1: returned from Vietnam. Soon after the song's release. Leavet said

2135
01:57:27,160 --> 01:57:30,240
Speaker 1: that he and his fellow soldiers heard the line and said, whoa,

2136
01:57:30,400 --> 01:57:32,560
Speaker 1: you can say that in a pop song. Things must

2137
01:57:32,600 --> 01:57:36,160
Speaker 1: be really changing back home. I've said this before, but

2138
01:57:36,240 --> 01:57:39,280
Speaker 1: it's interesting to note the parallels between the breakup of

2139
01:57:39,400 --> 01:57:42,160
Speaker 1: Simon and Garfunkel and the fracturing of the Beatles, who

2140
01:57:42,240 --> 01:57:44,840
Speaker 1: split publicly around the same time in the spring of

2141
01:57:44,880 --> 01:57:45,560
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy.

2142
01:57:45,600 --> 01:57:48,080
Speaker 2: Oh, Jordan, have you said that before? Jordan said's an

2143
01:57:48,200 --> 01:57:50,680
Speaker 2: unexpected opinion on would advanced from you, but please go on.

2144
01:57:51,240 --> 01:57:54,040
Speaker 1: The Beatles ended their last album they recorded, nineteen sixty

2145
01:57:54,120 --> 01:57:56,960
Speaker 1: nine's Abbey Road, with a track called the end, which

2146
01:57:57,040 --> 01:58:00,320
Speaker 1: featured solos from each member, as if allowing each to

2147
01:58:00,360 --> 01:58:03,360
Speaker 1: take a curtain call. Simon and Garfunkle made an equally

2148
01:58:03,440 --> 01:58:05,760
Speaker 1: poignant farewell on the last album that they.

2149
01:58:05,760 --> 01:58:07,720
Speaker 2: Recorded together, but Jovia Troubled Water.

2150
01:58:08,440 --> 01:58:11,320
Speaker 1: They revisited their early passion for the Everly Brothers with

2151
01:58:11,400 --> 01:58:14,960
Speaker 1: a cover of Bye Bye Love. The idea came after

2152
01:58:15,040 --> 01:58:17,240
Speaker 1: they performed it in concerts in the fall of nineteen

2153
01:58:17,320 --> 01:58:20,720
Speaker 1: sixty nine, and Simon liked the fact that the audience

2154
01:58:20,760 --> 01:58:23,520
Speaker 1: clapped along on the two of four, and they decided

2155
01:58:23,520 --> 01:58:26,320
Speaker 1: that they should record it live quote with the audience

2156
01:58:26,400 --> 01:58:27,120
Speaker 1: as our drum.

2157
01:58:27,320 --> 01:58:29,200
Speaker 2: And that's an extending quite a bit of grace to

2158
01:58:29,280 --> 01:58:32,080
Speaker 2: your average white audience at this time period.

2159
01:58:32,160 --> 01:58:34,240
Speaker 1: I mean, you were correct, because they never got a

2160
01:58:34,280 --> 01:58:36,640
Speaker 1: take that was satisfactory that they recorded live.

2161
01:58:36,960 --> 01:58:40,080
Speaker 2: Well, our buddy Wes, you know, who played in the

2162
01:58:40,200 --> 01:58:42,360
Speaker 2: same band of mine that you played in, went and

2163
01:58:42,440 --> 01:58:45,080
Speaker 2: saw New Young at Carnegie Hall and it was like

2164
01:58:45,280 --> 01:58:48,040
Speaker 2: just Neil acoustic. And so he's doing one of his

2165
01:58:48,120 --> 01:58:51,360
Speaker 2: songs and people start clapping along and he fully stopped

2166
01:58:51,400 --> 01:58:53,800
Speaker 2: the song and was like, please don't do that. The

2167
01:58:53,880 --> 01:58:57,400
Speaker 2: acoustics in here are just like such that your off

2168
01:58:57,480 --> 01:59:00,520
Speaker 2: time clapping is now throwing me off? Oh yeah, like

2169
01:59:00,960 --> 01:59:04,880
Speaker 2: launched right back into the song, just like ah Man

2170
01:59:05,040 --> 01:59:10,520
Speaker 2: are probably autistic. King from the North, Yes, but.

2171
01:59:10,680 --> 01:59:13,600
Speaker 1: Yes, simonc. Goarth never got a live version of Bye

2172
01:59:13,640 --> 01:59:16,640
Speaker 1: Bye Love that was satisfactory, so they recorded it in

2173
01:59:16,760 --> 01:59:21,200
Speaker 1: the studio and then took that version to their next concerts,

2174
01:59:21,720 --> 01:59:24,320
Speaker 1: played it live to the audience and said, here, clap

2175
01:59:24,400 --> 01:59:27,720
Speaker 1: along to this, we're gonna record. We're going to record you,

2176
01:59:29,360 --> 01:59:32,600
Speaker 1: which is amazing. I've never heard of that being done ever.

2177
01:59:33,040 --> 01:59:37,160
Speaker 1: So they just live overdubbed the clapping onto the version

2178
01:59:37,200 --> 01:59:38,800
Speaker 1: of Bye Bye Love that you hear on Bridge over

2179
01:59:38,880 --> 01:59:39,440
Speaker 1: Troubled Water.

2180
01:59:39,760 --> 01:59:43,760
Speaker 2: Was that preferable to bringing a metronome on stage or

2181
01:59:43,960 --> 01:59:46,240
Speaker 2: a drummer? I couldn't tell you.

2182
01:59:47,280 --> 01:59:49,839
Speaker 1: But that cover of Bye Bye Love with the crowd

2183
01:59:50,120 --> 01:59:53,200
Speaker 1: cheers against a song that they did in their bedroom

2184
01:59:53,240 --> 01:59:55,840
Speaker 1: when they were dreaming of being musicians, and now they're

2185
01:59:55,880 --> 01:59:59,720
Speaker 1: doing it on stage to a huge packed auditorium and

2186
02:00:00,080 --> 02:00:01,760
Speaker 1: you can hear them singing it, and you can hear

2187
02:00:01,800 --> 02:00:04,760
Speaker 1: the crowd cheering, and then it dies away, which is

2188
02:00:04,800 --> 02:00:07,040
Speaker 1: a very sweet way to end with me. They kind

2189
02:00:07,080 --> 02:00:08,800
Speaker 1: of figured was going to be the end of their career,

2190
02:00:08,880 --> 02:00:11,880
Speaker 1: and it segues into the final track on the Bridge

2191
02:00:11,880 --> 02:00:15,160
Speaker 1: Over Troubled Water album song for the Asking, and it's

2192
02:00:15,200 --> 02:00:18,680
Speaker 1: been described as an olive branch from Simon to Garfunkle

2193
02:00:18,880 --> 02:00:21,960
Speaker 1: and vice versa. In the making of the Bridge Over

2194
02:00:22,000 --> 02:00:25,120
Speaker 1: Troubled Water album documentary, Simon admits that there's a note

2195
02:00:25,200 --> 02:00:27,800
Speaker 1: of contrition in the song. He said, that's just to

2196
02:00:27,920 --> 02:00:31,560
Speaker 1: say I haven't forgotten what I did. I was not

2197
02:00:31,680 --> 02:00:34,920
Speaker 1: an angel, that's for sure. And he would add it's

2198
02:00:34,960 --> 02:00:39,280
Speaker 1: a sweet song. It's almost embarrassing, which is the second

2199
02:00:39,320 --> 02:00:43,880
Speaker 1: time this episode that he characterizes an authentic display of

2200
02:00:43,960 --> 02:00:48,600
Speaker 1: a deeply held emotion as embarrassing, which I find endearing.

2201
02:00:49,600 --> 02:00:51,120
Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, that's time yea.

2202
02:00:52,160 --> 02:00:55,080
Speaker 1: Cyberon and Garfuckle intended the Bridge Over Troubled Water album

2203
02:00:55,120 --> 02:00:58,600
Speaker 1: to have twelve tracks, but in a beautiful metaphor, they

2204
02:00:58,720 --> 02:01:02,800
Speaker 1: crashed over the twelfth song to include. Simon had written

2205
02:01:02,840 --> 02:01:06,520
Speaker 1: a song called Cuba c Nixon No Golf Vuncer was

2206
02:01:06,560 --> 02:01:12,280
Speaker 1: turned off by its overt political commentary. Instead, Art suggested

2207
02:01:12,360 --> 02:01:18,160
Speaker 1: doing a Haitian creole corral called Foyo. Neither side would

2208
02:01:18,160 --> 02:01:21,880
Speaker 1: budge and Paul would tell Rolling Stone. We were fighting

2209
02:01:21,960 --> 02:01:23,600
Speaker 1: over what was going to be the twelfth song, and

2210
02:01:23,680 --> 02:01:26,080
Speaker 1: then I said, screw it, put it out with eleven songs.

2211
02:01:26,400 --> 02:01:28,440
Speaker 1: If that's the way it is. We were at the

2212
02:01:28,520 --> 02:01:31,040
Speaker 1: end of our energies over that, and as they wrapped

2213
02:01:31,040 --> 02:01:33,840
Speaker 1: the album Deceummer nineteen sixty nine, they had a feeling

2214
02:01:33,920 --> 02:01:36,160
Speaker 1: it would be their last. Paul said, at that point

2215
02:01:36,280 --> 02:01:39,840
Speaker 1: I just wanted out, and in this instance scarfunk Will agreed.

2216
02:01:39,960 --> 02:01:43,000
Speaker 1: We just went our separate ways without ever officially agreeing

2217
02:01:43,600 --> 02:01:44,320
Speaker 1: to this band.

2218
02:01:45,640 --> 02:01:52,560
Speaker 2: Well they should have waited. No Bridge Over Troublewater was

2219
02:01:52,600 --> 02:01:56,440
Speaker 2: released January twenty sixth, nineteen seventy. Critical appraisal was initially

2220
02:01:56,520 --> 02:01:59,880
Speaker 2: not great. In Melody Maker in February of nineteen seventy,

2221
02:02:00,160 --> 02:02:03,720
Speaker 2: Richard Williams identified quote a few dull moments on the album,

2222
02:02:03,800 --> 02:02:06,400
Speaker 2: while adding that they're worth enduring for the jewels they

2223
02:02:06,440 --> 02:02:13,040
Speaker 2: surround fair Williams concluded, not perhaps another classic like book Ends,

2224
02:02:13,120 --> 02:02:16,320
Speaker 2: but still worth hearing for Simon's constantly surprising timing and

2225
02:02:16,400 --> 02:02:18,000
Speaker 2: for the way he can make his guitar sound like

2226
02:02:18,040 --> 02:02:21,080
Speaker 2: a small orchestra and the orchestra sound like a big guitar.

2227
02:02:21,520 --> 02:02:24,440
Speaker 2: This enforces your opinion that book Ends is the superior album.

2228
02:02:25,040 --> 02:02:27,040
Speaker 2: New York Times critic John S. Wilson was even more

2229
02:02:27,120 --> 02:02:29,440
Speaker 2: savage in his review of the title track, writing, in

2230
02:02:29,560 --> 02:02:33,360
Speaker 2: its mawkish, undiluted sentimentality, it was reminiscent of the songs

2231
02:02:33,400 --> 02:02:36,080
Speaker 2: of faith that were once great favorites on the lesser

2232
02:02:36,200 --> 02:02:41,360
Speaker 2: circuit concerts. Uh that's yeah, that's kind of on the nose,

2233
02:02:41,440 --> 02:02:45,560
Speaker 2: man like. They went from singing like actual spirituals and

2234
02:02:45,640 --> 02:02:51,800
Speaker 2: stuff to uh, a pastiche, yes, a pastiche in. Yeah,

2235
02:02:52,600 --> 02:02:55,080
Speaker 2: it's a great song. It's a good song.

2236
02:02:55,360 --> 02:02:55,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

2237
02:02:56,320 --> 02:02:58,400
Speaker 2: But in an off repeated refrain on this show, what

2238
02:02:58,520 --> 02:03:03,080
Speaker 2: did the critics know? Damn them in their eyes, making

2239
02:03:03,160 --> 02:03:06,920
Speaker 2: Paul Simon write the boxer and hurting his little feelings.

2240
02:03:07,320 --> 02:03:11,840
Speaker 2: He's just a little guy. Bridge Over Troublewater was the

2241
02:03:11,960 --> 02:03:16,160
Speaker 2: best selling album in nineteen seventy, seventy one and seventy two,

2242
02:03:16,480 --> 02:03:19,240
Speaker 2: and was at the time the best selling album of

2243
02:03:19,320 --> 02:03:23,240
Speaker 2: all time until those English misanthropes in Pink Floyd came

2244
02:03:23,320 --> 02:03:28,200
Speaker 2: around and blew their echoplex Leyden meditations on death right

2245
02:03:28,280 --> 02:03:31,520
Speaker 2: over the honey soaked harmonies of the Nice Boys from Queens.

2246
02:03:32,280 --> 02:03:36,480
Speaker 2: It remained CBS Record's best selling album, Simon CARFN one

2247
02:03:36,520 --> 02:03:38,560
Speaker 2: not Dark Side of the Moon until the release of

2248
02:03:38,600 --> 02:03:42,240
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson's Thriller in nineteen eighty two. Bridge Over Trouble

2249
02:03:42,280 --> 02:03:43,840
Speaker 2: Watt took home the Grammy Award for Album of the

2250
02:03:43,920 --> 02:03:47,560
Speaker 2: Year and Best Engineered Recording's title track on the Grammy

2251
02:03:47,640 --> 02:03:51,240
Speaker 2: for Song of the Year, Best Contemporary Song, Best Arrangement

2252
02:03:51,320 --> 02:03:54,720
Speaker 2: Accompanying Vocalists, and Record of the Year in nineteen seventy one,

2253
02:03:55,160 --> 02:03:58,960
Speaker 2: beating out James Taylor's Firing Rain Good, The Carpenter's Close

2254
02:03:59,000 --> 02:04:02,640
Speaker 2: to You, Noah p and the Beatles Let It be Well.

2255
02:04:02,720 --> 02:04:04,920
Speaker 2: This was the Specter one, right, Yeah, yeah, I have

2256
02:04:05,000 --> 02:04:08,200
Speaker 2: no opinion about that. Interestingly, this was to be the

2257
02:04:08,240 --> 02:04:11,400
Speaker 2: first Grammy ceremony where the winners were not announced in advance.

2258
02:04:11,960 --> 02:04:14,240
Speaker 2: They were hoping to mimic the Oscars for the kind

2259
02:04:14,240 --> 02:04:19,160
Speaker 2: of show Busy Suspense by Danny Rose. So Simon and

2260
02:04:19,240 --> 02:04:22,080
Speaker 2: Garfunk was sweep is poignant in retrospect because on stage

2261
02:04:22,120 --> 02:04:24,480
Speaker 2: the duo could barely make eye contact with one another.

2262
02:04:25,120 --> 02:04:27,560
Speaker 2: Clearly they knew what they were walking away from.

2263
02:04:28,000 --> 02:04:30,280
Speaker 1: Art said in twenty ten, when Bridge Over Troubled Water

2264
02:04:30,440 --> 02:04:33,480
Speaker 1: was over, I wanted a rest from Paul the amount

2265
02:04:33,520 --> 02:04:36,000
Speaker 1: that we were in the studio in each other dueling

2266
02:04:36,080 --> 02:04:38,880
Speaker 1: for what makes a great record. That duel was tiring,

2267
02:04:39,200 --> 02:04:42,520
Speaker 1: Simon agreed. Yet another wedge between them was their ill

2268
02:04:42,600 --> 02:04:46,280
Speaker 1: fated TV special Songs of America in nineteen sixty nine

2269
02:04:47,040 --> 02:04:49,800
Speaker 1: and Yes, It's as bloated as the title would suggest.

2270
02:04:50,560 --> 02:04:53,040
Speaker 1: Clive Davis had the right idea, thinking that they could

2271
02:04:53,080 --> 02:04:56,680
Speaker 1: parlay their massive post graduate success Postgraduate the.

2272
02:04:56,720 --> 02:04:59,360
Speaker 2: Film not Arts their doctorate work.

2273
02:04:59,440 --> 02:05:03,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, had parlay that into a primetime TV concert a

2274
02:05:03,400 --> 02:05:06,320
Speaker 1: La Elvis's Comeback Special, which had aired the previous December,

2275
02:05:06,760 --> 02:05:10,160
Speaker 1: But unfortunately the duo had way too much creative control.

2276
02:05:10,840 --> 02:05:14,080
Speaker 1: Paired with the young Charles Grodin Arts co star in

2277
02:05:14,200 --> 02:05:17,840
Speaker 1: Catch twenty two and future Dad in the Beethoven Movies,

2278
02:05:18,280 --> 02:05:22,040
Speaker 1: they crafted a special that basically registered as lefty Pinco

2279
02:05:22,160 --> 02:05:26,200
Speaker 1: communist bunk to their sponsors Bell Telephone. It's described in

2280
02:05:26,320 --> 02:05:30,000
Speaker 1: Robert Hilburn's Paul Simon biography as quote a documentary style

2281
02:05:30,120 --> 02:05:33,240
Speaker 1: show about how they saw themselves. Paul Simon arc ourfuncle

2282
02:05:33,280 --> 02:05:37,480
Speaker 1: saw themselves in sixties America and saw America in the sixties,

2283
02:05:37,600 --> 02:05:41,800
Speaker 1: with footage interspersed of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson,

2284
02:05:42,120 --> 02:05:45,960
Speaker 1: Ralph David Abernathy, and Robert Kennedy, bits from Woodstock and

2285
02:05:46,080 --> 02:05:49,960
Speaker 1: newsreel footage of Vietnam. Although today the show looks relatively tame,

2286
02:05:50,120 --> 02:05:53,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, Songs of America had a startlingly

2287
02:05:53,360 --> 02:05:56,480
Speaker 1: radical feel to it, more Woody Guthrie than Greatest Hits

2288
02:05:56,560 --> 02:05:59,600
Speaker 1: That Sounds Awesome. Its visual style edgy and jump cut

2289
02:05:59,720 --> 02:06:02,600
Speaker 1: for an hour, usually filled with the music of Perry Como,

2290
02:06:02,920 --> 02:06:05,480
Speaker 1: Bing Crosby and Andy Williams. It was one of the

2291
02:06:05,520 --> 02:06:09,440
Speaker 1: most daring shows ever presented on network television. It's okay,

2292
02:06:09,720 --> 02:06:12,640
Speaker 1: I've seen some of it, Okay. The show began with

2293
02:06:12,800 --> 02:06:15,640
Speaker 1: aerial shots of what looked to be Vietnam, which then

2294
02:06:15,720 --> 02:06:20,080
Speaker 1: cross faded into overhead shots about soundtracked by Yeah. Actually,

2295
02:06:20,120 --> 02:06:24,760
Speaker 1: well no, it was soundtracked by America. Because the Vietnam

2296
02:06:24,920 --> 02:06:29,760
Speaker 1: cross faded into overhead shots of American highways, Pittsburgh and

2297
02:06:29,880 --> 02:06:35,280
Speaker 1: a new Jersey Turnpike, poverty shacks, police, African American poor,

2298
02:06:35,920 --> 02:06:40,880
Speaker 1: and garbage heaps. Both sides dug in a little too

2299
02:06:41,000 --> 02:06:42,840
Speaker 1: deep when it came to trying to get this show

2300
02:06:42,880 --> 02:06:45,960
Speaker 1: onto the air. Paul and Lady Maybe didn't need to

2301
02:06:46,040 --> 02:06:48,920
Speaker 1: do a moody documentary piece with footage of RFK and

2302
02:06:49,080 --> 02:06:53,160
Speaker 1: mlk's funeral trains. They didn't even do any concert footage

2303
02:06:53,280 --> 02:06:56,440
Speaker 1: until the last fifteen minutes of the hour long documentary.

2304
02:06:57,120 --> 02:07:00,680
Speaker 1: That being said, the censors were being jerks. First off,

2305
02:07:00,920 --> 02:07:03,200
Speaker 1: they were pissed that Paul had turned in the finished

2306
02:07:03,280 --> 02:07:06,640
Speaker 1: version a week before air, which was his strategy to

2307
02:07:06,760 --> 02:07:10,080
Speaker 1: ensure that they messed with it the least, But then

2308
02:07:10,320 --> 02:07:13,959
Speaker 1: they flipped when they saw the content. Paul was very displeased.

2309
02:07:14,000 --> 02:07:15,960
Speaker 1: He said, you mean there are certain people in this

2310
02:07:16,040 --> 02:07:18,320
Speaker 1: country who will object if we say you must feed

2311
02:07:18,400 --> 02:07:19,560
Speaker 1: everyone in this country.

2312
02:07:19,960 --> 02:07:22,040
Speaker 2: Oh you sweet, sweet boy.

2313
02:07:22,160 --> 02:07:24,800
Speaker 1: And they said, your god damn right, someone will object.

2314
02:07:24,880 --> 02:07:27,560
Speaker 1: You have to change this. It's not going on. And

2315
02:07:27,720 --> 02:07:30,200
Speaker 1: we said, well, too bad, then it's not going on

2316
02:07:30,360 --> 02:07:34,640
Speaker 1: because we're not changing anything. The sponsors also complains that

2317
02:07:34,800 --> 02:07:38,600
Speaker 1: the Bridge over Troubled Water montage playing over JFK, RFK

2318
02:07:38,760 --> 02:07:43,440
Speaker 1: and mlk's funeral footage was quote unbalanced, and Paul said,

2319
02:07:43,480 --> 02:07:46,840
Speaker 1: what do you mean, how is it unbalanced? They're all Democrats,

2320
02:07:46,920 --> 02:07:52,480
Speaker 1: came the reply. Ah, Paul said, no, they're all assassinated.

2321
02:07:52,600 --> 02:07:52,920
Speaker 2: People.

2322
02:07:54,400 --> 02:07:58,040
Speaker 1: A compromise was eventually reached, and a re edited, slightly

2323
02:07:58,160 --> 02:08:01,080
Speaker 1: toned down version of the special was on November thirtieth,

2324
02:08:01,200 --> 02:08:02,160
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine.

2325
02:08:02,320 --> 02:08:04,320
Speaker 2: I got you know, I didn't know about this man.

2326
02:08:04,400 --> 02:08:06,400
Speaker 2: It actually makes me like both of them more.

2327
02:08:06,720 --> 02:08:09,160
Speaker 1: It's pretty wild. It's I mean, check it out.

2328
02:08:09,200 --> 02:08:09,879
Speaker 2: It's on YouTube.

2329
02:08:10,640 --> 02:08:14,000
Speaker 1: It bombed completely. As Charles Groden later said during the

2330
02:08:14,040 --> 02:08:17,800
Speaker 1: first commercial, which came just after Robert Kennedy's funeral train,

2331
02:08:18,200 --> 02:08:21,160
Speaker 1: one million people turned over to a Peggy Fleming figure

2332
02:08:21,200 --> 02:08:24,400
Speaker 1: skating special. It was just too honest for a lot

2333
02:08:24,440 --> 02:08:27,640
Speaker 1: of people. We mentioned all this because, over the course

2334
02:08:27,680 --> 02:08:30,640
Speaker 1: of the production of these songs for America Special, Charles

2335
02:08:30,720 --> 02:08:33,880
Speaker 1: Groden accidentally let it slip to Paul that Art had

2336
02:08:33,920 --> 02:08:37,000
Speaker 1: agreed to make another movie with Mike Nichols, a comedy

2337
02:08:37,080 --> 02:08:40,840
Speaker 1: drama titled Cardinal Knowledge. Paul would later say that quote

2338
02:08:40,920 --> 02:08:43,000
Speaker 1: something was broken between them after that.

2339
02:08:43,240 --> 02:08:45,360
Speaker 2: Wait, I thought they'd already decided. I thought they'd already

2340
02:08:45,360 --> 02:08:46,160
Speaker 2: decided to break up.

2341
02:08:46,160 --> 02:08:48,800
Speaker 1: Though. This was before the Bridge Over Troubled Water album

2342
02:08:48,880 --> 02:08:51,200
Speaker 1: came out. This was during the session. This was like

2343
02:08:51,560 --> 02:08:52,520
Speaker 1: fall sixty nine.

2344
02:08:52,800 --> 02:08:53,160
Speaker 2: Gotcha.

2345
02:08:53,360 --> 02:08:55,520
Speaker 1: It was basically like a you know, a very parental.

2346
02:08:55,640 --> 02:08:57,840
Speaker 1: It wasn't that you did it, but that you lied.

2347
02:08:58,040 --> 02:09:01,600
Speaker 1: Kind of situation. Simon confronted his partner. He said, I

2348
02:09:01,640 --> 02:09:03,240
Speaker 1: asked why he didn't tell me he was going to

2349
02:09:03,320 --> 02:09:05,200
Speaker 1: do this movie, and art said he was afraid I

2350
02:09:05,240 --> 02:09:07,240
Speaker 1: would stop working on Bridge over Troubled Water.

2351
02:09:07,760 --> 02:09:10,360
Speaker 2: In other words, he hit it from me a reasonable fear.

2352
02:09:10,640 --> 02:09:12,600
Speaker 1: He hit it from me. He knew how I'd feel,

2353
02:09:12,640 --> 02:09:14,680
Speaker 1: but he did it anyway. It's like an old married couple.

2354
02:09:14,800 --> 02:09:17,400
Speaker 1: He knew I'd feel, and he did it anyway. Mike

2355
02:09:17,520 --> 02:09:19,240
Speaker 1: Nichols told Artie that he was going to be a

2356
02:09:19,280 --> 02:09:22,200
Speaker 1: big movie star and already couldn't say no. He later

2357
02:09:22,280 --> 02:09:23,720
Speaker 1: told me he didn't see why it was such a

2358
02:09:23,760 --> 02:09:25,560
Speaker 1: big deal to me. He would make the movie for

2359
02:09:25,640 --> 02:09:27,320
Speaker 1: six months and I could write the songs for the

2360
02:09:27,400 --> 02:09:29,720
Speaker 1: next album in that time. Then he thought we could

2361
02:09:29,720 --> 02:09:32,520
Speaker 1: get together in the studio again and record them. I thought,

2362
02:09:32,960 --> 02:09:34,600
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to do that. And the

2363
02:09:34,680 --> 02:09:36,960
Speaker 1: truth is, I think if Artie had become a big

2364
02:09:37,040 --> 02:09:39,880
Speaker 1: movie star, he would have left. Instead of just being

2365
02:09:39,920 --> 02:09:42,000
Speaker 1: the guy who sang Paul Simon songs, he could be

2366
02:09:42,120 --> 02:09:45,240
Speaker 1: Arc Garfunkel, a big star all by himself and This

2367
02:09:45,360 --> 02:09:46,960
Speaker 1: made me think about how I could still be the

2368
02:09:47,000 --> 02:09:50,680
Speaker 1: guy who wrote songs and sing them. I didn't need Artie. Peggy,

2369
02:09:50,840 --> 02:09:53,280
Speaker 1: his new wife, encouraged me. She thought it was time

2370
02:09:53,320 --> 02:09:55,920
Speaker 1: for me to leave and do what I wanted. The

2371
02:09:56,040 --> 02:09:58,600
Speaker 1: duo played their last concert as a dedicated team on

2372
02:09:58,720 --> 02:10:03,000
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, nineteen, at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, not

2373
02:10:03,160 --> 02:10:06,000
Speaker 1: far from where they grew up together, and afterwards they

2374
02:10:06,080 --> 02:10:11,240
Speaker 1: reportedly walked to the parking lot, paused, shook hands, and

2375
02:10:11,360 --> 02:10:16,040
Speaker 1: quite literally went their separate ways. He was an unspoken split.

2376
02:10:17,400 --> 02:10:19,960
Speaker 1: Paul placed a call to Columbia Records head Clive Davis

2377
02:10:20,000 --> 02:10:23,000
Speaker 1: at some point around that same time, saying, before others

2378
02:10:23,040 --> 02:10:24,800
Speaker 1: find out, I want you to know I've decided to

2379
02:10:24,840 --> 02:10:27,840
Speaker 1: split with Artie. I don't think we'll be recording together again.

2380
02:10:28,360 --> 02:10:30,920
Speaker 1: Once words spread throughout the music industry, Paul got a

2381
02:10:31,000 --> 02:10:34,600
Speaker 1: call from George Harrison. They'd become friendly after Paul took

2382
02:10:34,640 --> 02:10:37,640
Speaker 1: over his lease on the Blue Jay White House, drawing

2383
02:10:37,720 --> 02:10:42,560
Speaker 1: on his own experience with the Beatles. You know those guys. George,

2384
02:10:42,880 --> 02:10:45,040
Speaker 1: who was then flying high with the success of All

2385
02:10:45,120 --> 02:10:47,760
Speaker 1: Things Must Pass and his worldwide hit My Sweet Lord,

2386
02:10:48,440 --> 02:10:50,920
Speaker 1: urged Paul, to use this opportunity to see what he

2387
02:10:51,000 --> 02:10:53,960
Speaker 1: could really do as a solo performer. Fuck yeah, but

2388
02:10:54,160 --> 02:10:57,720
Speaker 1: Paul he faltered slightly. He began teaching the aforementioned class

2389
02:10:57,760 --> 02:11:01,240
Speaker 1: at New York University, assuming it was to compete with

2390
02:11:01,400 --> 02:11:03,320
Speaker 1: arts mathematics doctorate from Columbia.

2391
02:11:04,080 --> 02:11:04,200
Speaker 10: Uh.

2392
02:11:04,320 --> 02:11:06,480
Speaker 1: This theory is bolstered by the fact that he's quoted

2393
02:11:06,520 --> 02:11:08,960
Speaker 1: as telling a friend in this period, you can't teach

2394
02:11:09,040 --> 02:11:09,600
Speaker 1: someone how.

2395
02:11:09,520 --> 02:11:12,840
Speaker 2: To write a song, yeah, but you can still get

2396
02:11:12,880 --> 02:11:14,240
Speaker 2: paid for Crucially, he.

2397
02:11:14,280 --> 02:11:17,320
Speaker 1: Started going to analysis three times a week and feared

2398
02:11:17,360 --> 02:11:20,840
Speaker 1: that his rural retreat in Bucks County, Pennsylvania wasn't secluded enough.

2399
02:11:20,960 --> 02:11:23,280
Speaker 1: So Paul, I think it's worth saying he was having

2400
02:11:23,320 --> 02:11:26,200
Speaker 1: a breakdown. He's going through something. It's like Paul McCartney

2401
02:11:26,240 --> 02:11:28,600
Speaker 1: going up to his farm in Scotland. The Beatles broke up,

2402
02:11:29,080 --> 02:11:31,480
Speaker 1: but eventually, in the early months of nineteen seventy one,

2403
02:11:31,640 --> 02:11:34,040
Speaker 1: he began work on his self titled post Sarmon and

2404
02:11:34,120 --> 02:11:39,120
Speaker 1: Garfunkle debut, which rules, Oh so good, Duncan check out

2405
02:11:39,160 --> 02:11:41,680
Speaker 1: that song that I love Duncan.

2406
02:11:41,480 --> 02:11:44,520
Speaker 2: Man, That song is so good. Mother and Child Reunion.

2407
02:11:44,920 --> 02:11:46,360
Speaker 2: What Let's just look at this. Let's look at it.

2408
02:11:46,440 --> 02:11:50,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's it's laden with bangers, Mother and.

2409
02:11:51,000 --> 02:11:55,480
Speaker 2: Child Reunion, duncan everything put together. He's got me and

2410
02:11:55,920 --> 02:11:56,440
Speaker 2: me and Julia.

2411
02:11:56,560 --> 02:11:57,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2412
02:11:57,840 --> 02:12:04,440
Speaker 2: Paranoia Blues is really is really completely undersold in his catalog.

2413
02:12:04,600 --> 02:12:08,040
Speaker 2: I also love this album because he got Stephan Grippelli

2414
02:12:08,760 --> 02:12:13,640
Speaker 2: to play violin on Hobo On Hobo's Blues. Stephan Grippelli

2415
02:12:13,880 --> 02:12:16,000
Speaker 2: was a peer of Django Ryan Right and one of

2416
02:12:16,080 --> 02:12:20,880
Speaker 2: the principal architects of what is semi derogatorily or problematically

2417
02:12:20,920 --> 02:12:24,920
Speaker 2: these days called gypsy jazz. They prefer the term jazmine nouche,

2418
02:12:25,040 --> 02:12:26,080
Speaker 2: but that's crazy.

2419
02:12:26,120 --> 02:12:26,240
Speaker 10: Man.

2420
02:12:26,320 --> 02:12:29,440
Speaker 2: He just called up like a seventy something year old

2421
02:12:29,520 --> 02:12:32,000
Speaker 2: jazz legend and was like, hey man, come slap some

2422
02:12:32,080 --> 02:12:35,080
Speaker 2: violin on this song. Like I had not heard that

2423
02:12:35,200 --> 02:12:39,360
Speaker 2: George Harrison thing before. Man, that whips so hard. Hey man,

2424
02:12:39,560 --> 02:12:42,880
Speaker 2: I was chafing under a bunch of unreasonable egomaniacs for

2425
02:12:42,960 --> 02:12:45,280
Speaker 2: a long time. And look at me now, and look

2426
02:12:45,320 --> 02:12:47,440
Speaker 2: at me now on top of the fucking world.

2427
02:12:47,560 --> 02:12:50,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, their relationship is cute. Then they performed on the

2428
02:12:51,080 --> 02:12:54,280
Speaker 1: SNL a few years later, uh, doing homework band together

2429
02:12:54,400 --> 02:12:58,839
Speaker 1: and stuff. Yeah, their relationships, very sweet art. Garfuncle released

2430
02:12:58,880 --> 02:13:03,360
Speaker 1: his solo album Angel Claire on September eleventh, nineteen seventy three.

2431
02:13:04,200 --> 02:13:06,040
Speaker 1: It would hold the title of the worst thing to

2432
02:13:06,080 --> 02:13:08,919
Speaker 1: happen on September eleventh for almost two decades.

2433
02:13:10,480 --> 02:13:10,640
Speaker 4: Uh.

2434
02:13:11,560 --> 02:13:14,720
Speaker 2: Boy, that date just had it out from the start. Huh.

2435
02:13:15,240 --> 02:13:18,320
Speaker 1: Fans have long debated what went wrong between the pair ego,

2436
02:13:18,520 --> 02:13:21,080
Speaker 1: personality differences, artistic differences.

2437
02:13:20,640 --> 02:13:21,080
Speaker 2: Et cetera.

2438
02:13:21,840 --> 02:13:25,520
Speaker 1: But let's get the last word to Quincy Jones. Shall

2439
02:13:25,560 --> 02:13:29,360
Speaker 1: we just why not? Just as an exactly tree. Yes,

2440
02:13:30,200 --> 02:13:33,600
Speaker 1: the relationship was too restrictive, he said. Simon wanted the

2441
02:13:33,680 --> 02:13:37,000
Speaker 1: freedom to move beyond the mostly soothing folk strains that

2442
02:13:37,080 --> 02:13:40,600
Speaker 1: lifted Simon and Garfunkle the superstar status in rock. He

2443
02:13:40,720 --> 02:13:42,640
Speaker 1: heard a whole new world of music in his head,

2444
02:13:42,760 --> 02:13:45,040
Speaker 1: and he wanted to pursue it. There are a lot

2445
02:13:45,080 --> 02:13:49,080
Speaker 1: of factors that comprise great artistry, including passion, musical curiosity,

2446
02:13:49,120 --> 02:13:52,400
Speaker 1: and fearlessness, and the first rule of being an artist

2447
02:13:53,000 --> 02:13:56,000
Speaker 1: is you've got to protect all three. If Paul hadn't

2448
02:13:56,040 --> 02:13:58,880
Speaker 1: left Garfuncle, a piece of an artistry could have died.

2449
02:13:59,600 --> 02:14:00,840
Speaker 1: He did what he had to do.

2450
02:14:02,800 --> 02:14:05,640
Speaker 2: Is that your kicker, that's my kicker. Okay, my kicker

2451
02:14:05,800 --> 02:14:07,760
Speaker 2: is if any of you are in a creative partnership

2452
02:14:07,800 --> 02:14:10,840
Speaker 2: and you find yourself not doing the bulk of the

2453
02:14:10,880 --> 02:14:14,360
Speaker 2: work and still being the bulk of the ego, learn

2454
02:14:14,400 --> 02:14:14,840
Speaker 2: from art.

2455
02:14:15,400 --> 02:14:17,240
Speaker 1: Learn from art.

2456
02:14:17,520 --> 02:14:19,600
Speaker 2: No, that's a terrible kicker. Let me take that back.

2457
02:14:20,600 --> 02:14:23,960
Speaker 2: Rather than going out on a note of richly deserved

2458
02:14:24,080 --> 02:14:27,960
Speaker 2: hate or art garfuncle, I would like to look down

2459
02:14:28,280 --> 02:14:33,919
Speaker 2: to all six inches of Paul Simon and really applaud

2460
02:14:34,040 --> 02:14:35,960
Speaker 2: him for sticking with it as long as he did

2461
02:14:36,320 --> 02:14:39,960
Speaker 2: and giving this albatross around his neck as many chances

2462
02:14:40,320 --> 02:14:44,440
Speaker 2: to make things work as he possibly could. And I

2463
02:14:44,520 --> 02:14:47,560
Speaker 2: have my gripes with the guy, but you know, the

2464
02:14:47,720 --> 02:14:52,280
Speaker 2: art stands on its own, bald one lie scoreboard. Great job, Paul.

2465
02:14:52,880 --> 02:14:56,360
Speaker 1: Maybe all be free of our albatrosses and go on

2466
02:14:56,440 --> 02:14:56,600
Speaker 1: to a.

2467
02:14:56,640 --> 02:15:02,240
Speaker 2: Rich career stealing from those less fortunate from Yes, maybe

2468
02:15:02,240 --> 02:15:04,800
Speaker 2: we all emancipate ourselves from the burden of those who

2469
02:15:04,880 --> 02:15:09,080
Speaker 2: take from us and instead become the taker. The Paul

2470
02:15:09,160 --> 02:15:13,640
Speaker 2: Simon story. This has been too much information. I'm Alex

2471
02:15:13,960 --> 02:15:16,480
Speaker 2: and I'm Jordan, and we'll love you like a rock

2472
02:15:16,840 --> 02:15:22,720
Speaker 2: Next time. Baby, will l condor pesare signing off with

2473
02:15:22,840 --> 02:15:29,520
Speaker 2: some Paul Simon lyrics El condor pasa Uh that's the

2474
02:15:29,640 --> 02:15:34,240
Speaker 2: drum from me and j Yeah, there's also pan flutes

2475
02:15:34,280 --> 02:15:38,600
Speaker 2: on Duncan. Maybe he actually called some Indians on that one,

2476
02:15:38,920 --> 02:15:43,760
Speaker 2: or probably not, though probably just a probably just Argentinian

2477
02:15:43,880 --> 02:15:47,400
Speaker 2: Nazi again because he already had him in the rollodex

2478
02:15:47,480 --> 02:15:54,320
Speaker 2: right saleon silver Birds. We'll see you next time.

2479
02:15:59,360 --> 02:16:01,880
Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio.

2480
02:16:02,160 --> 02:16:05,360
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog.

2481
02:16:05,560 --> 02:16:08,360
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

2482
02:16:08,680 --> 02:16:11,760
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog

2483
02:16:11,840 --> 02:16:12,920
Speaker 2: and Alex Heigel.

2484
02:16:12,760 --> 02:16:15,960
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

2485
02:16:16,320 --> 02:16:18,360
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

2486
02:16:18,440 --> 02:16:21,360
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

2487
02:16:21,400 --> 02:16:24,680
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

2488
02:16:24,720 --> 02:16:25,440
Speaker 1: favorite shows