WEBVTT - "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel: Everything You Didn't Know 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:09.719 Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone, 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.800 and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.440 show that brings you the little known details and secret 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:19.320 histories behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.200 We are your folk rock duos of details, your childhood 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.400 frenemies of facts, your bridges over the troubled waters of Wikipedia. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:29.400 One of us does all the work and the other 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.120 has curly hair, and away with the phrase. My name's 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:33.240 Jordan Roun talk. 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.600 That was a sick birth. Thanks, and I'm Alex Eigel. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:39.080 Yeah. 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.800 Sorry, guys. Hosting schedule has been my fault lately, but 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.920 you know, onward and upward. The only way out is 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.680 through once more, end of the breach, et cetera. Yes, Jordan, 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:50.120 what are we talking about today? 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.920 Buddy oh man, I am so excited today we're talking 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.840 about one of my favorite musical acts in history. Is 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.720 that a cliche take? Maybe, but I don't care. I 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.520 think the quality of their melodies, their harmonies, and their 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.039 poetry has seldom been equalled, and their songs seem to 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.200 mean more to me with each passing year. I'm talking 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.440 about the prototypical sensitive boomer band perfect for staying in 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.600 by yourself and brooding, or sitting under a tree at 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:21.800 recess by yourself and daydreaming, or being in transit by yourself. Basically, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:23.800 if you spend a lot of time by yourself and 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.480 any phase of your life, these guys were excellent company. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.319 I'm talking about Simon and Garfunkle now. To me, they 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.560 articulated a certain kind of romance that came with adolescent solitude. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.880 Along with Brian Wilson rhapsodizing his childhood room and his 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.440 own sense of isolation, this para mythologized the teenager's inner sanctuary, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.399 perhaps better than anyone else in this era. It's a 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.600 home with your thoughts escaping, your music playing, and sometimes 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.280 your love life waiting quietly for you. And if there 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.800 was no love life to speak of, your sanctuary was 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.160 a place where you could seek solace in the silence 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.680 and convince yourself that you were a rock, an island, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.440 a fortress deep and mighty, when in reality you knew 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.000 that you were just an overly sensitive, bookish kid. Heigel, 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:11.280 what do you think of Simon a Garfunkle. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:17.000 I mean they're hilarious, like lol, the hilarity of like 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.440 two of the neediest men in recorded music. Singing songs 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.280 about about how they don't need anyone and they're tough 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:29.840 and their survivors is so endlessly funny to me. Yes, yes, yes, 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.240 I'm a rock I'm a boxer. Also, please be nice 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.680 to me at all costs. No, I mean, look, man, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.320 Paul Simon's one of my favorite artists. I am sure that, like, 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.680 because I acknowledge his ass hattery, it may come across 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:47.520 as not that one. 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.280 It's so hard with him even I'm gonna have to 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.520 like take shots in this episode. And I love him. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.399 I think he's I mean, honestly, I know Dylan probably 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.440 got there first in terms of, you know, rewriting the 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.600 rules of the music industry as far as like making 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.880 songwriters composers a thing and disrupting that whole flow and 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.760 XYZ and everything else that Dylan gets credit for. But like, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.040 Paul Simon is above Dylan for me because his lyrics 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.919 are on par and frankly like I think a little 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:18.639 less caricature role. 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:19.960 Yeah, very much so. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.799 Yeah, his highs are like similarly high and his lows 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.440 are not as low as like God gave names to 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.919 all the animals or any of the other like outtakes 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.280 that are not even I think that's on the record. 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.400 It's not an outtake or any of the stuff that 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.960 like Dylan, people want to ignore when they're filating him. 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.680 Paul is a once in a generational talent, and because 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.760 not only is he an incredible guitarist, he writes these 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.040 beautiful melodies. His own voice is incredible, you know, and 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.360 regardless of how much of a little pisser he is, 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:57.160 like he did open so many people's eyes to so 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.240 many other forms of music around the world, and that 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.240 is like the most checkered part of his legacy that like, yeah, 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.000 he treated some of these people poorly and made some missteps, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.360 and like those are not to be taken lightly, of course, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.200 but also like people heard this from him in a 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.320 lot of cases, you know, and I think that is 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:18.880 you can't take that away from him, for good or bad. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.719 And like, yeah, man, I go to sleep crying to 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:27.280 American Tune sometimes, like what about it? That's how I 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:28.440 feel about Booke NDS. 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.039 I was going to try to quote from it in 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.440 this episode, and I even just typing the lyrics out, 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:34.960 I got choked up. I was like, oh, I can't, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:36.159 I can't speak. 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.680 These Graceline that does that to me, like I don't understand, 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.240 Like like the fact that like you can call me 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.920 al is like such a memorable song, like the most 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.000 like gutting lyrics that I've Like, I why am I 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:49.640 soft in the middle of the rest of my life 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.480 so hard? That's I mean, yeah, the whole song is 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.240 like I don't want to end up a cartoon in 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.960 a cartoon graveyard. Like if that doesn't dig at you 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.880 at a certain point, then and I'm just going to 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.760 assume you have no interior life or capacity for introspection. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.240 I feel as though so many of his songs and 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:09.880 it's sort of how I feel about some of Brian 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.000 Wilson's songs too. You appreciate them more with each passing year. 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.240 Yeah, And that is like a form of emotional clairvoyance. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.920 It is truly, like very few people possess that as writers. Yes, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.280 And for him to be kind of up there is 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:28.880 not It's also not to be taken light. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.599 Linth There's a guy I know, a journalist. I should 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.599 be nice because I do know him, but he wrote 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.000 an op ed for NBC News a couple of years ago. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.880 He's a big Dylan guy and he said something about 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.880 how Paul Simon will be The headline was something like, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.840 Paul Simon sold this catalog to Sony for millions, he'll 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.320 still end up a historical footnote to Dylan. And people 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.920 went like that piece became a headline on like TMZ 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:57.000 and Slate like all these other places because people were furious. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.560 Yeah, I mean, you know, Bob Dylan doesn't need any 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.719 more shooters. Yeah, like Paul Simon. You know, Paul Simon 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.680 doesn't either. Let's be frank. I mean he's like a 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.919 ruthless little power broker and richer than you know, crecious. 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.360 But like, that's a stupid take. That's a dumb take. 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.559 Sorry guy. Also, we're all gonna end up in side 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.240 notes in history. The country has like fifty years left 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:25.760 top Uh. All of that said, I rarely, if ever 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.440 listened to Simon and Garfuncle on purpose. Interesting, I grew 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.279 up the son of Boomers. Yeah, I heard all of 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.800 these songs by Osmosis, and I would simply rather listen 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.240 to Paul Simon at this point in my life. I 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.159 also hate the song Feeling Groovy. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:41.760 I get it, I get it. 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.880 That pushes me into like near inarticulate rage. And I 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.720 would much rather listen to Paul Simon flex all of 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.200 his chops at once than like have him be constrained 0:06:53.240 --> 0:07:00.120 by this tall dweeby egomaniac ginger beta male Garfum who 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.159 has a lovely voice, but scoreboard like ball, don't lie, baby, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:05.880 where is your career? 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:06.520 My pal? 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.400 You're like a big He's a big book reader. I'm 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.160 told that's what he's been sitting on his ass and 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.520 like doing with his residuals for like the past forty years. 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.200 Is like he like writes about the books that he reads. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.040 Yeah, his memoir, if you could call it that. I 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.200 had to read it for work and we were going 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.040 to review it, and I was like, I don't know how. 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.040 It's like riddles and lists of books. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.480 Yeah, I mean, you know, I like the songs off 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.400 this record, obviously, Like there are great songs, but there 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.640 are Paul Simon songs. Sorry, ark harmony singers are not 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.880 in short supply, as it turns out, And you know, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.120 all these songs are great and you can hear all 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.440 the evidence of their genius in all of the songs 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.000 Paul Simon wrote without him, So I don't have any 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.160 particular nostalgia explicitly for this band. And if I'm being like, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.400 if I want to dig another level deeper, I find 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.800 this particular brand of like Cardigan folk to be the 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:06.120 absolute needier of that genre. Like I obviously, and look, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.400 I'm fully admitting this. I'm sitting here as a guy 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.640 with tattoos who really like inside Lewin Davis, and like, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:13.640 of course I'm gonna be like, well, I like Dave 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.120 van Wrong because he's more authentic. I realize him walking 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.600 into a trap of self parody when I say that, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.560 But it is like the most illustrative thing that I 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.920 can describe about this is Dave van Wrong talking about 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.760 when Simon and Garfuncle would go in and with their 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.680 little like little teing renaissance harmonies be like hello darkness, 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.120 my friend, and just the whole coffee house would just 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:36.400 burst out laughing at them. 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:37.480 I'd never heard that. 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.800 Yeah, that's that's in some documentary somewhere of just him, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:46.200 of everyone being like, oh, like, come off it, I 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.760 you know whatever, I get it. So but sorry, I'm sorry, 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:54.800 I'm that guy. I'm that cliche. You know, Art's got 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:55.640 a great voice, he. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.160 Does, but I know you're your preferred version of Bridge 0:08:58.559 --> 0:08:59.439 lays elsewhere. 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.199 Yeah, I mean, honestly, dude, you've got a great voice, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.680 but also Aretha has a better one. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.319 Ah. 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.560 Yeah, that's my version of Bridge over Troubled Water. I mean, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.800 like she it's a complete, like almost rearrangement of this song, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.160 and it's got to practically a new song. But I'm 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.800 also like, yeah, cool high notes, man, you know, like 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.079 other people can do that, right, Maybe you shouldn't have 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:22.800 been such an. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:24.400 Well. 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:25.840 I mean, I think I mentioned this on a lot 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.480 of episodes. My parents kind of went out of their 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.280 way to not force the music of their youths onto me, 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.360 So by and large I found a lot of my 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.679 beloved boomer music on my own. I kind of, I mean, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.199 I hate to use this expression, but I kind of 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.560 came to it, honestly. But there were a few artists 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.040 who they kind of intimated to me were important and 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.439 worth paying attention to. And the Beatles were obviously one, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.080 and pet Sounds was another, and obviously these guys, and 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.560 I think, perhaps more than anything else, for me, the 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.439 music of Simon and Garfunkl introduced me to, for better 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.400 or worse, the concept that nostalgia part of this was 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.040 undoubtedly how much their music was tied to boomer documentaries 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.160 and movies and other media. But I think it's more 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.720 than that, and I think we kind of touched on 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.200 this earlier. A huge part of their brilliance is that 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:18.520 for me, they provided nostalgia in real time. Like I 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.720 grew up watching The Wonder Years on Nick at Knight 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.000 and it's one of my favorite shows. And to me, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.840 the music of Simon and Garfunkle was like Daniel Stearns's 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.640 voiceover narration as the adult version of the main character, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.000 Kevin Arnold. The poetry in Simon and Garfunkle, to me, 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.679 was like a voice from the future urging you to 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.720 preserve your memories because at the end of the day, 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.480 that's all that's left you. And I mean, to me, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.959 the definitive Simon and Garfunkel song is Bookends. It's a 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.679 fragmentary piece about a time of innocence and confidences in 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.360 all of our lives. And so to hear that in 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.400 what would I've been seventh grade, like twelve, thirteen, fourteen, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.200 I don't know, it kind of instilled this sense of 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.240 appreciation of this moment in my life that I knew 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.319 was special, and I knew was fleeting, and it was 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.000 kind of it gave me that awareness in that moment 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.439 to kind of hold on to it as much as 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.160 I could and really savor it, which is to me 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.480 a huge gift of Simon and Garfunkel's music. 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:25.280 I got that with Kiss No No, I mean, yeah, man, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.480 But again that's Paul Simon. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.760 Right, yeah, okay, yeah, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.360 mean's you know what it is though, that you forget 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.959 how young. I think we have this quote in here 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.160 somewhere where Paul Simon he's given an interview on Alec 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.000 Baldwin's podcast, and he's like, he said it slightly less 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.440 egotistically than I'm about to paraphrase. Yeah, it's crazy how 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.280 much I wrote in like three years. The Simon and 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.319 Garfunkle period was like nineteen sixty five, mid mid to 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.640 late nineteen sixty five, t like early nineteen sixty nine. 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.280 There's an innocence to those songs that I think. 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.680 But let's not you know, Credence nailed out three albums 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.960 in a year, and those albums have are like wall 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:07.600 to wall bangers, So let's dial it. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.120 Back bangers, Yes, but I think lyrically speaking, and I'm 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:13.360 not even really a lyric guy. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.880 Okay, does does Paul Simon have a riff that gets 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.880 placed in every single piece of media about the nineteen sixties? 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.240 I mean probably sounds silence Missus Robinson. 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.959 Yeah, shut up, all right, you're right. I can see 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.679 I like Cecilia. I like Cecilia. It's cool. I like 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.240 this p It's like proto Beatman cool whips. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:33.800 Yeah it does. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.600 Yeah, it does. I wonder if Art did that. 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.120 No, no he didn't. No. To all this being said, 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.760 we're not talking about Bookends, which is my favorite Simon 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.480 a Garth funk, but we're talking about Bridge over Troubled Water, 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.600 which turned fifty five earlier this year. I have to 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.920 be honest at the risk of sounding like a hater. 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.920 I know the title track has been embraced by millions 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.760 as a modern hymnal. It's not one of my favorites 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.839 of theirs. It's sort of how I feel about Imagine 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:00.760 and to a lesser that let it be. 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:05.640 Wow, I just engine sucks. Okay, Yeah, Imagine sucks. I'm sorry, Like, 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.480 you can't divorce that song from its hypocrisy, or it's 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.679 like I just don't like it as a sound. Profound 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:18.280 thoughts for babies, like lyrical engagement level. Let it be 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.360 at least as a cooler vocal performance. 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.120 Yeah, it does a guitar sol. 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.080 I wouldn't say anybody who tries to sing let it 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.400 be because they think it'll be fun and or easy. 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.080 You are in for a hell of a ride on 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:36.320 that chorus, my foolish friends. This album is yeah, No, 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.679 there's incredible. There's incredible songs on here. I like Bridge 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.400 Over Trouble as a song. As a composition, I mean 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:47.400 that melodies so again, melodies just a beautiful, lilting melodies. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.800 Not one of my favorites. It's weird. I know, it's 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.400 like one of those ones that I know is an 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.520 important song with a capital I and a capital S. 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.160 But to me, it's it's a little too sweet for me. 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.160 It's a little too soccer and it's churchy compared to 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.600 some of their other song. I mean, it's still obviously 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.880 gorgeous song, but but yeah, I mean the story behind 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:09.960 it is incredible. The album it's off of which we'll 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:15.200 talk about. Everything on the album is amazing. Yeah, Heigel 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.960 is a hard out, so we should probably dive in 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.360 no fact teasers for you on this episode, folks, here's 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.680 everything you didn't know about Bridge. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.040 Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:33.680 Wow I called this section taken it to the Bridge 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:34.720 the early years. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.000 There are so many great Bridge puns in here. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.240 Those are all for you. Yes, before we go any further, 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.520 we should give a brief recap of Simon and Garfunkle's relationship, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.280 because that'll make the pettiness of their squabbles just so 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.680 much richer. Unsurprisingly, Simon and Garfunkle, we're childhood friends, or 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.400 more like childhood frenemies. They met as classmates growing up 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.200 in Queen's and Paul Recount's meeting Art in the fourth 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.840 grade in a school auditorium while waiting for the buses 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.640 to come and to pass the time, they held an 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.640 impromptu talent show. Art stood up and sang and blew 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.320 everyone away with his version of Too Young, which had 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.280 recently been a hit for Nat King Cole, and Paul, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.560 who was the son of a musician himself, was struck 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.680 both by the beauty of Art's voice and the impact 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.520 it had on girls. Art and Paul became closer when 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.160 they were cast together in a school production of Alice 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:31.160 in Wonderland. Simon was the White Rabbit and Garfunkel was 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.960 the cheshire Cat. The casting is incredible. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.040 I just want to note that too Young is indeed 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:38.400 what you think it's about. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.520 But it's sung by a fourth grader, so that's endearing. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:47.160 It was later covered by Michael Jackson. Really Oh no, oh, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:49.560 I mean it's about it's about they say we're too 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.360 young to like go steady, we're too young for this relationship, 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.080 blah blah blah. But when I was just wiki and 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.560 I was like, Michael Jackson released a version later, I 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.480 was like, as a bye hole, it was young Michael. 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.120 It was Michael in seventy three, So I guess that's fine, Okay. 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.080 Paul and aren't used to sing together after school, honing 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.480 their vocal blends somewhat obsessively. They used to sing in 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.000 such close proximity that they were able to study how 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.640 their tongues touched the roof of their mouths and formed words, 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.720 so that they could really really tweak that harmony. 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.560 That harmony singing is actually really interesting to me because 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.960 whether they were doing this knowingly at the time, that's 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.160 like indigenous folksing. Oh well, yeah, it's in a talking 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.160 head song. It's in naive melody, like singing into my mouth. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.880 And that's I believe David Byrne has at some point 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:39.680 been like yo, I was like reading a book about 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.119 like folks singing and like various indigenous like singing practices, 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.360 and that was like a thing that certain cultures do 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.640 where they're literally like they just they use each other's 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.640 mouths as resonating chambers. And it's like it's actually, that's 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.040 actually like you know, diseasive side, like it's a post 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.160 COVID world, but like it's actually like very intimate and 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.760 very I think, quite beautiful actually you know, oh yeah 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:04.640 and really and yeah that's man. That's how you get 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.440 good at harmonies is by eliminating. You know. The thing 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.119 that I always like to that I always compare with 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.480 harmonies is like the band versus like the Beach Boys 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.720 or the Beatles, where it's like you have, you know, 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.439 these these wide harmonies with the band where it's like 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.000 they're not agreeing on phrasing, they are not agreeing on 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.119 vibrato length, they are not agreeing on even the right 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.119 way to pronounce words. Sometimes but they're just still so 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.240 in sync that it works, and it's a value neutral approach, right. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.280 But like close harmony singing is much harder because you 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.639 do have to like literally align your phonemes. Because I 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:39.560 don't know if anyone's taken singing lessons or anything, but 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.359 like specific vowel sounds need to be placed at specific 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.760 parts in your mouth to get them to come out 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:46.840 with a certain amount of resonance and with a certain 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.360 amount of uh, with the right air control behind them 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.560 to keep them on pitch. So, like getting to that 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.200 degree of indistinguishable between two people actually singing is something 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.000 that is like, yeah, man, you see it in like 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.280 indigenous tribes and brothers and these two were like, let's 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:03.840 just go to the basement and hammered out. 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.239 Yeah, I was reading something about I'm sure it was 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.520 through the Beach Boys, because that's obviously one of my 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.040 other great loves. But how siblings who sing together are 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.720 able to achieve a level of harmony singing that others 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.760 can just by virtue of the fact that just micro 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.119 pronunciations and not to mention just the resonance of the 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.359 vocal cords vibrating in such a similar way yeah, it's interesting. 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.399 Oh yeah, he's it was a picture of Eskimos that 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.160 he had seen David Burne. Yeah, this is from eighty 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.480 eight Rolling Stone interview. He said he had seen a 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.320 picture of Eskimo's throat singing and doing it like right 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:42.359 into each other's mouths. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:44.240 I wonder if there are videos of that on YouTube. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:45.919 I've never seen that. I'd like to see that. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:47.480 Probably. That is interesting. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.600 Well, one afternoon, while Paul and Art were singing into 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:53.920 each other's mouths trying to recall the lyrics to the 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.800 Everly Brothers Hey Doll Baby, the fifteen year olds accidentally 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.840 stumbled onto words for an original song written in under 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.200 an hour and it kind of sounds it. Hey Schoolgirl 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:09.640 became their party piece, performed at amateur stages across Queens. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:20.639 Your Mind, Your Mind in the second row the teachers 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:27.919 looking was the way down, he said, Bah, let's. 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:33.119 Meet I do that. The enterprising teams sought a record 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.320 deal and decided to record a demo that they could 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.399 hand out to executives because performing in offices in the 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.840 Brill building was just too awkward. Basically and in a 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.960 movement seems straight out of the movies. A promoter named 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.879 Sid Prosen happened to overhear their demo session and offered 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.920 to sign the pair on the spot, but they feared 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.000 their given names were quote too ethnic sounding to play 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:59.400 in Middle America, so they picked flashy showbiz pseudonyms. Arcarf 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.000 Uncle said on Tom Graff, a reference to his love 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.240 of mathematics and his habit of making the chart position 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.040 of his favorite pop songs on graph paper. Paul Simon 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.560 christened himself Jerry Landis, after the surname of his then girlfriend, 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.679 Sue Landers. It's so funny. Jerry Landis doesn't sound like 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:20.240 a stage name now, No. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.240 It sounds like one of John land murderer John Landis's 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:24.040 extended family. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.560 Together, they were Tom and Jerry, obviously. After the cartoon, 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.840 their new manager slipped DJ Allen Freed two hundred bucks 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.480 to play Hey Schoolgirl on his influential radio program, where 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:41.320 it quickly gained traction. Alan Freed famously went down for 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.600 the payola scandal a few years later. But he's also 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.720 the guy who is credited with coining the term rock 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:53.080 and roll, although that's probably not actually true but or stolen. Yeah, sure, 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.280 Hey Schoolgirl by Tom and Jerry got the number forty 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.800 nine on Billboard, and they even napped a spot on 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.080 American Bandstand and alongside Jerry Lee Lewis. So you've got 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.879 like fifteen year old Paul Simon sharing a stage with 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.440 Jerry Lee Lewis, which is incredible. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.040 I must have scared the shit out of it. Did Yes, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:12.440 it did. 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.240 Paul and Art's success made them legends in their neighborhood, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.920 but Paul's teenage in security was made infinitely worse by 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.960 constantly being paired with Art, who was taller, more handsome, 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.879 and had this angelic voice. Years later, Paul would recall 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.240 Art saying during a photo session, no matter what happens, 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:31.840 I'll always be taller than you. 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:38.840 That is all. That's awful, that's iconic, that is apex 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:39.600 level petty. 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.040 And also they're like fifteen, So that's not like strictly true, 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:45.000 but it was, but it was. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:45.600 It was. 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:50.440 Yes, Simon was so insecure that he stopped growing. He 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:51.480 was so anxious. 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:53.520 Oh. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.760 Garfunkle meanwhile, was battling insecurities of his own. He was 0:21:57.840 --> 0:21:59.919 rarely comfortable in his role as a teen pop star. 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.240 He would say, it was all over my head. I 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.439 never would have done it. If Paul hadn't pulled me along, 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.359 I was too fearful of the competitive adult world of 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.760 rock and roll. After earning two thousand dollars in royalties 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.480 from Hay school Girl Art, put it in the bank 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:17.960 and resumed his studies to enroll at Columbia University. Paul 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.640 Simon meanwhile doubled down on the life of a young 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.199 rock star. He took his share of the royalties and 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.920 bought a fire red Chevy and Pollock convertible. 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:27.840 Yes. 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.480 He also quietly inked a solo side deal and started 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.160 recording under the name True Taylor. He wrote a song 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.680 with his father, Lee, who he mentioned earlier was a musician. 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.440 He was a bassist and dance bandleader, and the song 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.240 they wrote was called true or False And to hear 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.439 it now, maybe I'll splice it in. It sounds like 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.520 a song that a kid in the fifties would write 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.560 with his dad. The lyrics consist of questions put to 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.439 a potential love interest. Do you like to call me 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.800 on the telephone? Are you excited to make a date? 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.960 Are you sad when I go away? Terrible? 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:06.200 Is he talking to a dog? 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:22.200 He acted, gentleman, Uncle, Please an answer as you acted 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:29.040 Jimble last way, please answer Afons. 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:34.280 But the name True Taylor would prove ironic because when 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:38.320 Art Garfunkle learned of his musical partners extracurricular endeavors, he 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.439 took it as a serious betrayal. Things got even uglier 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.360 when their parents got involved, creating tension between the neighboring families. 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:48.280 And in Art's memoir he said that his friendship with 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.760 Paul had been quote shattered. And this was nineteen fifty eight. 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.720 This was many years before Simon and Garfunkle. He already 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.640 said that their relationship was shattered. This whole True Tailor's 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.320 Side Deal incident would be a sore point between them 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.080 for decades to come, establishing a pattern of distrust and 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:13.399 ego blows that would underscore their entire relationship kind of 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.280 to this day. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:19.880 don't think Paul did anything that egregious, but karma came 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:22.680 from young Paul Simon. In the midst of the True 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:28.520 Tailor fallout, Paul's Prize Chevy and Paula exploded. He was 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.680 cruising through Queen's one night and a freak electrical accident 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:35.640 caused the car to overheat, smoke billowed from under the hood, 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:39.040 and the terrified team barely managed to escape the vehicle 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:44.000 before it burst into flames just outside the Garfunkle's house. 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:47.440 He like looks up and arts slowly closes a curt 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:51.840 non everything in Rosemary's Baby or something. He's like, I 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:54.760 did that, arguably even worse. 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.439 Paul Woul ultimately become extremely embarrassed by these early songs 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:00.240 in the wake of his career as you know, way 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:04.159 serious voice of a generation songwriter. He even went to 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:07.479 court in nineteen sixty seven to successfully block the release. 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:11.040 Here's a I think really good even though I know 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:14.280 it is objectively bad song released under the name Jerry 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.760 Landis in nineteen sixty two called there Goes the Lone 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.400 teen Ranger, which basically parodies the Lone Ranger TV show. 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:26.320 The bopp. 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:28.240 Relay, the. 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:34.840 The Launting Rangers. 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:38.320 This same soul I can't get at and you know 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:43.119 who's to blame. It's the naughty rangel Jane around. My 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:44.960 girlfriend's not the same. 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:49.440 She even kiss the TV said, Oh, it's. 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:51.840 A crying shame goes He Goes. 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:56.159 Bank Bank lo Ranger. 0:25:57.720 --> 0:25:59.440 Yeah, that song sucks. I was going to try and 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:01.200 listen to that good faith, and I didn't make it 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:04.200 all the way through. I respect that, though, man, Like, 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:06.480 no one's entitled to your rough drafts. 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:07.640 Yeah, I agree. 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:09.760 No, that's how I know. That's how like stand culture 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:12.560 works these days. And like you know, obviously we have 0:26:12.640 --> 0:26:15.400 the president of like Kurt Cobating writing in his now 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:18.840 published journals. Please don't publish my journals when I'm dead. 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:24.080 But yeah, man, I respect that. It's like if it's 0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:25.560 like I died, someone went in and found out my 0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:30.160 like dog like logic demos that I made super baked 0:26:30.240 --> 0:26:33.000 in the middle of the night in twenty thirteen, like 0:26:33.520 --> 0:26:34.240 I would haunt you. 0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:37.000 How do you feel about, uh, Paul inking a side 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:40.560 deal while art was clearly not all that into being 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:42.760 a musician and was preparing to go off to college. 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:45.560 Yeah, that's not a bad movie, I dud. Yeah him, 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:48.879 I'd like funny if your loser buddy is like I 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:51.240 would like to go and study books, like and you 0:26:51.400 --> 0:26:54.840 have all this talent literally flowing out of every orifice 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.639 and limb of your body, Like yeah, oh ethic, No, 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:01.960 Paul Simon does me any terrible things later, Let's not 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:04.960 start castigating him for his ethics at this juncture. 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:06.480 Okay, good, I agree with you. 0:27:06.760 --> 0:27:08.840 So based on all of that, Simon and Garfunkle would 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:12.159 not have a meaningful conversation again for years. Art went 0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:14.280 to Columbia and Paul spent time at the Brill Building 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:17.000 with Carol King, another Queen's college student, must be said, 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:20.000 trying to sell demos, which he would later describe hilariously 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:25.040 as fodder for you. Nux is away with words. I mean, yeah, dude, 0:27:25.119 --> 0:27:29.879 great American lyricist. The pair drifted. Simon and garfunk well 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:31.880 not Carol King, drifted in and out of each other's 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:34.040 orbit until they came together in nineteen sixty three as 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:37.040 a Greenwich Village folk act. It was another case of 0:27:37.080 --> 0:27:39.840 putting the talent and music ahead of their own relationship, 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:43.960 which Art admitted was already quote strained. They were signed 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:46.520 to Columbia Records in late nineteen sixty three and recorded 0:27:46.560 --> 0:27:49.359 the album that would become Wednesday Morning, three Am with 0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:52.639 producer Tom Wilson a short time later. The album tanked 0:27:52.720 --> 0:27:54.800 upon its release in the fall of nineteen sixty four, 0:27:54.920 --> 0:27:58.040 selling an abysmal three thousand copies at a time when 0:27:58.600 --> 0:28:01.760 you know any person with a Bone Structure was making 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:04.160 a recording If I Had a Hammer and selling out 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:10.560 Carnegie Hall. Simon went abroad to England and Artie went 0:28:10.640 --> 0:28:13.840 back to school. Then a year later, producer Tom Wilson 0:28:13.920 --> 0:28:16.240 went back and added a twelve string electric guitar part 0:28:16.359 --> 0:28:19.040 and drums and bass guitar to Sound of Silence to 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:21.640 make it sound more like the then trendy folk rock 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:24.960 Sounds of the Birds and the Buffalo Springfield and like 0:28:25.000 --> 0:28:29.000 a rolling Stone. So out of nowhere, Simon and Garfunkle 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:31.719 had a hit on their hands and almost an unwelcome 0:28:32.000 --> 0:28:35.760 interruption for their solo lives. Art and his Precious Little 0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:40.000 Books and Paul's time abroad where he was having sex. 0:28:41.200 --> 0:28:42.960 And he released an album over there too, called The 0:28:43.000 --> 0:28:44.920 Paul Simon's Song Book, which. 0:28:45.040 --> 0:28:45.479 Good for him. 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:47.480 Have you ever heard that? It's a lot of early 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:51.240 like Kathy's Song and Flowers that Ever Bound Fall type 0:28:51.280 --> 0:28:54.360 stuff like stuff on the first two Simon and Garfunkle records, 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:58.120 But it's just him. It's pretty good. It's it's interesting, yeah, 0:28:58.320 --> 0:29:01.320 but I mean it's it's so weird to me that 0:29:01.720 --> 0:29:07.520 Sarmon Garfunkle very nearly never happened had this producer not thought, Okay, 0:29:07.560 --> 0:29:10.600 I'll just take this song and without the knowledge of 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:13.720 the people who wrote it or performed it, just completely 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:18.000 redo it with electric guitar and release it. 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:21.360 Tom Wilson was a genius, ye, I mean, he like 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:23.920 was seeing things that they and hearing things that they 0:29:24.000 --> 0:29:27.640 did not. Yeah, so I'm I mean, I guess is 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:30.160 an artist. I would be somewhat red asked about that, 0:29:30.400 --> 0:29:31.960 but sure he was correct. 0:29:32.280 --> 0:29:34.440 Yeah, but it's just weird to me that they they 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:37.480 had a hit and they didn't know basically, like, that's 0:29:37.600 --> 0:29:39.840 so great, and they had already moved on with their 0:29:39.880 --> 0:29:42.640 lives and then suddenly they were just yoped back together 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:46.240 and you know, you knew it in that lens, it 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:48.480 kind of makes sense. I mean, I'm almost surprised that 0:29:48.520 --> 0:29:50.200 they made as much music as they did in the 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:51.120 next five years. 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:55.880 Sure. Yeah, Well, as you mentioned this, yoking had a 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:59.720 largely negative effect on Paul and Artie's already shaky frente 0:29:59.720 --> 0:30:01.920 of me sh By the end of the nineteen sixties, 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:04.920 creative differences and long held resentments made the union a 0:30:05.000 --> 0:30:08.040 ticking time bomb. They both envied each other's place in 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:11.400 the team. Art resented that Paul got first billing, complaining 0:30:11.440 --> 0:30:14.680 that Simon and Garfunkle sounded like a law firm. Paul, 0:30:15.520 --> 0:30:20.800 having done everything in the band, had the correct opinion, 0:30:21.520 --> 0:30:23.840 which is that he thought the audience saw Art as 0:30:23.920 --> 0:30:26.160 the star because he was the featured singer, and some 0:30:26.280 --> 0:30:29.840 people probably thought Art even wrote the songs. But Artie 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:32.360 knew that Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the 0:30:32.440 --> 0:30:35.400 pair's future. And what's more, he never got over what 0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:36.840 had happened with Tom and Jerry. 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:40.200 You really got mad when that frying paint came down 0:30:40.240 --> 0:30:43.000 on that mouse. That was really just a bridge too far. 0:30:43.160 --> 0:30:44.560 Oh that different Tom and Jerry. 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:49.120 Okay, Art mustering his entire chest to say this in 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:52.600 a trembling voice barely above the snores of a kitten. 0:30:53.320 --> 0:30:59.360 I never forget and I never forget Ooh anyway, Paul, 0:30:59.400 --> 0:31:02.200 for his part, thought that Art was phoning it in. 0:31:03.120 --> 0:31:06.600 He was continuing coursework for a mathematics doctorate at Columbia, 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:11.000 and Paul's rejoinder to that was, Okay, I'll go teach 0:31:11.040 --> 0:31:15.880 a songwriting course at NYU in nineteen seventy love it. 0:31:16.840 --> 0:31:19.000 He felt Art was also a little bit too much 0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:22.080 on the old wacky Tobaccy, which had an effect on 0:31:22.200 --> 0:31:26.920 his vocals and made him less than professional regarding deadlines. 0:31:27.320 --> 0:31:29.520 He showed up late to rehearsals and he wants even 0:31:29.560 --> 0:31:32.560 completely missed a flight to London that forced a sold 0:31:32.560 --> 0:31:35.640 out concert to be canceled. Yeah, I mean sorry, man, 0:31:35.760 --> 0:31:37.720 You know I gotta go ahead and say that, like 0:31:37.960 --> 0:31:41.960 Paul actually gave Garfuncle so much more than he was due. 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:46.000 Because this is also the era when like you had 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:49.440 a hit and then you sent out a band that 0:31:49.840 --> 0:31:53.600 wasn't the actual artist, ye to go capitalize on the 0:31:53.720 --> 0:31:57.160 hit if the artist was not available, like without promo 0:31:57.240 --> 0:31:59.800 photos and from the back of a hall. You know, 0:32:00.160 --> 0:32:02.600 people didn't know that it wasn't the five to seven 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:07.200 Jumpstart boys performing there smash hit Let's get happy together 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:10.680 in a car like so this was already an established practice. 0:32:10.720 --> 0:32:13.120 This happened all over the place. And for Simon to 0:32:13.200 --> 0:32:16.040 be like, I'm sorry, I'm going to pull an audible 0:32:16.080 --> 0:32:18.480 and find another tall guy with a high voice, like 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:24.520 very generous art is infuriating. He's a deeply infuriating human. Jordan, 0:32:24.640 --> 0:32:26.920 this is where you will punch in about thirty seconds 0:32:26.960 --> 0:32:30.520 to a minute of art Garfunkle's studio Chatter, in which 0:32:30.560 --> 0:32:34.680 he waxes poetic on a single take of a song 0:32:35.800 --> 0:32:40.480 from the single Yes, a single vocal take of a song. 0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:44.680 He is hilariously in a reverb chamber. So as he's 0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:47.600 doing this, he's in a big plate reverb chamber, and 0:32:47.720 --> 0:32:51.560 you can hear the this saint of an engineer occasionally 0:32:51.600 --> 0:32:53.840 punching in and going, So, did you want to do 0:32:53.920 --> 0:32:58.960 another take? Should we maybe move on to the next one? Well, 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:02.800 Garfunkle just wax is poetic about the heart and element 0:33:02.920 --> 0:33:05.200 of the song that has now been gotten away from it. 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:08.240 Never it wanted to have air to mix with its 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:13.360 I don't know start. I think I'm starting to hate it, 0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:16.360 but except I know I love it. It's been chased 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:22.120 away somehow, somehow, something wonderful was lurking behind all of 0:33:22.240 --> 0:33:26.360 the pausing and the techno realities of our job. That 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:29.920 here's a classic case of whatever. 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:32.880 Was fertile about the song which I was connected with 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:36.240 about an hour and a half ago, has ground down. 0:33:36.360 --> 0:33:38.479 I can't find well you want to put down one 0:33:38.560 --> 0:33:41.200 take like that will take out all these extra drum things, 0:33:43.760 --> 0:33:46.880 something like starting from the beginning feels like the right 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:50.280 thing to do, because it is it seems to me 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:54.520 to be tremendously respected. What does the singer feel like 0:33:54.720 --> 0:33:58.320 singing it at? Where since he knows his own chops, 0:33:58.840 --> 0:34:01.920 will he be pacing most naturally? And then the rest 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:03.240 is for you to say, I see the kind of 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:05.400 record that would lead to. But let me try something 0:34:05.480 --> 0:34:08.160 and then I'll take direction. But first I would think 0:34:08.239 --> 0:34:10.800 comes this fat, fabulous. 0:34:10.360 --> 0:34:14.440 Thing called what comes natural, which is really to be respected. 0:34:15.640 --> 0:34:18.400 I think we should move on, and we have. 0:34:18.760 --> 0:34:21.440 The way I sang the opening is a good interpretation. 0:34:21.600 --> 0:34:24.000 It's it's very close to the mic and easy. It's 0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:26.360 not pushed at all, but it's a good way to 0:34:26.440 --> 0:34:29.080 record me. It's one of my sounds, and I think 0:34:29.320 --> 0:34:31.040 it worked good on that take, and that's a good 0:34:31.200 --> 0:34:32.480 frame of reference. 0:34:32.120 --> 0:34:37.719 As a vocal. Let's move on, Okay, let's move ahead. 0:34:37.440 --> 0:34:41.239 More light footedly anyway. One incident that Jordan feels worth 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:45.040 highlighting is recounted in journalist Robert Hilburn's book Paul Simon 0:34:45.400 --> 0:34:48.480 The Life, which comes with the caveat that it is 0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:51.200 a book so packed with gratuitous spawning over Paul and 0:34:51.520 --> 0:34:54.320 cheap potshots at art that one could assume it was 0:34:54.360 --> 0:34:56.880 originally supposed to be a ghost written Paul Simon memoir. 0:34:57.040 --> 0:34:59.320 Have you read it? I have not. It's pretty egregious. 0:35:00.480 --> 0:35:02.640 In the wake of the gargantuan success of the Graduate 0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:05.200 soundtrack in nineteen sixty eight, Simon and Garfunkle were booked 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:08.320 to play prestigious gig at Boston's Symphony Hall. Their manager 0:35:08.400 --> 0:35:10.600 hired a private plane for them as a treat, but 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:15.120 Artie wanted to hitchhike to quote the book that made 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:17.600 everyone else nervous, because then something could happen and he 0:35:17.719 --> 0:35:20.680 might not get to the show on time, but Garfunkle insisted. 0:35:21.160 --> 0:35:24.000 On the day of the concert, Garfuncle headed for the highway, 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:26.759 where a young Boston bound couple in a VW gave 0:35:26.800 --> 0:35:29.279 him a ride. Garfuncle was sitting in the back seat 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:31.799 when he noticed the husband who was driving staring at 0:35:31.880 --> 0:35:35.960 him in the review mirror. Finally, the driver said, uh, 0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:40.000 you look like that singer in Simon and you know 0:35:40.320 --> 0:35:45.520 Simon and the other guy. Garfunkle replied, that's me, Art Garfuncle. 0:35:46.600 --> 0:35:52.120 Somewhere a single spring lily bloom. The driver counter, don't 0:35:52.160 --> 0:35:54.440 kid me. There's no way Art Garfunkle would be hitchhiking, 0:35:54.880 --> 0:35:57.400 and Garfuncle spent the rest of the trip trying to 0:35:57.440 --> 0:35:59.600 convince the couple that he really was the pop star, 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:01.960 but the driver of the car refused to even look 0:36:01.960 --> 0:36:04.440 at Artie's driver's license. When they let him off at 0:36:04.440 --> 0:36:07.160 the outskirts of Boston, Garfuncle gave it one final try, 0:36:07.600 --> 0:36:09.200 give me your name and I'll leave a couple of 0:36:09.280 --> 0:36:12.000 comps for you at the box office. As he drove away, 0:36:12.200 --> 0:36:15.160 the husband snapped, why don't you grow up? It's even 0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:16.800 funnier if he was just give him the classic just 0:36:16.880 --> 0:36:17.760 like few. 0:36:18.560 --> 0:36:21.560 It's gonna do it a Boston Yeah, honk, Why don't 0:36:21.560 --> 0:36:24.279 you grow up? Like? That's a hard one to say 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:25.000 in a Boston. 0:36:24.880 --> 0:36:27.960 Good though, Garfunkle managed to get to Symphony Hall just 0:36:28.040 --> 0:36:31.200 in time for the five o'clock soundcheck, but Simon didn't 0:36:31.360 --> 0:36:32.840 enjoy that kind of suspense. 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:36.040 No thanks on the private jet, I think on it 0:36:36.160 --> 0:36:36.480 sh so. 0:36:37.400 --> 0:36:40.680 Just like art Garfuncle, the eternal Beto male, like in 0:36:40.800 --> 0:36:44.640 a car in the back seat, desperately trying to convince 0:36:44.719 --> 0:36:48.080 people who knew who he was who he was and 0:36:48.360 --> 0:36:52.080 failing and in fact infuriating them. 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:55.480 Yes, the process believing them. I prefer to think they 0:36:55.600 --> 0:36:57.280 just left him on like a toll plaza. 0:36:58.000 --> 0:36:59.440 He hitched him out of the car. It was like, 0:36:59.520 --> 0:37:01.040 get out of it here, not Art. 0:37:02.239 --> 0:37:04.400 That's why I included a ancdote. I just love it 0:37:04.520 --> 0:37:07.879 so much. But the main fissure in Paul on Art's 0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:11.080 relationship occurred in late in nineteen sixty eight, when director 0:37:11.120 --> 0:37:13.320 Mike Nichols, who'd worked with the pair on the Graduate, 0:37:13.840 --> 0:37:17.120 offered them both roles in his next project, an adaptation 0:37:17.239 --> 0:37:20.560 of the book Catch twenty two by Joseph Hiller. Art 0:37:20.680 --> 0:37:24.080 was cast as Captain nately Well. Paul was initially approached 0:37:24.120 --> 0:37:27.600 to play the character of Dunbar. Naturally, we were thrilled. 0:37:27.719 --> 0:37:30.759 Paul recalled to Mojo in twenty eleven. Then, a few 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:33.439 weeks before shooting was due to start, Mike Nichols called 0:37:33.480 --> 0:37:36.160 me up and said, look, the screenplays so long. We're 0:37:36.160 --> 0:37:38.040 gonna have to write your character out, and I guess 0:37:38.120 --> 0:37:40.800 that means ARTI will be out too. I said, no, 0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:42.560 don't take him out just because I'm out. 0:37:42.800 --> 0:37:46.400 What a sweet thing to do for his tall, dorky, 0:37:46.719 --> 0:37:48.880 lame ass friend Annie. 0:37:49.200 --> 0:37:52.520 And Paul added that was the main reason Simon A. 0:37:52.560 --> 0:37:55.440 Garfunkle broke up, But I think we would have broken 0:37:55.560 --> 0:37:58.759 up anyway. All duos do. It's just too hard when 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:01.680 one person does all the the stress is very difficult 0:38:01.719 --> 0:38:05.799 to manage. Art meanwhile, did not see the big deal. 0:38:05.960 --> 0:38:07.919 I think for him, he thought this was his true 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:11.400 tailor moment. He said in a nineteen ninety interview with 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:14.399 song Talk magazine. Our way of working was for Paul 0:38:14.480 --> 0:38:16.800 to write while we recorded, so we'd be in the 0:38:16.840 --> 0:38:18.960 studio for the better part of two months working on 0:38:19.040 --> 0:38:21.080 two or three or four songs that Paul had written, 0:38:21.200 --> 0:38:23.799 recording them, and then when they were done, we'd knock 0:38:23.840 --> 0:38:25.880 off for a couple months while Paul worked on his 0:38:26.000 --> 0:38:28.520 next group of songs. Rather than wait for Paul to 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:30.600 write the next bunch of songs, I went off and 0:38:30.680 --> 0:38:31.279 did this movie. 0:38:32.239 --> 0:38:35.839 Okay, I agree with his justification, Yure. 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:40.360 Moreover, Art viewed himself as the junior partner in Simon 0:38:40.400 --> 0:38:42.840 and Garfunkle, and he saw this as an opportunity to 0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:46.560 boost his standing. In the same song Talk interview, he 0:38:46.760 --> 0:38:49.279 likened it to George Harrison taking on an acting role 0:38:49.400 --> 0:38:53.600 to quote balance out the Lennon McCartney contribution. I thought 0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:55.600 I was gonna help give my side of the group 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:58.200 a little more interest, and I'd be bringing it back 0:38:58.239 --> 0:39:00.399 to the duo after we had our rest from each 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:03.040 other and we go on and make more albums. He 0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:05.319 thought he was gonna up his own popularity and bring 0:39:05.800 --> 0:39:07.880 a new crowd to Simon and Garfunkle. 0:39:08.320 --> 0:39:12.400 Sure, man, But like you know, George Harrison was writing 0:39:12.520 --> 0:39:15.879 songs that were actively being suppressed by the other two, 0:39:16.320 --> 0:39:18.240 and you know you weren't. 0:39:18.440 --> 0:39:21.239 He wrote for Emily Wherever I may find her just 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:23.759 not one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkle songs. But 0:39:24.000 --> 0:39:26.239 he wrote us song Is it really that? 0:39:26.680 --> 0:39:27.000 Is it like. 0:39:29.160 --> 0:39:30.279 Forty seven to one? 0:39:30.680 --> 0:39:34.040 Check me? I feel like there's a second one that 0:39:34.200 --> 0:39:39.799 I don't like even more check me. I think there's 0:39:39.880 --> 0:39:42.279 like maybe one more. But for Paul, getting cast in 0:39:42.360 --> 0:39:44.960 this Hollywood movie was just another instance of him being 0:39:45.080 --> 0:39:48.160 the good looking heart throb. Paul at this stage was 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:52.000 starting to visibly bald and apparently found Art's halo of 0:39:52.080 --> 0:39:56.200 blonde curls enormously annoying. So this was already a tense 0:39:56.320 --> 0:39:58.640 thing that Art was gonna go be a movie star 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:01.120 and Paul was gonna be, you know, locked away in 0:40:01.160 --> 0:40:05.120 the studio with his hair thinning. But then but then 0:40:06.239 --> 0:40:10.359 Art forced him to wait, and that really pissed Paul off. 0:40:10.440 --> 0:40:13.640 There were delays on the Catch twenty two, said in Mexico, 0:40:14.480 --> 0:40:16.840 and it soon became apparent that the three month shooting 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:21.000 schedule was overly optimistic, and ultimately the shoot for Catch 0:40:21.040 --> 0:40:24.760 twenty two stretched into eight months. That's some like Wizard 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:26.279 of Oz delays right there. 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:30.640 Sorry. I'm also just now finding out that Art Garfrinkle's 0:40:30.800 --> 0:40:35.240 cousin is lou Pearlman of one of the biggest Ponzi 0:40:35.280 --> 0:40:38.200 scams in history and founder of the Backstreet Boys and 0:40:38.320 --> 0:40:43.240 n Sync. WHOA, that's okay, that's Barfrenkle was not a songwriter, 0:40:43.440 --> 0:40:46.240 although he did write the poem Canticle as a rewrite 0:40:46.520 --> 0:40:49.720 of a Paul Simon's song for his own debut album 0:40:49.840 --> 0:40:53.520 Oh Yeah. He worked as the vocal arranger for the duo, 0:40:55.080 --> 0:40:57.719 which seems like something he wrote in his own Wikipedia 0:40:57.840 --> 0:41:01.480 as it is unsourced, and is also credited as having 0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:05.520 written the arrangement on the Boxer and creating Voices of 0:41:05.640 --> 0:41:09.640 Old People, which is an audio montage on Bookends. I 0:41:09.680 --> 0:41:11.840 don't even think he wrote this. This is this wiki 0:41:11.960 --> 0:41:14.359 is not even giving him credit for writing that song 0:41:14.440 --> 0:41:16.520 that you said he didn't write for Emily wherever I 0:41:16.560 --> 0:41:18.879 may find her, I mean, I keep looking, but check 0:41:18.920 --> 0:41:19.239 me on that. 0:41:19.320 --> 0:41:19.960 I think it's on. 0:41:21.040 --> 0:41:25.280 I think it's on Parsley Sage, rosemar In Time Ostle Sage. 0:41:27.320 --> 0:41:28.120 It sucks. 0:41:30.440 --> 0:41:32.640 Who's may and you know what it is is I 0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:35.360 don't really like English folk, and there's so much English 0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:38.040 folk in there, like little lilting like let's dance around 0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:38.640 the maypole. 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:41.360 I could see you liking Bert Chance though. 0:41:41.480 --> 0:41:43.480 I do like her. I was literally about to say, 0:41:43.520 --> 0:41:45.520 like I do like Burt Jansch and I love and 0:41:45.600 --> 0:41:48.759 I love Nick Drake. I just have like that pentangle 0:41:49.080 --> 0:41:52.040 like again, if it's dance around the if it's dance 0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:53.400 around the maypole, hard. 0:41:53.280 --> 0:41:56.319 Past, who knows where the time goes? Sandy Danny song 0:41:56.520 --> 0:41:59.480 is gorgeous and there's there's some good stuff there. 0:41:59.320 --> 0:42:01.440 But I know it's you mean for Emily has an 0:42:01.640 --> 0:42:07.799 uncredited it's uncredited on Wikipedia. The song entry itself says 0:42:07.840 --> 0:42:11.120 it was written by Paul Simon. Really, oh wow, song 0:42:11.239 --> 0:42:17.279 by art so he is zero for four hundred. Okay, okay, 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:19.480 she let me find I did have the actual discography. 0:42:21.480 --> 0:42:22.960 Wow, I could have sworn there was one. 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:26.440 Nope. Art did not even grant you that, my friend. 0:42:26.800 --> 0:42:29.520 Oh wow, okay, making it that much harder for you 0:42:29.680 --> 0:42:30.319 to defend him. 0:42:31.040 --> 0:42:36.360 I mean, I agree with you. So the shoot for 0:42:36.440 --> 0:42:39.800 Catch twenty two was delayed from three months to about 0:42:39.880 --> 0:42:44.840 eight and future screenwriting icon Nora Efron profiled the troubled 0:42:44.920 --> 0:42:47.440 production and a colorful piece for The New York Times 0:42:47.880 --> 0:42:51.040 where she detailed disasters ranging from bad food in the 0:42:51.120 --> 0:42:55.680 mess hall to horrible hotel accommodations and problems with telephones. 0:42:56.400 --> 0:42:59.280 Her piece featured a memorable quote from comedian Bob Newhart, 0:42:59.360 --> 0:43:02.080 who was casting film. We make bets on who's going 0:43:02.160 --> 0:43:05.520 to go insane or who's already gone insane. In fact, 0:43:05.800 --> 0:43:08.560 maybe we've all gone insane, and we're all together and 0:43:08.640 --> 0:43:10.279 we don't know it, and we'll go home and my 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:13.560 wife will call Paramount and say, listen, my husband is insane. 0:43:14.040 --> 0:43:16.760 We have no norm here, We have no way of judging. 0:43:18.400 --> 0:43:20.560 Art later admitted that he felt bad for just hanging 0:43:20.600 --> 0:43:23.239 out in Mexico as this production dragged on, while he 0:43:23.320 --> 0:43:26.080 knew that his musical partner was at home growing angrier 0:43:26.120 --> 0:43:28.879 and angrier by the day. He would say. Mike held 0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:30.800 me in Mexico for like four or five and a 0:43:30.840 --> 0:43:33.040 half months, and I should have really said to him, 0:43:33.120 --> 0:43:34.920 you know, you don't need me this long. I've got 0:43:34.960 --> 0:43:37.279 to work in New York City. Call Paul Simon, what 0:43:37.360 --> 0:43:39.560 am I doing down here? I should have said that, 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:42.400 but I was many miles away. And you don't realize 0:43:42.440 --> 0:43:45.279 what you're missing when you're out there. You're not in 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:48.840 knom like I mean, were you in the sheep? 0:43:50.000 --> 0:43:52.600 He would say, so, yes, yeah, yes, yes, I was 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:53.560 in the shop Craft. 0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:57.960 Services was terrible. As production on the film stretched through 0:43:58.000 --> 0:44:00.879 the early months of nineteen sixty nine, Paul Simon found 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:04.720 himself under considerable pressure from Columbia Records chief Clive Davis 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:07.600 to begin work on their next album in order to 0:44:07.640 --> 0:44:10.680 capitalize on the success of the Graduate Soundtrack, the recent 0:44:10.760 --> 0:44:14.759 Grammy win, and the huge sales of their previous album Bookends. 0:44:15.600 --> 0:44:17.879 For a time, Simon de Garfunkle had the top three 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:20.719 album positions in the US, with Bookends at number one, 0:44:21.000 --> 0:44:24.120 the Graduate Soundtrack at number two, and their nineteen sixty 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:27.000 six album Parsley Say Ageos Mary in Time at number three. 0:44:27.520 --> 0:44:28.840 Also known as PSrT. 0:44:29.760 --> 0:44:31.200 Is it no? 0:44:31.960 --> 0:44:34.080 I was like the real heads call a PSrT bro. 0:44:34.840 --> 0:44:38.279 That's really impressive, Like I'm hard. That's crazy to name 0:44:38.520 --> 0:44:42.440 another act who's had the three top albums. I don't 0:44:42.440 --> 0:44:43.520 think the Beatles even did that. 0:44:43.960 --> 0:44:47.600 This isn't definitive, but Bob Newhart had the number one 0:44:47.800 --> 0:44:51.000 and number two albums simultaneously on the Billboard two hundred 0:44:51.080 --> 0:44:53.640 with the Button Down Mind and the Button Down Mind 0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:57.080 Strikes Back. Guns n' Roses had used Your Illusion one 0:44:57.160 --> 0:44:59.759 in two at number one and two respectively in nineten 0:44:59.800 --> 0:45:02.760 ninety one and two thousand and four. Nelly had Suit 0:45:02.960 --> 0:45:05.520 and Sweat at number one and two. But those are 0:45:05.600 --> 0:45:09.400 all double albums or like combined albums, right, I believe, so. 0:45:09.800 --> 0:45:12.840 I don't know if anyone's had three separately released albums. 0:45:13.520 --> 0:45:14.280 That is wild. 0:45:14.520 --> 0:45:15.600 That's a crazy stat. 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:20.960 As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with 0:45:21.080 --> 0:45:23.480 more too much information after these messages. 0:45:28.480 --> 0:45:36.239 Woo, one of the earliest songs that Paul wrote with 0:45:36.320 --> 0:45:38.440 the album that would become Bridge Over Troubled Water was 0:45:38.480 --> 0:45:41.120 the Only Living Boy in New York, one of my favorites. 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:44.360 Originally he pended as a kind of good luck message 0:45:44.400 --> 0:45:47.200 to his old friend Art. He would say, I was saying, 0:45:47.280 --> 0:45:49.120 go do it, go off and do the movie, a 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:53.360 kind of Hey Jude type song. I feel compelled to 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:56.560 mention that Paul Simon is dramatically misinterpreting the meaning of 0:45:56.600 --> 0:45:59.560 Hey Jude, which, as we all know, was written by 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:01.879 Paul mc cart need to cheer up John Lennon's son 0:46:02.040 --> 0:46:05.360 Julian after John left Julian's mom to go be with Yoko. 0:46:06.560 --> 0:46:09.160 Thank you. In order to make the meaning of the 0:46:09.239 --> 0:46:13.359 song slightly less obvious, Paul Simon evokes their childhood alter 0:46:13.520 --> 0:46:16.800 ego in the opening line Tom as in Tom and 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:20.520 Jerry catch your plane right on time. I know your 0:46:20.600 --> 0:46:23.960 part will go fine. In other words, go off, do 0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:26.880 this movie. The role's gonna go great. It's very sweet, 0:46:27.040 --> 0:46:27.960 it's very jalous. 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:28.359 Yeah. 0:46:29.239 --> 0:46:33.120 But despite this encouragement, traces of Paul's own alienation and 0:46:33.239 --> 0:46:36.840 loneliness managed to bleed through. Art would sum up Paul's 0:46:36.880 --> 0:46:39.359 message as I'm the only living boy in New York. 0:46:39.560 --> 0:46:41.680 You used to be the other one, and now you're gone. 0:46:43.400 --> 0:46:47.200 Despite the small hints of jealousy and the lyrics, it 0:46:47.360 --> 0:46:51.400 is undoubtedly a gorgeous song. Artie contributed the melody of 0:46:51.440 --> 0:46:55.560 the backing vocal, later recalling it's us around eight times screaming, 0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:59.360 and we mixed it down very softly. I started getting 0:46:59.360 --> 0:47:01.920 into open math off harmony, which you're describing earlier, in 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:05.239 a very loud, strident way. We were screaming at the 0:47:05.280 --> 0:47:08.120 top of our lungs and inside an echo chamber. I 0:47:08.200 --> 0:47:11.040 remember that day Dylan, Bob Dylan dropped by to visit. 0:47:11.520 --> 0:47:13.480 We came out of the booth after all this screaming, 0:47:13.640 --> 0:47:17.160 and there he was also of note instrumentally speaking. On 0:47:17.239 --> 0:47:19.520 The Only Living Boy in New York is the exquisite 0:47:19.600 --> 0:47:23.320 bassline played by session player Joe Osborne of the iconic 0:47:23.680 --> 0:47:26.680 group of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. He's 0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:30.520 playing it on an eight string bass, and I love this, 0:47:30.680 --> 0:47:33.080 he would remember years later when he tried to play 0:47:33.120 --> 0:47:35.840 it on stage, he couldn't quite do it, and he 0:47:35.880 --> 0:47:38.359 couldn't figure out why he couldn't nail his own part, 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:40.960 And then he realized that his bass part on the 0:47:41.040 --> 0:47:44.160 record had been camped together and was therefore impossible to 0:47:44.200 --> 0:47:44.880 play exactly. 0:47:45.239 --> 0:47:46.719 Yeah, I mean, and this wouldn't have been an eight 0:47:46.760 --> 0:47:49.279 string bass the way that like six string basses exist now, 0:47:49.320 --> 0:47:51.279 this would have been like a twelve string guitar, where 0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:53.960 it's four strings of the bass guitar with another string 0:47:54.080 --> 0:47:56.319 either a unison or tune in octave above it. That's 0:47:56.440 --> 0:47:59.760 crazy because the five string bass and six string basses 0:48:00.040 --> 0:48:04.360 them today didn't really exist until the eighties, seventies or eighties. 0:48:05.880 --> 0:48:08.040 But yeah, I just want to highlight the production on 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:10.520 these albums, man, Like, it's really down to like a 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:13.719 couple of God yes, you know, it's Hal Blaine of 0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:15.640 the Record Crew, one of the most prolific and iconic 0:48:15.719 --> 0:48:19.000 drummers of all time. The aforementioned Joe Osborne, who I 0:48:19.040 --> 0:48:22.080 think the same thing happened in with his baseline on America. 0:48:22.880 --> 0:48:26.000 They also comped together some basslines with that, so you like, 0:48:26.160 --> 0:48:28.600 if you're trying to play those like upper register fills 0:48:28.640 --> 0:48:31.800 that he plays, it's not it's a it's a studio trickery. 0:48:32.760 --> 0:48:36.200 And then Larry Necktell I believe. 0:48:36.320 --> 0:48:37.160 Is also. 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:40.120 Was he also in Muscle Shoals. 0:48:40.440 --> 0:48:42.200 I know he was definitely in the rerec and crew 0:48:42.239 --> 0:48:44.960 because he played on Pet Sounds and all the Beach 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:47.400 Boys studio stuff and Phil Spector's studio stuff. 0:48:47.800 --> 0:48:50.439 I don't know about muscle shoals. No, he wasn't. Okay, 0:48:50.480 --> 0:48:52.400 my mistake, so yeah. And Larry Nekchdel, who was just 0:48:52.520 --> 0:48:55.719 like their utility guy because he's played geys and bass, 0:48:56.320 --> 0:48:57.879 but you know a lot of the other stuff too, 0:48:57.960 --> 0:49:01.719 and especially on these songs, is is Roy Haley Man, Yeah, 0:49:02.040 --> 0:49:06.040 the producer on this. I really like it is crazy 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:09.920 to actually think about what he was doing with these. Interestingly, 0:49:09.960 --> 0:49:12.160 he never had Simon and garfer go on separate mics. 0:49:12.160 --> 0:49:13.759 He only ever had them on one mic. 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:16.279 Well, we talk about this in a bit. There was 0:49:16.320 --> 0:49:19.000 some documentary as watching with him where he would always 0:49:19.080 --> 0:49:23.000 have them sing their parts together on one mic, like 0:49:23.120 --> 0:49:26.160 Everly Brothers style, and then to thicken it he would 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:29.680 then individually have them do their own parts separately. 0:49:29.880 --> 0:49:33.360 Yes, yeah, And I mean like only Living Boy for example, 0:49:34.239 --> 0:49:37.799 is like eight times there's like eight overdubs of them 0:49:37.920 --> 0:49:42.640 singing together in an entire echo chamber, which I think 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:45.640 is very cool. Yeah, but yeah, I mean that's Roy Haley. 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:47.320 Should get a lot of credit with that. Same with 0:49:48.040 --> 0:49:49.880 you know, same with just doing this stuff on Bridge. 0:49:50.840 --> 0:49:53.120 The drum sound on the Boxer that sounds like a 0:49:53.239 --> 0:49:55.880 cannon shot, like, Yeah, a lot of this cool stuff. 0:49:56.280 --> 0:49:58.200 Yeah, the Boxer. For me, the craziest thing is all 0:49:58.200 --> 0:49:59.800 the guitar layers on there. But we'll get to that. 0:50:00.000 --> 0:50:02.239 Oh my god, I know, yeah, there's I think it's 0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:05.520 in here later. But in some interview I think both 0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:09.120 Paul and Art separately said, yeah, it was Simon and Garfunkle, 0:50:09.160 --> 0:50:11.200 but we were really a trio with Roy Halley. 0:50:11.520 --> 0:50:11.960 I mean it was. 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:12.439 Yeah. 0:50:13.640 --> 0:50:17.880 Another song that directly addresses ARTI on Bridge over Troubled 0:50:17.920 --> 0:50:22.000 Water is So Long Frank Lloyd Wright, which is basically 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:25.480 a semi affectionate kiss off from Paul to his friend, 0:50:25.920 --> 0:50:29.320 who was a one time architecture student. Simon later admitted 0:50:29.360 --> 0:50:31.480 in a twenty eleven interview with Mojo, I guess the 0:50:31.520 --> 0:50:34.040 bigger picture was that him flying down the Mexico was 0:50:34.080 --> 0:50:37.759 a disappointment that I was trying to block out, and 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:41.680 the nostalgic refrain to the song I'll remember Frank Lloyd Wright, 0:50:42.120 --> 0:50:45.120 all of the nights we'd harmonized till dawn. I never 0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:50.719 laughed so long. So Long, So Long seems too surrendered 0:50:50.760 --> 0:50:53.600 to the inevitable. As Art would later say, that's a 0:50:53.680 --> 0:50:57.279 wink from Simon to Garfunkle. So long Arty will be 0:50:57.320 --> 0:50:59.839 splitting up next year. You may not know it yet. 0:51:00.040 --> 0:51:02.880 Oh I'm advancing a new theory here, which is that 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:05.440 maybe Art Garfuncle is an idiot. 0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:08.920 Uh. He later said that he had no idea that 0:51:09.080 --> 0:51:11.040 the song was in reference to him. This is what 0:51:11.160 --> 0:51:15.080 I'm yes, this is what I'm yes, yes, uh, he said, 0:51:16.200 --> 0:51:19.360 Paul quote never let me in on that. I find that. 0:51:19.760 --> 0:51:22.560 I find that to be a secretive and unpleasant thing 0:51:22.680 --> 0:51:23.600 to have done. 0:51:23.400 --> 0:51:27.560 To you, because that presupposes a very stoned Art Garfuncle 0:51:27.640 --> 0:51:30.279 sitting around and singing these lines and going, man, it's 0:51:30.440 --> 0:51:33.160 crazy that you used to sing in the in your 0:51:33.239 --> 0:51:37.520 basement with Frank Lloyd Wright, just like me. That's wild, 0:51:37.719 --> 0:51:41.640 and then never addressing that, like not retaking that case later. Yes, 0:51:41.719 --> 0:51:45.480 of course that was But no, I was deceived by Paul. 0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:50.480 He later chilled, saying in the liner notes to a 0:51:50.600 --> 0:51:53.680 twenty twelve compilation that he's able to ignore the unpleasant 0:51:53.719 --> 0:51:56.799 subtext of the song because it's quote just so much 0:51:56.920 --> 0:51:59.960 fun to sing, And he says of Paul that quote 0:52:00.520 --> 0:52:05.040 one loves the giver of a beautiful gift. I don't 0:52:05.080 --> 0:52:09.640 know fine the lyric All of the Nights We'd Harmonize 0:52:09.719 --> 0:52:12.760 Till Dawn is a sweet reflection of their early days together, 0:52:13.280 --> 0:52:15.359 made all the more poignant by the fact that they 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:18.960 don't harmonize on this song, which is kind of heartbreaking 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:21.360 when you think about it. Art sings a solo, except 0:52:21.400 --> 0:52:24.560 when Paul takes a section of the bridge. Architects may 0:52:24.600 --> 0:52:27.719 come and architects may go, and never change your point 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:30.640 of view. I think that's very interesting that Paul takes 0:52:31.040 --> 0:52:35.200 that one line. People come, people go, They don't change 0:52:35.239 --> 0:52:37.680 your point of view. That's I don't know. I find 0:52:37.719 --> 0:52:39.800 it telling that he chose that line out of the 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:41.759 entire song. I don't know if that was strictly a 0:52:41.840 --> 0:52:46.200 musical decision. The pair in general don't really harmonize much 0:52:46.280 --> 0:52:48.880 on Bridge over Troubled Water the whole album in general. 0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:52.360 Unlike the Everly Brothers style harmonies on their earlier records, 0:52:52.560 --> 0:52:56.480 Bridge was a showcase for separate voices. Paul Simon would 0:52:56.480 --> 0:52:59.759 explain in the twenty eleven documentary The Harmony Game. It's 0:52:59.800 --> 0:53:02.640 more like a Beatles record than an Everly's record. You 0:53:02.719 --> 0:53:05.120 knew the two voices and the two characters well enough 0:53:05.160 --> 0:53:07.480 that we could each have our own songs that's the 0:53:07.520 --> 0:53:09.520 first time we did that, and that probably would have 0:53:09.560 --> 0:53:11.600 been the pattern for the next album or two. Have 0:53:11.760 --> 0:53:14.200 we stayed together? And yeah, we talked about earlier about 0:53:14.200 --> 0:53:17.399 their specific way of recording their harmonies, how they would 0:53:17.480 --> 0:53:19.960 gather around one mic and sing together and then each 0:53:20.160 --> 0:53:24.600 double track their vocal part individually afterwards, and Roy Halley 0:53:24.640 --> 0:53:26.720 would say, people would say, why don't you just record 0:53:26.760 --> 0:53:30.279 them individually so you'll have more control, which makes sense 0:53:30.320 --> 0:53:33.640 when you're mixing, but that sounds was never the same. 0:53:33.719 --> 0:53:36.479 They needed to look at each other's mouths and see 0:53:36.520 --> 0:53:39.480 the way that their tongues touch their soft palate and 0:53:40.520 --> 0:53:42.400 really get those phonemes. 0:53:43.280 --> 0:53:47.320 Yeah, those fricatives, it's true elves. Yeah, no, I know. 0:53:47.800 --> 0:53:50.560 And speaking of the Beatles, much like John and Paul 0:53:50.680 --> 0:53:54.920 struggling to make room for their romantic relationships, Paul and Artie, 0:53:55.080 --> 0:53:58.279 Paul Simon and Arc Garfunkle were becoming more involved with 0:53:58.440 --> 0:54:01.400 serious partners of their own. While art was on his 0:54:01.480 --> 0:54:03.480 way to a session for the Bridge Over Troubled Water 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:06.080 track The Boxer in the fall of nineteen sixty eight, 0:54:06.719 --> 0:54:09.440 he was recognized while stepping out of a cab by 0:54:09.560 --> 0:54:12.960 part time actress Linda Grossman, he was recognized. He must 0:54:12.960 --> 0:54:14.600 have been so happy that he was recognized. 0:54:14.640 --> 0:54:15.000 This time. 0:54:16.120 --> 0:54:19.000 Artie was smitten by Linda Grossman and took the bold 0:54:19.080 --> 0:54:22.080 move of inviting her on the spot to the session 0:54:22.120 --> 0:54:25.480 he was going to. He'd say, I was ready, My 0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:28.759 rhythm was already going. I think I asked I think 0:54:28.800 --> 0:54:31.280 I asked her to marry me in the second sentence. 0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:33.560 What a weird thing to say. 0:54:33.800 --> 0:54:36.160 Yeah, and when they split up, he would later insist 0:54:36.239 --> 0:54:37.080 that he never loved her. 0:54:38.120 --> 0:54:43.000 Yeah, okay, like, honestly, anyone please tweeted us right in 0:54:43.440 --> 0:54:46.000 if we're if you think have listened to this episode 0:54:46.040 --> 0:54:48.640 and think that we're being unfair to this guy, Yes, 0:54:49.840 --> 0:54:50.200 come on. 0:54:51.000 --> 0:54:55.040 So Paul wasn't exactly thrilled that art just showed up 0:54:55.239 --> 0:55:00.680 to their session with a stranger. Yeah, I mean that 0:55:00.760 --> 0:55:03.080 makes the whole like John bringing Yoko, who at least 0:55:03.160 --> 0:55:05.880 was known to the rest of the band, seem you know. 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:06.560 Yeah. 0:55:07.680 --> 0:55:11.120 Also, Linna Grossman lived in Boston, and if you have 0:55:11.200 --> 0:55:14.160 an artistic career in New York, it is really hard 0:55:14.200 --> 0:55:17.640 to keep commuting back up to Boston. It's really it's 0:55:17.760 --> 0:55:20.400 it's it's a time suck. It's a money suck. It 0:55:20.520 --> 0:55:24.080 makes it really really hard to keep things going in 0:55:24.200 --> 0:55:27.239 New York, especially if that's where you your your finances 0:55:27.280 --> 0:55:30.279 are and you make your money and all the opportunities are. 0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:34.600 It's really really, really difficult, let me tell you. And 0:55:35.360 --> 0:55:37.840 you know already he was really determined to make that 0:55:37.960 --> 0:55:41.319 relationship work, and he commuted back and forth between New 0:55:41.400 --> 0:55:44.840 York and Boston at great personal expense, I'm sure, and 0:55:44.920 --> 0:55:48.759 tremendous cost to his own sanity. But one of the 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:51.080 downsides of this is that he had even less free 0:55:51.120 --> 0:55:54.880 time to record with Paul, who you'll remember was already 0:55:54.960 --> 0:55:58.160 pissed about the Catch twenty two shoots. So now he 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:00.080 finally had already back and he was going back and 0:56:00.160 --> 0:56:02.520 forth to Boston to be with this rando who stopped 0:56:02.600 --> 0:56:03.840 him on the street and say, hey, aren't you our 0:56:03.960 --> 0:56:06.279 Garfuncle And he was like, you're pretty yes, I am. 0:56:07.440 --> 0:56:10.680 Is presumably how that went down, So now anywhere with you, 0:56:11.320 --> 0:56:15.400 Paul was doubly mad. Meanwhile, Paul, this is quite a choice. 0:56:15.760 --> 0:56:19.080 He was cementing a relationship with Peggy Harper, who at 0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:23.920 the time was married to Simon and Garfuncle's manager mart Lewis. 0:56:25.360 --> 0:56:29.040 Once their relationship heated up, Peggy left her husband, who, 0:56:29.800 --> 0:56:33.080 may I remind you, was Simon and Garfuncle's manager, Mart Lewis, 0:56:33.640 --> 0:56:37.319 and divorced him so she could marry Paul. I can 0:56:37.400 --> 0:56:40.200 only assume this was some kind of weird music industry 0:56:40.360 --> 0:56:44.880 ediple thing. Yeah, marrying your manager's wife is. That's a 0:56:44.960 --> 0:56:48.480 hell of a thing. Paul apparently actively pursued her despite 0:56:48.560 --> 0:56:52.600 his personal friendship and professional relationship with her now ex 0:56:52.719 --> 0:56:57.839 husband mart Lewis, the manager of Simon and Garfuncle, who 0:56:57.960 --> 0:57:01.480 continued to manage Simon and Garfuncle Paul solo after the 0:57:01.520 --> 0:57:07.719 breakup of the duo. This Mort guy. This guy either 0:57:07.840 --> 0:57:11.560 he was extremely open minded about all this, or he 0:57:11.680 --> 0:57:14.200 knew a meal ticket when he saw one. Rather than 0:57:14.320 --> 0:57:17.960 feel that Paul had quote taken Peggy from him, Mort 0:57:18.040 --> 0:57:20.600 said that he was quote relieved about the divorce and 0:57:20.760 --> 0:57:24.720 held no animosity towards Simon when the pair started dating. 0:57:25.680 --> 0:57:27.440 He said he and Simon even had a heart to 0:57:27.440 --> 0:57:30.520 heart conversation, agreeing not to let the matter disrupt their 0:57:30.560 --> 0:57:33.880 business ties, and with that, Paul and Peggy married in 0:57:33.960 --> 0:57:35.600 late autumn nineteen sixty nine. 0:57:36.440 --> 0:57:39.080 Look, Paul, you can my wife, but don't fit the money. 0:57:39.320 --> 0:57:43.320 Let's go to fifteen percent. You want the divorce signed? 0:57:43.640 --> 0:57:44.000 All right. 0:57:46.320 --> 0:57:49.960 Paul probably didn't appreciate already bringing in, you know, just 0:57:50.320 --> 0:57:54.040 some woman from the street, because she was pretty invalidated him. 0:57:54.480 --> 0:57:56.360 I must have that wrong, Like that's from the hell 0:57:56.400 --> 0:57:59.240 Burn book, which is extremely pro Paul. There must be 0:57:59.360 --> 0:58:04.120 something I'm going maybe not maybe not? What's over Linda Grossman? 0:58:07.600 --> 0:58:13.120 What There's a line in his Wikipedia page. I'm so excited. 0:58:15.720 --> 0:58:19.120 Garfuncle has undertaken several long walks in his life. Yeah, 0:58:19.400 --> 0:58:23.640 h writing poetry along the way. Just what a hilarious 0:58:24.160 --> 0:58:25.479 thing to put. 0:58:26.680 --> 0:58:29.560 I think they were like extremely long, Like I think, yes. 0:58:29.600 --> 0:58:32.040 They're like forty miles. They're like it's like a long 0:58:32.520 --> 0:58:35.960 he's marathon walking. Yeah, just like you know, getting all 0:58:36.000 --> 0:58:37.880 the way down there on to personal life. But it's 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:44.560 just he's taken long walks, several long baths. Okay, Sorry. 0:58:44.800 --> 0:58:48.160 So I found a nineteen seventy three Rolling Stone interview 0:58:48.320 --> 0:58:51.960 where our Carfuncle said I invited Linda to the studio 0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:55.280 that night we were working on the Boxer. She was reluctant, 0:58:55.360 --> 0:58:58.120 but she thought she'd try it. She came sat over 0:58:58.200 --> 0:59:00.920 the engineering console with her chin on her wrist, staring 0:59:00.960 --> 0:59:03.960 at me, Paul and Roy for four hours. She was 0:59:04.040 --> 0:59:07.080 going to know everything. I was impressed and flattered. I 0:59:07.240 --> 0:59:09.480 like people who third degree me, who stare at me. 0:59:09.760 --> 0:59:12.480 I feel they're interested. And we went out afterwards and 0:59:12.560 --> 0:59:14.680 I was very charmed and we dated a lot. It 0:59:14.760 --> 0:59:16.640 took us about three years though, before I had the 0:59:16.680 --> 0:59:19.320 courage to ask her to marry me. And the following 0:59:19.400 --> 0:59:22.680 sentence is They divorced in nineteen seventy five, with Garfunkle 0:59:22.760 --> 0:59:24.360 later claiming he never really loved her. 0:59:28.240 --> 0:59:32.600 So wait, why she was a singer. So I was 0:59:32.640 --> 0:59:35.160 going to bring her to the studio to weigh in. 0:59:35.600 --> 0:59:38.600 Was that what he means certainly adds to your notion 0:59:38.760 --> 0:59:41.320 of Paul Simon not being thrilled that a random person 0:59:41.440 --> 0:59:44.400 pulled up and just plopped down at the console. Oh, 0:59:44.440 --> 0:59:48.400 they worked on this song. Who's this again, Artie? I 0:59:48.600 --> 0:59:50.919 just met her in the street. Her name is Linda. 0:59:51.960 --> 0:59:56.040 We had Bob Dylan in here yesterday, arn and I 0:59:56.120 --> 1:00:02.160 didn't listen to him. Yeah, no offense, London. I'm sure 1:00:02.360 --> 1:00:06.760 I'm sure you lovely, I'm sure he never loved you. God, 1:00:08.240 --> 1:00:11.400 sorry to that woman, all right, all right, all right, 1:00:11.400 --> 1:00:11.680 all right. 1:00:12.360 --> 1:00:14.120 The sessions for The Boxer were one of the most 1:00:14.200 --> 1:00:17.520 difficult songs that Simon and Garfunk put together. Sessions lasted 1:00:17.600 --> 1:00:21.760 well over one hundred hours, spread out over Columbia Studios 1:00:21.840 --> 1:00:24.720 in Nashville, New York, and also Saint Paul's Chapel at 1:00:24.760 --> 1:00:28.480 Columbia University. The church had a tiled dome which was 1:00:28.640 --> 1:00:31.680 beloved by the band for the l lailai parts, and 1:00:31.880 --> 1:00:34.240 this created a fun challenge for the engineers, who viewed 1:00:34.280 --> 1:00:36.120 the excursion as a bit of a field trip because 1:00:36.320 --> 1:00:39.840 mobile recording technology was not quite where it is today. 1:00:40.520 --> 1:00:43.040 Simon would recall that the recording for The Boxer began 1:00:43.120 --> 1:00:46.240 in Nashville, where they played with pro session guys like 1:00:46.320 --> 1:00:49.520 Charlie McCoy on harmonica, who played on Dylan's Blonde on 1:00:49.600 --> 1:00:53.120 Blonde on many other things, Pete Drake on pedal steel 1:00:53.240 --> 1:00:56.840 no relation to Nick Drake, the similarly kitten voiced but 1:00:57.000 --> 1:01:01.800 virtuosic fingerpicking British guitarist, and Fred Carter, who played the 1:01:01.920 --> 1:01:05.400 fingerpick and guitar part along with Simon. The first line 1:01:05.480 --> 1:01:07.160 is a lick he wrote while his guitar was in 1:01:07.200 --> 1:01:10.640 a special tuning Simon later said, ever since guitarists get 1:01:10.680 --> 1:01:12.560 their fingers all twisted up trying to play that part 1:01:12.680 --> 1:01:14.600 and they can't because they don't know the tuning, I. 1:01:14.640 --> 1:01:15.280 Won't tell them. 1:01:16.320 --> 1:01:18.760 No, I have the detail on those. Actually, the two 1:01:18.840 --> 1:01:21.200 of us played sitting about three feet apart and completely 1:01:21.280 --> 1:01:23.600 locked into it. We did it over and over until 1:01:23.600 --> 1:01:25.360 we got to take you here on the record. It's 1:01:25.440 --> 1:01:28.320 live on the record. No edits Roy and Lardy were 1:01:28.320 --> 1:01:29.920 in the control room and they were really happy with 1:01:30.120 --> 1:01:34.120 the way the guitars meshed together. That is beautiful. Fred Carter, 1:01:34.280 --> 1:01:37.120 in a two thousand and eight interview with Fred Boord Journal, 1:01:37.560 --> 1:01:40.280 explained it thusly. When we started to record in New York, 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:42.720 I had a baby Martin, it's a smaller bodied model, 1:01:42.920 --> 1:01:45.439 and Paul Simon was playing his Martin a DA team. 1:01:45.720 --> 1:01:49.600 He was tuned regular in standard tuning EADGB E. So 1:01:49.720 --> 1:01:51.480 all I was here in was bits and pieces of 1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:54.000 the songs while he was doing his fingerpicking. So I 1:01:54.080 --> 1:01:56.280 tried two or three things and then picked up this guitar, 1:01:56.400 --> 1:01:59.360 which was about a third above his guitar, and I 1:01:59.480 --> 1:02:01.680 turned the first string down to D and I turned 1:02:01.720 --> 1:02:03.400 the bass string up to a G which put my 1:02:03.520 --> 1:02:06.880 guitar in an open G tuning. He says that Paul 1:02:07.040 --> 1:02:10.479 was in open C at this point, so if that's true, 1:02:10.520 --> 1:02:14.200 what they were essentially doing was playing guitars a fifth 1:02:14.320 --> 1:02:17.240 off of each other, which is very interesting. And that's 1:02:17.280 --> 1:02:19.040 a studio tactic that you do see in a lot 1:02:19.080 --> 1:02:21.280 of places where people will, I think in Nashville as well, 1:02:21.320 --> 1:02:25.640 where you kpo your capo one guitar at the seventh 1:02:25.720 --> 1:02:28.200 threat and then played the same guitar part just a 1:02:28.240 --> 1:02:30.160 fifth hire to thicken the sound. As long as you're 1:02:30.200 --> 1:02:32.880 not doing any kind of really complicated harmonies, it works out. 1:02:33.760 --> 1:02:35.160 And so he said, at the end of the day, 1:02:35.360 --> 1:02:39.000 we were just still on the song on my guitar. 1:02:39.800 --> 1:02:42.560 They had me miked with about seven mics. They had 1:02:42.600 --> 1:02:44.960 a near mic, a distant mic, a neck mic, a 1:02:45.040 --> 1:02:47.320 mic on the guitar hole. They even miked my breathing. 1:02:47.440 --> 1:02:49.960 They micd the guitar in back. Roy Halley was a 1:02:50.000 --> 1:02:52.640 genius at getting around the first time we were listening, 1:02:52.680 --> 1:02:55.080 they killed the breathing mic and they had an ambient 1:02:55.120 --> 1:02:57.680 mic overhead which picked up the two guitars together. So 1:02:57.760 --> 1:03:00.360 I was breathing, I guess pretty heavy in rhythm, and 1:03:00.440 --> 1:03:02.080 they wanted to take it out, and they took it 1:03:02.200 --> 1:03:04.720 out and then said, no, we have to leave that in. 1:03:05.000 --> 1:03:07.000 And it now sounds like an additional layer rhythm on 1:03:07.040 --> 1:03:11.000 the record. So you can actually hear guitarist Fred Carter 1:03:11.120 --> 1:03:13.760 Junior's breathing as part of those guitar tracks. 1:03:13.920 --> 1:03:15.720 I never noticed that. I got to re listen to that. 1:03:15.880 --> 1:03:19.160 He also played telly and twelve string guitar on that track, 1:03:19.400 --> 1:03:23.320 three or four guitars in total, and a six string Doughbro, 1:03:24.480 --> 1:03:26.840 which is like the resonator style guitar that you hear 1:03:26.880 --> 1:03:30.600 in bluegrass music, not on a slide, he says. So 1:03:31.160 --> 1:03:34.720 there are so many guitars on that, which is why 1:03:34.760 --> 1:03:37.920 it sounds magic. And one of that central lick is 1:03:37.960 --> 1:03:41.760 them playing in two different tunings at once. So cool. 1:03:42.680 --> 1:03:44.240 That song I used to always kind of think was 1:03:44.320 --> 1:03:47.760 like long and slow and would skip to like Missus 1:03:47.840 --> 1:03:52.080 Robinson whatever. Although I get the more that's like, that's 1:03:52.160 --> 1:03:54.920 the one that is a magical song. I mean to me, 1:03:55.040 --> 1:03:57.280 it's like the musical equivalent of like cool hand Luke too. 1:03:57.400 --> 1:04:01.680 It's just like that, yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, And 1:04:01.800 --> 1:04:03.320 just I don't know, man, I think I do think that, 1:04:03.920 --> 1:04:05.960 you know Howie deserves like a lot of recognition for 1:04:06.040 --> 1:04:09.439 this he talks about on the Boxer. Also, he put 1:04:09.480 --> 1:04:12.000 the brass and the rest of the voices on the 1:04:12.280 --> 1:04:14.760 end of that, and then he made this decision to 1:04:14.960 --> 1:04:18.320 mix the pedal steel track with a piccolo trumpet part. 1:04:18.800 --> 1:04:21.600 So the pedal steel was recorded down in Nashville and 1:04:21.760 --> 1:04:25.520 this boc esque piccolo trumpet part done in the Columbia church. 1:04:26.720 --> 1:04:29.480 And so he had two remote sessions of these two 1:04:29.720 --> 1:04:32.640 very distinct instruments and bounce them into one track together. 1:04:33.080 --> 1:04:35.200 That's just I love studio magic. 1:05:02.160 --> 1:05:04.960 And it's very much a Phil Specter or Brian Wilson 1:05:05.040 --> 1:05:09.160 technique of putting two instruments together playing the exact same line, 1:05:09.800 --> 1:05:13.960 and the effect is a completely new third sound that 1:05:14.040 --> 1:05:16.200 your brain puts together. I mean, I had no idea 1:05:16.240 --> 1:05:18.320 what that sound was. I thought, I think I assumed 1:05:18.360 --> 1:05:21.120 it was a pedal steel, but there was something off 1:05:21.120 --> 1:05:22.800 about it. I didn't realize that there was a pickle 1:05:22.840 --> 1:05:25.480 of trumpet on top of it. Pickle trumpets what they 1:05:25.560 --> 1:05:28.480 use in penny Land too. It's I mean, it's it's 1:05:28.480 --> 1:05:31.040 a it's unusual to be used in like a country. 1:05:31.120 --> 1:05:32.080 Tinged record like this. 1:05:32.200 --> 1:05:34.840 It's mostly a I mean, you probably wouldn't hear it 1:05:34.920 --> 1:05:37.640 on any rock no poke record unless somebody was trying 1:05:37.680 --> 1:05:46.120 to make it sound annoyingly baroke. Yeah, yeah, like the Beatles. Yes, continue, 1:05:46.280 --> 1:05:48.160 I think you're up. We've got to talk about the drums. 1:05:48.400 --> 1:05:49.439 Oh yes, so sorry. 1:05:49.560 --> 1:05:50.960 That's the other great part of the song. 1:05:51.120 --> 1:05:53.360 So the famous drum beat for the Bronxer. It only 1:05:53.400 --> 1:05:55.640 has one drum part, and it is played during the 1:05:55.720 --> 1:05:59.400 lie live part, and it is an amazing drum part 1:05:59.600 --> 1:06:02.480 because it sounds like the hammer of God. It is 1:06:03.000 --> 1:06:06.880 played by famed Wrecking Crew player how Blaine, who drummed 1:06:06.920 --> 1:06:11.120 on probably ninety five percent of things throughout the nineteen sixties, 1:06:11.680 --> 1:06:14.920 one hundred and fifty top ten US hits, forty of 1:06:15.000 --> 1:06:18.840 which were number ones. He authored the beat that is 1:06:18.960 --> 1:06:21.040 now just called the be My Baby beat from the 1:06:21.160 --> 1:06:28.200 ron Ads. Wouldn't it be nice? I Got you babe, 1:06:28.200 --> 1:06:32.040 mister tambourine man, Agent of Aquarius, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The 1:06:32.240 --> 1:06:36.040 effect of this sound was achieved not by any kind 1:06:36.120 --> 1:06:40.040 of intense like metering of reverb lengths or echo anything. 1:06:40.440 --> 1:06:42.960 Hal Blaine said that Roy Halley would just walk around 1:06:43.160 --> 1:06:45.760 clapping until he found the sound that he wanted, and 1:06:45.840 --> 1:06:47.640 so ultimately he decided to put the drums in the 1:06:47.680 --> 1:06:51.400 studio hallway by an elevator shaft for this maximum reverb 1:06:51.440 --> 1:06:55.640 in echo and Columbia's records hallways were just always known 1:06:55.680 --> 1:06:58.640 as apparently being great sources of echo and reverb. Halle 1:06:58.680 --> 1:07:01.120 would later joke, I bet Barbara Dreyisen's voice is still 1:07:01.160 --> 1:07:05.280 echoing in that hallway somewhere. And so Hal Blaine would 1:07:05.440 --> 1:07:08.200 pound the drums at the well, really just one drum 1:07:08.480 --> 1:07:09.800 snare right In. 1:07:09.880 --> 1:07:12.800 Different interviews, he said snare and tom tom, But I 1:07:12.880 --> 1:07:14.880 mean he was just also super old, so he might 1:07:14.960 --> 1:07:17.720 have I don't know, not to be awful, but you know, yeah, 1:07:17.960 --> 1:07:18.640 I think it was a snack. 1:07:18.680 --> 1:07:20.920 I mean the definitive I think the definitive one is 1:07:20.960 --> 1:07:23.160 the snare, but they might have mixed a low tom 1:07:23.200 --> 1:07:24.640 into it to give it a little bit of body. 1:07:24.760 --> 1:07:28.280 That actually makes sense anyway, so they would be how 1:07:28.360 --> 1:07:30.520 Blaine was just he said, they were all around me 1:07:30.600 --> 1:07:33.160 with all these mike cables, my drums, a set of headphones. 1:07:33.480 --> 1:07:36.120 When the chorus came around the lie Lie bit Roy 1:07:36.200 --> 1:07:37.880 had me come down on my snare drum as hard 1:07:37.920 --> 1:07:40.680 as I could in that hallway by the elevator shaft. 1:07:40.760 --> 1:07:43.200 It sounded like a cannon shot, which was just the 1:07:43.280 --> 1:07:46.240 kind of sound that we were after. Unfortunately, at this 1:07:46.360 --> 1:07:49.120 exact moment, during one take, the elevator doors open and 1:07:49.200 --> 1:07:52.360 an elderly man stepped out, just as how Blaine came 1:07:52.440 --> 1:07:54.520 down on a snare drum with all of the force 1:07:54.640 --> 1:07:58.200 he could summon. It nearly scared him to death. Blaine recalled, 1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:01.320 he jumped back into the elevator, the door and took off. 1:08:01.800 --> 1:08:05.760 We never saw him again. He later died. No, but 1:08:05.880 --> 1:08:08.200 I think I think about his face every time I 1:08:08.280 --> 1:08:24.920 hear the boxer and again like this is again just 1:08:26.120 --> 1:08:31.080 these guys, Hal Blaine, Larry Nechdel, Joe Osborne, engineer, producer, 1:08:31.200 --> 1:08:35.200 Roy Halley. And this was the first Simony Garfunkle album 1:08:35.400 --> 1:08:37.640 that credited these back musicians in their liner notes. And 1:08:37.720 --> 1:08:39.320 this was also an era when that was not even 1:08:39.360 --> 1:08:42.040 standard practice, you know. So this is because Motown musicians 1:08:42.040 --> 1:08:44.719 were famously not credited. So this is like a measure 1:08:44.760 --> 1:08:47.960 of faith that you know they had in crediting these guys, 1:08:48.000 --> 1:08:51.040 which I think is wonderful. With all of this material, 1:08:51.200 --> 1:08:53.880 A standard eight track recorder wasn't cutting it, so Roy 1:08:53.920 --> 1:08:56.439 Halle brought Columbia boss Clive Davis into the studio to 1:08:56.560 --> 1:09:00.200 lobby for the novel sixteen track recorder. Davis op his 1:09:00.320 --> 1:09:04.719 purse strings and bought another eight track recorder, which made 1:09:05.000 --> 1:09:07.959 Simon and Garfunkle among the first musicians to use sixteen 1:09:08.040 --> 1:09:10.760 track recording. But what they were actually doing was doing 1:09:10.880 --> 1:09:14.160 two separate eight track recorders that were manually synchronized and 1:09:14.720 --> 1:09:18.360 brought together. Hallie talking to Sound on Sound says we 1:09:18.479 --> 1:09:21.200 linked up two eight track machines to make sixteen and 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:24.519 going out and making work tapes. The second eight track 1:09:24.560 --> 1:09:26.080 would be used as a work tape to go in 1:09:26.160 --> 1:09:28.519 overdub voices in the church, do that as a remote, 1:09:28.680 --> 1:09:30.720 bring it back to the studio and overdub on it. 1:09:31.120 --> 1:09:33.320 That wasn't being done at the time, so it was great. 1:09:33.560 --> 1:09:36.439 It was very innovative and very creative at that standpoint. 1:09:36.920 --> 1:09:38.760 So I don't know how you're gonna handle that. They 1:09:38.880 --> 1:09:42.320 edit God Love You and now we have the lost. 1:09:42.520 --> 1:09:45.599 Yes, yes, there's actually a missing verse of the Boxer 1:09:46.040 --> 1:09:50.479 that was removed after already wrote that Bach like steel guitar, trumpet, melody, 1:09:50.560 --> 1:09:54.240 that was his line. That's his saw right, Yeah, okay. 1:09:54.120 --> 1:09:57.679 He gets one separate part of one song. 1:10:00.880 --> 1:10:04.400 The verse. The Lost Verse is occasionally reinserted during live 1:10:04.479 --> 1:10:06.840 versions of The Boxer and I heard it with them 1:10:06.960 --> 1:10:10.240 when I saw Simon and Garfunkle live in two thousand 1:10:10.240 --> 1:10:13.320 and three, and it blew my mind because I assumed 1:10:13.360 --> 1:10:16.479 that Paul had written it especially for the occasion. It 1:10:16.600 --> 1:10:20.439 goes as follows. It's actually very sweet. It actually was 1:10:20.560 --> 1:10:23.559 cool that they added it as men in their twilight years. 1:10:23.680 --> 1:10:27.040 Now the years are rolling by me. They're rocking evenly. 1:10:27.720 --> 1:10:30.720 I'm older than I once was and younger than i'll be. 1:10:31.120 --> 1:10:36.040 That's not unusual, No, it isn't strange. After changes, upon changes, 1:10:36.520 --> 1:10:39.600 we are more or less the same. After changes, we 1:10:39.720 --> 1:10:42.960 are more or less the same. That was cool to 1:10:43.040 --> 1:10:46.880 see them at like you know, age seventy or whatever 1:10:48.240 --> 1:10:50.000 singing that to each other. That was really cool. It 1:10:50.080 --> 1:10:52.679 was my sixteenth birthday present for my dad seeing Simon 1:10:52.680 --> 1:10:56.000 and garfunk and so we went together, which was really cool. 1:10:56.120 --> 1:10:58.720 And also as a special guest at the show, they 1:10:58.800 --> 1:11:01.639 had the Everly Brothers and then all four so I'm 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:03.880 on a Garfunkle and the two Everly brothers came out 1:11:03.920 --> 1:11:06.559 and sang songs together. It was unreal. It was one 1:11:06.560 --> 1:11:08.320 of the coolest concerts I've ever been to, one of 1:11:08.320 --> 1:11:13.880 the best presents I've ever received, really amazing. Yes lyrics, Yes, Yes, 1:11:14.479 --> 1:11:17.639 lyrics to the Boxer. Paul reportedly wrote an early draft 1:11:17.720 --> 1:11:20.120 of the lyrics of this song on the back of 1:11:20.200 --> 1:11:27.520 an airsickness bag related note about sixties songs involving airsickness 1:11:27.600 --> 1:11:30.760 bags by people named Paul. It was pointed out to 1:11:30.840 --> 1:11:33.599 me that the line from back in the USSR all 1:11:33.640 --> 1:11:35.280 the way the paper bag was on my knee. 1:11:36.120 --> 1:11:38.240 I always thought it was like contraband or something. 1:11:38.280 --> 1:11:40.439 I don't know what it was. It's an airsickness bag, 1:11:40.600 --> 1:11:42.720 That's what that line means. I never knew that. I 1:11:42.880 --> 1:11:45.160 never never really made sense to me. Is that I 1:11:45.240 --> 1:11:46.320 just blow your mind? Or did you? 1:11:46.600 --> 1:11:48.479 I don't think I ever really parsed the lyrics. I 1:11:48.520 --> 1:11:50.800 don't think about that, my friend. No, I don't think 1:11:50.800 --> 1:11:51.439 about it at all. 1:11:51.600 --> 1:11:56.599 Yes, okay the Boxer again. I'm not a big lyrics guy, 1:11:56.680 --> 1:12:00.160 but the lyrics to the Boxer always stunned me. The 1:12:00.240 --> 1:12:03.679 words tell the story of a man struggling to overcome poverty, 1:12:03.760 --> 1:12:07.320 and loneliness in New York City. After being presented in 1:12:07.400 --> 1:12:09.639 the first person for the first few verses, the final 1:12:09.760 --> 1:12:14.000 verse uses the third person sketch of a boxer and 1:12:14.080 --> 1:12:16.880 the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade, 1:12:17.360 --> 1:12:19.960 and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid 1:12:20.040 --> 1:12:22.120 him down or cut him till he cried out in 1:12:22.240 --> 1:12:25.559 his anger and his shame. I am leaving. I am leaving, 1:12:26.040 --> 1:12:29.320 but the fighters still remain. It's the fight seeing cool Endlop, 1:12:29.520 --> 1:12:33.760 That's what I always see. Simon has suggested that at 1:12:33.840 --> 1:12:38.840 least the spirit of the lyrics are autobiographical. Ah sad 1:12:39.000 --> 1:12:41.960 news for anyone who ever clung to this song for 1:12:42.120 --> 1:12:45.479 strength when they were struggling to overcome major life events. 1:12:46.320 --> 1:12:49.440 Paul wrote it after feeling like he was being unfairly 1:12:49.560 --> 1:12:56.880 criticized in the press. So no, not the loss of 1:12:56.960 --> 1:13:01.720 a loved one or a parent, or grow poverty, just 1:13:01.960 --> 1:13:04.960 people were mean to him in the music newspapers. 1:13:05.400 --> 1:13:09.599 I mean that that whole first verse, which never really 1:13:09.680 --> 1:13:13.040 made much sense to me, suddenly clicked into place. Though 1:13:13.120 --> 1:13:16.800 my story is seldom told, I have squandered my resistance 1:13:16.880 --> 1:13:20.880 for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises all 1:13:21.000 --> 1:13:23.719 lies in jest? Is this just him winging about people 1:13:23.800 --> 1:13:26.200 in the press being mean to him that whole first verse? 1:13:26.760 --> 1:13:30.120 It could be read that way, he says in a 1:13:30.200 --> 1:13:32.960 nineteen to eighty four interview with Playboy. I think I 1:13:33.080 --> 1:13:35.519 was reading the Bible around that time. That's where I 1:13:35.560 --> 1:13:38.760 think phrases like workmen's wages come from and seeking out 1:13:38.800 --> 1:13:42.120 the poor recorders. That was biblical. I think the song 1:13:42.240 --> 1:13:45.000 was about me. Everybody's beating me up, and I'm telling 1:13:45.040 --> 1:13:47.479 you now, I'm going to go away if you don't stop. 1:13:49.479 --> 1:13:50.920 And I never did. 1:13:51.680 --> 1:13:54.880 But by that time we had encountered our first criticism. 1:13:55.280 --> 1:13:57.519 For the first few years, it was just pure praise. 1:13:57.920 --> 1:13:59.719 It took two or three years for people to realize 1:13:59.760 --> 1:14:02.680 that we weren't strange creatures that emerged from England, but 1:14:02.880 --> 1:14:05.200 just two guys from Queens who used to sing rock 1:14:05.240 --> 1:14:08.200 and roll. And maybe we weren't real folkies at all, 1:14:08.680 --> 1:14:12.679 maybe we weren't even hippies. But yeah, Paul's been cagy 1:14:12.760 --> 1:14:14.800 over the years about whether or not the lyrics were 1:14:14.880 --> 1:14:20.040 strictly literal. In Robert Hilbert's biography, which again grain of Salt, 1:14:20.080 --> 1:14:23.280 he participated, and he gave many interviews for Paul said, 1:14:23.360 --> 1:14:26.040 looking back, I don't recall thinking that I went through 1:14:26.120 --> 1:14:28.479 years of struggle. I was never poor and I had 1:14:28.520 --> 1:14:30.720 a family that loved me. But I have to say 1:14:30.880 --> 1:14:34.840 singing his anger and his shame still makes me feel uncomfortable. 1:14:35.280 --> 1:14:38.000 So there must have been some anger and shame. I 1:14:38.120 --> 1:14:40.400 think some of the feelings in the song started when 1:14:40.400 --> 1:14:43.240 I was a kid. It wasn't a traumatic injury you 1:14:43.320 --> 1:14:47.160 can point to, but there was something. And Hilburn then 1:14:47.200 --> 1:14:50.439 takes the opportunity to theorize that this something he speaks 1:14:50.479 --> 1:14:55.040 of included matters of his size, his hair, his failure, 1:14:55.080 --> 1:14:58.400 and occasional humiliation of the Jerry Land's solo years as 1:14:58.439 --> 1:15:01.439 a kid being snubbed by the Greenwich Village folk crowd, 1:15:01.640 --> 1:15:04.640 and later having to fight to gain respect in the 1:15:04.760 --> 1:15:09.240 rock community. Another biographer, Eric Elliott, that's not his name, 1:15:09.280 --> 1:15:11.880 that's a guy with the middle school with another biographer, 1:15:11.960 --> 1:15:15.080 Mark Elliott, reads into the lyrical story in a much 1:15:15.120 --> 1:15:18.720 more literal way by relating it to Simon's own biography. 1:15:19.439 --> 1:15:22.000 Like the quote this and full, he writes, the second 1:15:22.120 --> 1:15:25.280 verse of The Boxer connects with the album's recurring theme 1:15:25.400 --> 1:15:29.360 of abandonment. Set in an autobiographical back to the beginning frame, 1:15:30.040 --> 1:15:32.679 The singer is a poor boy leaving home, as Paul 1:15:32.760 --> 1:15:35.560 did when he went to England, surrounded by strangers in 1:15:35.600 --> 1:15:39.280 a railway station, probably a reference to his girlfriend Kathy 1:15:39.400 --> 1:15:41.639 Chitty and the song he would write around that time. 1:15:41.720 --> 1:15:46.000 Homeward bound. Once at his destination, the narrator lays low 1:15:46.240 --> 1:15:48.800 the house he shared in the East End. Looking to 1:15:48.840 --> 1:15:51.120 fit in, he tries to join the clique of artists 1:15:51.200 --> 1:15:54.720 he found there. The song then switches locales again, back 1:15:54.760 --> 1:15:57.000 to New York, but the only offers he gets there 1:15:57.120 --> 1:15:59.840 are from the street walkers, an allusion to perhaps the 1:16:00.120 --> 1:16:03.080 bands only into making money, the ones that are the 1:16:03.160 --> 1:16:04.679 ones that horr themselves out. 1:16:05.680 --> 1:16:06.080 Okay. 1:16:06.280 --> 1:16:08.960 The song then breaks into a vocal and instrumental run 1:16:09.040 --> 1:16:12.480 of Lila laies. They are a fade in in cinematic 1:16:12.600 --> 1:16:16.280 terms that becomes, for a moment, a purely non chronological 1:16:16.400 --> 1:16:21.400 exultation the joy of singing now ohk. Next, the singer 1:16:21.479 --> 1:16:23.920 laments the passing of the years. This is the lost verse, 1:16:24.000 --> 1:16:26.960 the passing of the years and the acknowledgment of changes, 1:16:27.720 --> 1:16:31.439 already's leaving to make a movie, etc. And sighs to 1:16:31.560 --> 1:16:34.439 acknowledge the bandonment as nothing new in his life, that 1:16:34.560 --> 1:16:37.000 the more things change, the more they stay the same. 1:16:37.720 --> 1:16:40.040 And finally, in the final verse, the singer longs to 1:16:40.120 --> 1:16:43.120 go home, yet not home, to somewhere where the harsh 1:16:43.200 --> 1:16:46.960 New York winters won't bleed him dry. Mexico. Perhaps we're 1:16:46.960 --> 1:16:50.439 already's filming his movie, all of which resolves with the 1:16:50.520 --> 1:16:53.680 vision of a boxer, a fighter who desperately wants to 1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:56.360 get out of the ring, but despite the beating he 1:16:56.400 --> 1:16:59.519 has taken, remains in the fight. He is what he 1:16:59.680 --> 1:17:03.360 is and will somehow make it through. Are you family 1:17:03.439 --> 1:17:03.560 with that? 1:17:03.680 --> 1:17:05.240 Charlie Brown had hose tweet? 1:17:05.960 --> 1:17:06.360 Not No. 1:17:06.880 --> 1:17:10.519 I can theorize though it's a classic bit of Twitter Twitter. 1:17:10.520 --> 1:17:13.280 It's just passed into one of those tweets that has 1:17:13.320 --> 1:17:16.559 passed into common lore. And I'm reading I'm remembering as 1:17:16.600 --> 1:17:18.960 best I can. But it's people will get on here 1:17:19.080 --> 1:17:22.920 and just say anything Charlie Brown had hose. No, he didn't, 1:17:23.400 --> 1:17:28.519 that's not true. And in similarly, people can just write anything. 1:17:29.000 --> 1:17:33.439 You know, I'm sorry, I don't. I think I feel 1:17:33.479 --> 1:17:36.360 like a lifelong New Yorker who probably took some buses 1:17:36.439 --> 1:17:39.439 around the port authority is probably more likely to just 1:17:39.600 --> 1:17:43.639 be writing about actual street walkers and poor people than 1:17:45.240 --> 1:17:48.479 veiled criticisms of bands just in it for the money, 1:17:48.880 --> 1:17:50.920 particularly when Paul Simon is like one of the most 1:17:50.960 --> 1:17:54.000 money minded cats from when he was a seventeen year old. 1:17:54.960 --> 1:17:57.479 That's losers that should have gone back to the editor. 1:17:57.600 --> 1:17:58.120 I'm sorry. 1:17:59.439 --> 1:18:03.639 The course of the Boxer contains non lexical syllables. That's 1:18:03.680 --> 1:18:07.960 a great term. Lie la lie. They are extremely effective, 1:18:08.360 --> 1:18:11.920 especially following the extremely literate verses. I think it's a 1:18:12.000 --> 1:18:15.639 cool way to follow it up. But Paul only intended 1:18:15.640 --> 1:18:18.680 the lila lies as a placeholder. He would say, I 1:18:18.760 --> 1:18:21.439 didn't have any words. But it's not a failure of 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:24.400 songwriting because people like that and they put enough meaning 1:18:24.479 --> 1:18:26.519 into it, and the rest of the song has enough 1:18:26.600 --> 1:18:28.720 power and emotion I guess to make it go. So 1:18:28.840 --> 1:18:31.160 it's all right. But for me, every time I sing 1:18:31.280 --> 1:18:33.719 that part, I'm a little embarrassed, which is cute. 1:18:34.520 --> 1:18:36.040 Oh, I mean, it's just kind of interesting that he 1:18:36.120 --> 1:18:38.519 went with that because like, coming from a folk background, 1:18:38.600 --> 1:18:40.519 like there's so much like there is a lot of 1:18:40.560 --> 1:18:45.080 non lexical stuff in that, and it's all like, you know, diity, diity, 1:18:45.360 --> 1:18:47.519 like whatever. I guess what I should say is it's 1:18:47.560 --> 1:18:51.320 interesting that he took a non lexical word that also 1:18:51.439 --> 1:18:54.120 has like a double meaning to it, you know, right, 1:18:54.320 --> 1:18:57.880 instead of simply singing law or like any of that. 1:18:58.280 --> 1:19:01.160 Like hearing lie as part of the folk tradition doesn't 1:19:01.200 --> 1:19:03.599 exactly square up to me. I'm not sure how many 1:19:03.640 --> 1:19:04.880 other instances there are of. 1:19:04.960 --> 1:19:08.040 That, you know, And maybe it's just because it's so 1:19:08.400 --> 1:19:11.360 ingrained in my head right now, a law or a 1:19:11.600 --> 1:19:15.840 daw or something like that, just even just phonetically, it 1:19:16.040 --> 1:19:21.599 seems too uplifting. Yeah, li lah lay seems like something 1:19:21.720 --> 1:19:25.160 an accusation. Well, yes, there are theories out there, and 1:19:25.280 --> 1:19:25.800 this is like. 1:19:25.880 --> 1:19:28.160 People who oh, I wasn't even gonna give space to 1:19:28.200 --> 1:19:30.639 the Dylan theory. But I meant like, I'm not sure 1:19:30.720 --> 1:19:32.840 on this song. I think this song is incredible. I'm 1:19:32.840 --> 1:19:38.120 sure that guy his assessment of yes, but like I think, 1:19:39.120 --> 1:19:41.040 you know, so much of this song is kind of 1:19:41.120 --> 1:19:44.760 about the tension of like I'm just trying to do 1:19:44.920 --> 1:19:50.280 this one thing, like why has everything been so hard? 1:19:51.640 --> 1:19:53.479 Why was I sold this myth that I could do 1:19:53.640 --> 1:19:57.240 these things? And then to me, it's like almost like 1:19:57.360 --> 1:20:00.400 a cosmic cry back, like you've all lied to me, 1:20:01.040 --> 1:20:04.439 but I'm still gonna stick around because you haven't killed 1:20:04.479 --> 1:20:07.880 me yet, you know, asking only for workman's wages, looking 1:20:08.080 --> 1:20:10.800 only for a job. You people all lied to me, 1:20:11.800 --> 1:20:15.720 but I'm still here. Don't look at me like that. No, 1:20:15.880 --> 1:20:18.320 I mean that's with that emotion in your eyes. 1:20:18.680 --> 1:20:25.240 Yeah, I was gonna say, that's a varianize, a deeper 1:20:25.360 --> 1:20:26.320 level of ar connection. 1:20:27.400 --> 1:20:27.599 Yeah. 1:20:28.520 --> 1:20:33.240 I mean, that's a much better theory than this ridiculous 1:20:33.400 --> 1:20:33.880 theory that. 1:20:34.720 --> 1:20:36.640 The Dylan theory is so funny, please go on. 1:20:37.720 --> 1:20:40.439 Yeah, Apparently there are some people who think that the 1:20:40.479 --> 1:20:43.280 Eli La Lae chorus is meant to be Paul Simon 1:20:43.360 --> 1:20:48.960 accusing Bob Dylan about of lying about his musical intentions, 1:20:49.200 --> 1:20:50.719 which I oh, I mean. 1:20:50.680 --> 1:20:53.120 This would have been on the heels of the Judas concert, right, 1:20:53.160 --> 1:20:57.000 which was preceded by somebody yellingly literally like you lie, right. 1:20:58.000 --> 1:20:59.600 That's okay, that's a good point. I hadn't thought. But 1:20:59.640 --> 1:21:01.920 that was like teen sixty six. This was late nineteen 1:21:01.960 --> 1:21:04.639 sixty eight. I mean that he had already released Jean. 1:21:04.640 --> 1:21:09.599 Was like a turbulent It was a turbulent decade. Brownier 1:21:10.800 --> 1:21:13.599 Brown here second reference. Wow. 1:21:13.720 --> 1:21:13.920 Yeah. 1:21:14.720 --> 1:21:18.960 Simon himself rejected this theory because it's dumb. Bob Dylan 1:21:19.600 --> 1:21:22.320 ended up covering this song on self Portrait, although he 1:21:22.439 --> 1:21:25.640 replaced the word glove from every Glove that Laid him 1:21:25.680 --> 1:21:29.040 down with every blow that laid him down, which I 1:21:29.080 --> 1:21:32.799 would imagine if your Paul Simon and Bob Dylan changes 1:21:32.880 --> 1:21:36.280 your lyrics, that's got to be a tweak, right, Like well, 1:21:36.320 --> 1:21:36.880 I mean it's. 1:21:37.000 --> 1:21:39.840 Also like probably the one person where Paul Simon would 1:21:39.840 --> 1:21:43.920 actually sing go true. That's a good edit, Jim. 1:21:45.040 --> 1:21:47.720 I don't know anything about their relationship, No, neither. Yeah, 1:21:47.800 --> 1:21:51.920 that's interesting you. I Yeah, great song, great song, And 1:21:52.040 --> 1:21:56.639 I think that was if I recall that, that would 1:21:56.680 --> 1:22:00.280 probably have been the first song recorded for uh yeah, 1:22:00.320 --> 1:22:03.040 it was the first song recorded for these sessions in 1:22:03.439 --> 1:22:04.840 November nineteen sixty eight. 1:22:07.080 --> 1:22:07.560 Don't do it? 1:22:08.000 --> 1:22:08.240 Do it? 1:22:09.800 --> 1:22:13.280 Okay? Well you punched it in for me. So while 1:22:13.320 --> 1:22:15.559 they recorded the Box or the Fall of nineteen sixty eight, 1:22:31.160 --> 1:22:33.960 sessions for what became Bridge Over Troublewater began in earnest 1:22:34.200 --> 1:22:37.880 in the summer of nineteen sixty nine. Oh, summer of 1:22:37.960 --> 1:22:38.479 sixty nine. 1:22:38.640 --> 1:22:40.760 Yeah, now it's Not'spratt Adam. 1:22:40.560 --> 1:22:43.680 Soon Simon decided to use La as the base of 1:22:43.760 --> 1:22:46.840 operations to make it easier for Art, who was, as 1:22:46.920 --> 1:22:49.799 you recall, filming Catch twenty two on the West Coast. 1:22:50.200 --> 1:22:53.479 He really you know, he might have been grumbly about it, 1:22:53.600 --> 1:22:55.760 but he did try to make this work. 1:22:55.880 --> 1:22:58.320 Yeah, oh yeah, That's the main thing I came away 1:22:58.400 --> 1:22:59.439 with after researching this. 1:23:00.160 --> 1:23:01.840 The pair settling in la was one of the reasons 1:23:01.840 --> 1:23:03.680 why they declined to perform at Woodstock. 1:23:04.160 --> 1:23:07.439 And they also kind of bombed at the Monterey Pop 1:23:07.520 --> 1:23:10.639 Festival too, I think if I remember correct, well. 1:23:10.640 --> 1:23:14.000 I mean, were they slated between like Otis Redding and 1:23:14.120 --> 1:23:17.360 Jimmy Hendrix and like several of the other most electrifying 1:23:17.439 --> 1:23:19.160 performances of all time, and then they just got on 1:23:19.200 --> 1:23:22.719 there and saying about feeling groovy, cooking spices and feeling groovy. 1:23:24.479 --> 1:23:26.920 Sometimes festival programming, I'm just like, when when I hear 1:23:27.120 --> 1:23:29.880 about people being like, oh, they bombed at this famous festival, 1:23:29.920 --> 1:23:32.880 I'm like, that was the promoter's fault. Don't put come 1:23:33.000 --> 1:23:37.400 next to that anyway. In a sense, Bridge is Paul 1:23:37.439 --> 1:23:40.920 Simon's equivalent of Paul McCartney's Yesterday. In other words, it 1:23:41.040 --> 1:23:43.400 arrived to him so quickly. There's a great phrase that 1:23:43.520 --> 1:23:46.960 I remember from the reading The Grateful Dead annotated lyrics 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:50.760 and the intro to by Robert Hunter. He has this 1:23:50.880 --> 1:23:53.439 great phrase where he talks about songs like that and 1:23:54.479 --> 1:23:57.719 the turn is fast as the pen would pull. 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:00.840 Oh wow, great, that is great. 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:03.439 So Paul Simon would say an all timer of a 1:24:03.520 --> 1:24:06.080 quote from twenty eleven. I have no idea where it 1:24:06.120 --> 1:24:08.439 came from. It came all of a sudden. It was 1:24:08.479 --> 1:24:10.719 one of the most shocking moments of my songwriting career 1:24:11.200 --> 1:24:13.920 at the time. I remember thinking, this is considerably better 1:24:14.000 --> 1:24:16.800 than I usually write. He'd say that the essence of 1:24:16.880 --> 1:24:19.720 the song, presumably the melody and the lyrical theme, took 1:24:19.720 --> 1:24:22.360 about twenty minutes, and the first two verses were completed 1:24:22.439 --> 1:24:25.680 in two hours. He continued, The melody was something like 1:24:25.760 --> 1:24:28.760 fifteen notes, which is long. It just seemed to flow 1:24:28.800 --> 1:24:31.120 through me in a way you don't feel where you 1:24:31.160 --> 1:24:33.360 can really even call it your own. But then again, 1:24:33.560 --> 1:24:36.599 it's nobody else's. I didn't know where it came from, 1:24:36.800 --> 1:24:39.639 but I knew it was exceptional. It's as if there's 1:24:39.680 --> 1:24:42.840 this chemical feeling the creation of something that is so exceptional. 1:24:42.920 --> 1:24:45.160 It's addictive. It's one of the things that keeps you 1:24:45.280 --> 1:24:47.360 writing your whole life. You're trying to get to that 1:24:47.400 --> 1:24:47.880 place again. 1:24:48.040 --> 1:24:48.439 That's cool. 1:24:48.520 --> 1:24:50.280 I love that. I love that and being the nerd 1:24:50.320 --> 1:24:52.479 that I am. I've heard so many musicians talk about that. 1:24:52.960 --> 1:24:56.000 Like I've heard about like everyone from like Tom Waits 1:24:56.040 --> 1:25:00.320 to Benjo Virtuoso Bay Laflex talking about just try getting 1:25:00.320 --> 1:25:03.360 into like their floasting and just being like just sitting 1:25:03.360 --> 1:25:07.680 around and you know, plucking and noodling and chewing over 1:25:07.760 --> 1:25:09.839 a phrase or a thing and then all of a sudden, 1:25:11.080 --> 1:25:14.160 fast as the pen would pull, you know, beautiful. Who 1:25:14.200 --> 1:25:16.240 said you've got to grab them before they get to 1:25:16.520 --> 1:25:18.320 Burt Bachack or some other son of a bitch. 1:25:18.920 --> 1:25:21.080 Oh, I don't know, but that's amazing. 1:25:22.439 --> 1:25:23.560 Damn, I've never heard that. 1:25:23.720 --> 1:25:27.240 That's great. I mean, Michael Jackson would say that he 1:25:27.320 --> 1:25:29.080 didn't like to go to sleep because he was afraid 1:25:29.120 --> 1:25:31.040 that when he slept God, they'd give the good ideas 1:25:31.080 --> 1:25:33.840 the Prince. Oh, I've never heard that. That's amazing. 1:25:34.520 --> 1:25:39.760 I might be said Alex Eigel, said Alex Higle a rich, No, 1:25:40.160 --> 1:25:43.920 it was, man, I'm so hard pressed. It was. Yeah, 1:25:44.240 --> 1:25:46.160 but I think that was like the gist of the quote, like, 1:25:46.560 --> 1:25:49.040 you know, there are all these songs just floating around 1:25:49.080 --> 1:25:50.599 out in the air, and you've got to grab them 1:25:50.640 --> 1:25:53.080 before somebody else like Burt Backack or it does. 1:25:53.600 --> 1:25:54.360 That's true. 1:25:55.520 --> 1:25:58.160 Yeah, it was this where we should. 1:25:57.880 --> 1:26:01.880 Punch it in which, oh yeah, folks, we're not about 1:26:01.880 --> 1:26:04.400 to head to Really one of my favorite segments of 1:26:04.479 --> 1:26:04.880 this show. 1:26:13.600 --> 1:26:17.040 It's Heigel's Woke Corner. Yes, that's right, folks, it's time 1:26:17.120 --> 1:26:19.360 to come on down to Heigel's Woke Corner, where I 1:26:19.439 --> 1:26:22.400 advance the radical theory that people who aren't straight white 1:26:22.479 --> 1:26:23.719 men deserve rights. 1:26:25.120 --> 1:26:26.679 Uh Paul. 1:26:27.800 --> 1:26:30.960 Paul is a checkered cat, right, Like, he has a 1:26:31.120 --> 1:26:34.760 long history of engaging with other people's art as a 1:26:34.840 --> 1:26:39.160 playground for his own and then taking it and doing 1:26:39.439 --> 1:26:42.639 cool stuff with it. Yes, again, creating Banker. 1:26:42.800 --> 1:26:46.880 It's where it's just like I'm gonna make this louder. Okay, 1:26:47.600 --> 1:26:51.880 hold on, buddy, that's that's not you say things. 1:26:53.360 --> 1:26:58.080 Yeah, you have a problem. Zepp rolls up cityus tattoos. 1:26:59.840 --> 1:26:59.920 Uh. 1:27:00.640 --> 1:27:03.040 Paul would later say that he has was listening to 1:27:03.040 --> 1:27:05.120 a lot of gospel music in this period, which obviously 1:27:05.240 --> 1:27:08.640 influenced the musical feel bridge over Troubled Water, but that 1:27:08.760 --> 1:27:11.880 also inspired the title. He was listening to a nineteen 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:14.400 fifty nine track by the Swan silver Tones called Mary 1:27:14.479 --> 1:27:17.439 Don't You Weep that is a very old spiritual and 1:27:17.560 --> 1:27:19.560 that he heard a vocal ad lib from one of 1:27:19.640 --> 1:27:22.200 the singers saying, I'll bring your bridge over deep water 1:27:22.320 --> 1:27:23.439 if you trust in my name. 1:27:24.479 --> 1:27:26.360 Whis that handsomebody to have me? 1:27:26.520 --> 1:27:26.920 Call me? 1:27:27.840 --> 1:27:37.040 Yeah? May Hill he agree over deep water in trust 1:27:37.120 --> 1:27:37.760 in my name? 1:27:40.960 --> 1:27:49.000 I'm gonna weird. I don't know, lazy, How did you. 1:27:49.000 --> 1:27:49.960 About a call of. 1:27:54.439 --> 1:28:03.080 Me till you may remember the Swan Silvertones from another 1:28:03.200 --> 1:28:05.800 song that Paul wrote called she Loves Me Like a 1:28:05.960 --> 1:28:10.960 Rock That sounds a whole lot like an old gospel song. 1:28:11.880 --> 1:28:17.760 In fact, the Swan Silverstones recording that I just mentioned. 1:28:17.560 --> 1:28:21.040 Is that an out there thing like I'd never seen 1:28:21.120 --> 1:28:23.040 that or read that. But I was just listening to 1:28:23.040 --> 1:28:25.680 that Swan Silvertones song today just to hear. 1:28:25.800 --> 1:28:28.240 You can punch it in, dude like you you have 1:28:28.439 --> 1:28:28.880 the power. 1:28:55.080 --> 1:29:02.479 I'm gonna wear. I don't belive it. 1:29:10.960 --> 1:29:13.240 What's funny is that when he went to go record 1:29:13.320 --> 1:29:15.720 Love Me Like a Rock, he got background vocals from 1:29:15.760 --> 1:29:20.080 the Dixie Hummingbirds, who are contemporaries of the Swan silver Tones, 1:29:20.600 --> 1:29:22.880 so that a score to settle, I mean just but 1:29:23.080 --> 1:29:28.439 like the brass Ones on him, like, yeah, I'm gonna 1:29:28.560 --> 1:29:33.240 basically rewrite this other gospel songs, and can I get 1:29:33.240 --> 1:29:36.200 this other gospel group to just do what they did 1:29:36.360 --> 1:29:38.600 on it? I mean that's there's such a level of 1:29:38.680 --> 1:29:41.920 like disconnect between the level of empathy and warmth that 1:29:42.000 --> 1:29:45.080 he achieves in his vocals and how he just seems 1:29:45.120 --> 1:29:51.320 to view intellectual property and folk traditions and people's art 1:29:51.520 --> 1:29:54.080 and people themselves as just things that he can move 1:29:54.120 --> 1:29:57.439 around and play with. But then again, this is a 1:29:57.479 --> 1:30:01.400 guy who broke apartheid Boycott's because Henry Kissinger told him 1:30:01.439 --> 1:30:06.559 it was okay. So anyway, to his credit, at this point, 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:08.960 Paul was very open about this lift. I had an 1:30:09.000 --> 1:30:11.280 interview in the Dick Cavit Show where he said, I 1:30:11.360 --> 1:30:12.160 guess I stole that. 1:30:14.439 --> 1:30:17.400 That is the exactly exact quote from nineteen seventy too, 1:30:17.560 --> 1:30:19.400 So I mean it's like, yeah, it wasn't like this 1:30:19.560 --> 1:30:21.680 thing that got dredged up in the woke era. Like 1:30:21.800 --> 1:30:22.920 he was very open about it. 1:30:23.200 --> 1:30:25.920 But this is also cool, according to gospel producer and 1:30:26.040 --> 1:30:29.920 historian Anthony Heilbutt, who wrote this book called The Gospel Sound, 1:30:29.960 --> 1:30:33.679 which I've read. It is the definitive history of gospel 1:30:33.760 --> 1:30:37.640 music in America. It's wonderful hours of enjoyment for not 1:30:37.800 --> 1:30:39.639 just the stories, but all the rabbit holes that will 1:30:39.640 --> 1:30:41.680 send you down for musicians, So I highly recommend that. 1:30:42.520 --> 1:30:46.040 But Simon later acknowledged this debt to Claude Jeter of 1:30:46.120 --> 1:30:50.440 the Swan Silvertones in person handed him a check as compensation. 1:30:51.400 --> 1:30:54.680 Of course, does that guy's name pop up in the 1:30:54.720 --> 1:30:59.559 writing credits, Sure doesn't. Classic. Here's a Cadillac for all 1:30:59.640 --> 1:31:05.160 the right to your songs. Yeah, this is you know. Oh, 1:31:05.280 --> 1:31:07.599 and now we go right over to the other corner 1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:12.000 of Jordan's obligatory beatles shoehorning in Jordan, what do you 1:31:12.040 --> 1:31:12.759 have for us today? 1:31:12.920 --> 1:31:15.320 Yeah? This hole is just like cutting the guy a check. 1:31:15.439 --> 1:31:17.640 Move is the same thing that Paul McCartney did to 1:31:17.960 --> 1:31:22.200 Jimmy Scott, a Nigerian conga player, an acquaintance in the 1:31:22.280 --> 1:31:25.800 mid sixties who taught Paul the phrase oh bloody, oh 1:31:25.840 --> 1:31:29.800 blood doah, life goes on brah. His name does not 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:33.960 appear on oh bloody Obla dah. In fact, John Lennon's does, 1:31:34.000 --> 1:31:35.760 although he had absolutely nothing to do with the song, 1:31:36.040 --> 1:31:38.600 Yeah go figure, Paul cut the guy a check. He 1:31:38.720 --> 1:31:42.439 also had another phrase, nothing too much, just out of sight, 1:31:42.600 --> 1:31:45.559 which Paul also wrote a song about for the two 1:31:45.640 --> 1:31:48.000 thousand and eight album that he did with the producer 1:31:48.120 --> 1:31:49.879 Youth called Electric Arguments. 1:31:50.280 --> 1:31:52.280 There are also people who contended that Jimmy Scott might 1:31:52.320 --> 1:31:54.160 be the guy playing congos and sympathy for the devil. 1:31:54.360 --> 1:31:56.839 That would make sense because he played at Ronnie Scott's 1:31:56.920 --> 1:31:59.439 Jazz club in Soho and London in the sixties and 1:31:59.479 --> 1:32:02.640 that was where all the Stones and the Beatles and 1:32:02.680 --> 1:32:04.800 the Who all hung out, so that would make sense. 1:32:05.840 --> 1:32:07.479 But maybe we're coming about this whole thing from the 1:32:07.520 --> 1:32:10.120 wrong angle, because after all, Paul Simon also stole from 1:32:10.160 --> 1:32:12.760 white people. He admitted that some of the melody for 1:32:12.840 --> 1:32:16.200 Bridge Over Trouble Water was stolen from Johann Sebastian Bach's 1:32:16.880 --> 1:32:47.400 Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded. Paul originally wrote the song 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:49.800 on guitar, but he transposed it to the piano to 1:32:50.000 --> 1:32:54.320 maximize the gospel effect. He hired Wrecking Crew session player 1:32:54.400 --> 1:32:57.479 Larry Nektel, a favorite of Elvis Ray, Charles the Doors, 1:32:57.560 --> 1:33:00.880 Brian Wilson, and many others and garfam remember that they 1:33:00.920 --> 1:33:03.719 worked hard on the turnarounds or the embellishments that happened 1:33:03.760 --> 1:33:05.320 from the end of the chorus to the beginning of 1:33:05.360 --> 1:33:08.280 the new verses. They also booked fellow Wrecking Crew members 1:33:08.320 --> 1:33:12.120 Hal Blaine and Joe Osbourne, who we mentioned earlier. Joe 1:33:12.200 --> 1:33:14.599 Osborne once again Hallie put him back to his favorite 1:33:14.600 --> 1:33:17.840 task of over dubbing two basslines. I do wonder though, 1:33:18.479 --> 1:33:20.800 the famous bit about Walk on the wild Side is 1:33:20.840 --> 1:33:24.080 that Herbie Flowers recorded two basslines on that to claim 1:33:24.160 --> 1:33:26.439 that he was playing two instruments and collect double his 1:33:26.520 --> 1:33:29.720 session fee. I wonder if that's just a British thing, 1:33:29.760 --> 1:33:33.520 because Transformer was cut in England and if Joe Osborne 1:33:33.600 --> 1:33:35.160 tried to do that, they would have laughed him out 1:33:35.160 --> 1:33:35.679 of the office. 1:33:35.880 --> 1:33:36.240 Aha. 1:33:37.840 --> 1:33:40.400 Anyway, just a fun little note. Co producer Roy Holly 1:33:40.439 --> 1:33:43.120 gave a demo of the song to arranger Ernie Freeman, 1:33:43.160 --> 1:33:46.320 who had worked with people like Frank Sinatra and Old. 1:33:46.479 --> 1:33:48.960 Ernie apparently phoned it in for this one because when 1:33:49.000 --> 1:33:51.040 he came back with the score, Paul discovered that Art's 1:33:51.120 --> 1:33:54.719 name was spelled wrong, which probably gave Paul a thrill 1:33:55.040 --> 1:33:58.200 right up all five foot three of him. The title 1:33:58.200 --> 1:34:00.000 of the song was listed not as like a bridge 1:34:00.080 --> 1:34:03.640 over troubled water, but like a picture of water. He 1:34:03.760 --> 1:34:06.080 was less amused by this. I was pissed off, he 1:34:06.200 --> 1:34:09.840 told Robert Hilburn, and Hilburn's lotioned hand job of a book. 1:34:10.840 --> 1:34:12.920 It looked like he didn't listen to the demo long 1:34:13.040 --> 1:34:15.679 enough to get the right title. I hated the arrangement 1:34:15.760 --> 1:34:17.640 so much that I walked out of the studio. I 1:34:17.760 --> 1:34:19.760 was abrasive at times in the studio, but that's my 1:34:19.920 --> 1:34:22.840 job to protect the music. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks 1:34:22.880 --> 1:34:24.880 of me. I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to 1:34:24.920 --> 1:34:28.439 a piece of work. It's like your child. Hallie tinkered 1:34:28.439 --> 1:34:29.880 with the arrangement in the mix, so it wasn't a 1:34:29.920 --> 1:34:32.040 total loss and they didn't have to call session musicians 1:34:32.120 --> 1:34:35.200 back in for another pass. But even so, Simon apparently 1:34:35.280 --> 1:34:37.479 isn't thrilled with the arrangement to this day, believing the 1:34:37.520 --> 1:34:39.080 strings to be too syrupy. 1:34:39.479 --> 1:34:43.240 I think that's correct. The final chord that Bridge over 1:34:43.280 --> 1:34:46.160 Troubled Water ends on is let me check this is 1:34:46.240 --> 1:34:51.200 insanely mawkish. It's I find it cringey, Like it's not 1:34:51.320 --> 1:34:53.360 my favorite song, but like I admit that it's a 1:34:53.479 --> 1:34:56.600 great song and whatever. But that last chord that it 1:34:56.760 --> 1:35:02.080 ends on is so corny and so dramatic and so bad, 1:35:02.600 --> 1:35:04.760 Like even if it just faded a little early. 1:35:31.080 --> 1:35:33.280 I mean, half of that is just that this Every 1:35:33.560 --> 1:35:36.760 single instrument on here is peaking so hard to tape. 1:35:36.880 --> 1:35:38.439 They pushed this so hard. 1:35:38.640 --> 1:35:41.440 You're right, it's just a bad move, like that's hallmark, 1:35:43.120 --> 1:35:45.120 even if they just brought the cello back in to 1:35:45.400 --> 1:35:47.280 play a couple octaves lower to ground it. 1:35:47.439 --> 1:35:49.280 I haven't listened to this in a while. This sounds 1:35:49.360 --> 1:35:52.920 like Norwegian black metal. It is so blown out. Yeah 1:35:53.120 --> 1:35:55.240 yeah yeah yeah. Like I said, I don't listen to 1:35:55.320 --> 1:35:57.760 this version, but it's just so pinned in the red, 1:35:57.920 --> 1:36:01.519 like every single thing in here fighting for space. It's 1:36:01.640 --> 1:36:06.120 all like his voice is distorted so much. Yeah, and 1:36:06.200 --> 1:36:08.960 that high note is like a Disney voicing for sure. 1:36:09.120 --> 1:36:12.040 That last chord isn't like a when you wish upon 1:36:12.080 --> 1:36:13.439 a story like Disney voicing. 1:36:13.800 --> 1:36:15.680 All right, I'm glad we agreed about this. 1:36:16.520 --> 1:36:18.120 Great Moving forward, the. 1:36:18.200 --> 1:36:21.240 Instrumental track for Bridge over Troubled Water is recorded over 1:36:21.360 --> 1:36:24.559 five days in Los Angeles, and Garfunckle's vocal was recorded 1:36:24.600 --> 1:36:26.639 over two days in New York a short time later, 1:36:27.479 --> 1:36:31.160 and of course Paul and Art fought about it. From 1:36:31.200 --> 1:36:34.519 the jump. Paul imagined Art singing his precious neo hymnal 1:36:34.640 --> 1:36:39.439 in his quote white choir boy way. Unfortunately, Artie wasn't 1:36:39.479 --> 1:36:40.400 all that into. 1:36:40.280 --> 1:36:43.679 It, could I just I'm going to fully own something here. Yeah, 1:36:44.320 --> 1:36:46.880 I'm a huge fan of Keith Jarrett, and I don't 1:36:46.880 --> 1:36:49.640 think I learned until like four years ago that he 1:36:49.800 --> 1:36:53.719 was a white man. So it is just a hilarious 1:36:53.760 --> 1:36:56.880 bit of Miles Davis apocrypha that at one point when 1:36:57.000 --> 1:37:00.639 Keith Jarrett was playing in Miles seventies band, Miles toward 1:37:00.680 --> 1:37:04.240 everyone else that when Keith quote starts playing that Catholic 1:37:04.320 --> 1:37:09.479 schoolboys layout, don't follow him, which is essentially, if he 1:37:09.600 --> 1:37:13.559 starts doing that, pop out and make him and keep 1:37:13.640 --> 1:37:16.120 him out there on his own for as long as 1:37:16.160 --> 1:37:18.439 he's willing to do it before he gets back in Dune. 1:37:18.479 --> 1:37:22.639 It gets back to the rest of the god that's 1:37:22.760 --> 1:37:25.160 very funny at Catholic schoolboyshit yep. 1:37:26.640 --> 1:37:30.439 Continue Unfortunately, Art really didn't much care for the song. 1:37:31.920 --> 1:37:34.759 Paul was so thrilled that he wanted he was offering 1:37:34.880 --> 1:37:38.519 his dear friend what he thought was his finest piece 1:37:38.560 --> 1:37:43.160 of work to sing and Art he offered this devastating quote. 1:37:43.640 --> 1:37:46.479 Paul felt it was his best song. I felt it 1:37:46.560 --> 1:37:49.639 was something less than his best song, but a great song, 1:37:50.360 --> 1:37:54.240 which is kind of my take. Art was apparently very 1:37:54.320 --> 1:37:57.800 diplomatic in the studio. It's a great song. Art reportedly said, 1:37:57.960 --> 1:38:00.720 you wrote it, you sing it beautifully, serve to do it, 1:38:01.640 --> 1:38:05.200 and Paul last Dance Voice, took this personally. He took 1:38:05.240 --> 1:38:08.120 this as an insult. He would later complain in an interview, 1:38:08.479 --> 1:38:10.080 it's my best song and it's not good enough for 1:38:10.200 --> 1:38:13.360 Arty to want to do it. Kim and even worse, 1:38:14.080 --> 1:38:18.320 Artie had some notes, here is my best song. I 1:38:18.400 --> 1:38:19.040 want you to do it. 1:38:19.479 --> 1:38:20.160 Nah, you do it? 1:38:20.360 --> 1:38:24.599 Also, I got some thoughts on it. Yeah, already felt 1:38:24.640 --> 1:38:27.639 that the tuverse song was too short and it needed 1:38:27.720 --> 1:38:29.719 one more verse for a bigger ending. 1:38:30.800 --> 1:38:33.479 Oh and by the way, Paul, you do those, So 1:38:33.640 --> 1:38:35.880 do you go off to do that. I'll just nip 1:38:35.960 --> 1:38:36.519 off for a bit. 1:38:37.439 --> 1:38:38.439 Go one are my walks. 1:38:39.120 --> 1:38:40.160 I'm gonna go burn one. 1:38:42.200 --> 1:38:45.759 Thus, Paul banged out a quick third Stanza in the studio, 1:38:45.920 --> 1:38:49.040 which he really hated doing and rarely, if ever did. 1:38:50.120 --> 1:38:52.400 He still doesn't like this verse, believing it to be 1:38:52.560 --> 1:38:55.400 less cohesive than the first two, and he was also 1:38:55.560 --> 1:38:57.680 likely turned off by a rumor that spread across the 1:38:57.840 --> 1:39:00.519 United States, where it was believed that the soul he 1:39:00.600 --> 1:39:05.080 sings about is a reference to a heroin Needle. In reality, 1:39:05.160 --> 1:39:07.880 it's a reference to his new wife, Peggy Harper, who 1:39:07.960 --> 1:39:11.000 had just discovered her first grace. She'd been married to 1:39:11.080 --> 1:39:13.840 Paul Simon for less than a year and discovered her 1:39:13.880 --> 1:39:18.960 first grades. Why Paul decided to immortalize them and what 1:39:19.080 --> 1:39:22.840 he believed was his greatest song, I'll never know The 1:39:22.920 --> 1:39:25.200 song Bridge over Troubled Water would be a sore point 1:39:25.240 --> 1:39:28.519 between Paul and Art for many years to come. Paul 1:39:28.600 --> 1:39:32.280 complained bitterly about Garfunkle's association with Bridge. In a nineteen 1:39:32.439 --> 1:39:35.400 seventy two Rolling Stone interview. He said he didn't want 1:39:35.400 --> 1:39:37.679 to sing it himself, he couldn't hear it for himself. 1:39:38.000 --> 1:39:40.320 He felt I should have done it, and many times 1:39:40.520 --> 1:39:43.360 I'm sorry I didn't do it. The way they handled 1:39:43.400 --> 1:39:47.759 this beef is a true masterclass in simmering passive aggression, 1:39:47.880 --> 1:39:51.439 which should probably be taught in New England schools. When 1:39:51.520 --> 1:39:54.519 they came to perform the song in concert, Simon would 1:39:54.520 --> 1:39:59.080 graciously insist on leaving the stage, giving Garfuncle the full spotlight. 1:39:59.479 --> 1:40:01.720 But at the same same time, Paul couldn't help feel 1:40:01.760 --> 1:40:04.760 a sense of envy at the thunderous applause. This was 1:40:04.880 --> 1:40:08.560 his song and he could have easily sung it, but 1:40:08.720 --> 1:40:10.439 garfunk could never have written it. 1:40:11.160 --> 1:40:12.680 I'm not sure if he could easily have sung it. 1:40:12.760 --> 1:40:15.040 The highest note in that is an F above two 1:40:15.120 --> 1:40:16.120 octaves above middle C. 1:40:16.600 --> 1:40:20.200 There's a demo, there's a guitar demo from Paul where 1:40:20.520 --> 1:40:21.920 that's out there, and if you've heard it, maybe i'll 1:40:21.920 --> 1:40:22.400 punch it in here. 1:40:22.439 --> 1:40:24.080 I'm sure you could do it falsetto. I don't think 1:40:24.120 --> 1:40:25.240 he could have done it as a belt. 1:40:26.760 --> 1:40:29.360 Oh no, you're totally right. But there was an arrangement 1:40:29.439 --> 1:40:32.080 that Paul had of this song. It was very, very good. 1:40:32.280 --> 1:40:34.559 But you need that chest belt like that's I think 1:40:34.640 --> 1:40:37.160 what's even though it sounds like horrible in that mix, 1:40:37.280 --> 1:40:40.639 Like that's what you need to sell carry that song forward. 1:40:41.439 --> 1:40:42.880 If you just have someone hitting it in like a 1:40:42.960 --> 1:40:46.840 quavering falsetto, like that's not you know, I think, I 1:40:46.920 --> 1:40:48.280 don't know, I don't know. I see both way. 1:40:48.280 --> 1:40:50.960 I think it was pitched down where he wasn't in 1:40:51.000 --> 1:40:53.360 a falsetto. He's in his chest voice, and it was 1:40:53.439 --> 1:40:55.040 it was good. I got to relisten and listen in 1:40:55.120 --> 1:40:58.200 a while. But he had an affecting version of it. 1:41:00.560 --> 1:41:13.280 When you're weary, feel sad, when he's say, you see. 1:41:15.120 --> 1:41:29.640 I would be there, do bring you see winters up 1:41:33.680 --> 1:41:45.840 and may a life to trouble waters. 1:41:46.520 --> 1:41:58.320 Are wary me, No, my god, rouble waters are. 1:41:58.280 --> 1:42:05.040 Ward, Paul would say many times on stage though, when 1:42:05.040 --> 1:42:07.200 I'd be sitting off to the side and Larry Nektall 1:42:07.200 --> 1:42:09.880 will be playing piano and already would be singing bridge, 1:42:10.240 --> 1:42:12.560 people would stomp and cheer when it was over, and 1:42:12.640 --> 1:42:15.840 I would think, that's my song man, thank you very much. 1:42:16.040 --> 1:42:19.559 I wrote that song. Paul's wife, Peggy, would frequently grumble 1:42:19.600 --> 1:42:22.720 about the fact that Art never once invited Paul out 1:42:22.800 --> 1:42:25.880 to take a bow for the song, which it's literally 1:42:26.200 --> 1:42:27.439 it's kind of a weird thing to do. 1:42:27.760 --> 1:42:29.280 So, yeah, that's a bitch. 1:42:29.439 --> 1:42:31.160 Yeah, I've got well, I mean I don't know. I 1:42:31.560 --> 1:42:33.639 think it would be weird for you to just bring 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:35.240 the guy who wrote the song out on stage to 1:42:35.280 --> 1:42:37.920 tick a bow when he's already coming back on stage 1:42:37.960 --> 1:42:38.880 to sing with you anyway. 1:42:39.040 --> 1:42:41.479 I mean, god forbid you mentioned he wrote this song. 1:42:41.840 --> 1:42:45.519 Like everybody would assume that. I don't know, all right, most. 1:42:45.320 --> 1:42:47.320 People didn't, though. I mean, look at some of these 1:42:47.360 --> 1:42:52.400 album covered there's literally the Celia Celia single. The front 1:42:52.479 --> 1:42:55.560 cover is our carl uncle's face. True, that cover is 1:42:55.600 --> 1:42:58.640 Paul Simon's face. Yes, I would be a little miffed. 1:42:58.439 --> 1:43:01.320 Too, Okay, you're right, oh. Paul Simon's belief in the 1:43:01.360 --> 1:43:03.840 song Bridge over Troubled Water. He did not believe it 1:43:03.960 --> 1:43:06.880 had hit single potential. I didn't think it was a smash, 1:43:07.000 --> 1:43:09.360 but I thought it was something exceptional. I thought it 1:43:09.479 --> 1:43:12.160 was probably too long for a commercial record. It was 1:43:12.200 --> 1:43:14.760 all piano up until the last verse. I didn't think 1:43:14.800 --> 1:43:18.479 it was a hit. Art unsurprisingly agreed, saying as a 1:43:18.520 --> 1:43:21.920 single it was too long, too slow, but Clive Davis 1:43:22.080 --> 1:43:25.519 got behind it all the way, embolded by Columbia's success 1:43:25.600 --> 1:43:29.080 with Like a Rolling Stone five years earlier, a five 1:43:29.200 --> 1:43:32.280 plus minute song in an era when commercial radio mandated 1:43:32.439 --> 1:43:36.439 songs under three minutes. Davis insisted that they released Bridge 1:43:36.479 --> 1:43:43.600 Over Troubled Water uncut, Bigger, Longer, and uncut. We're going 1:43:43.680 --> 1:43:45.760 to take a quick break, but we'll be right back 1:43:45.840 --> 1:43:48.440 with more too much information in just a moment. 1:44:01.520 --> 1:44:03.680 And the rest. Now, we have to get to all 1:44:03.720 --> 1:44:07.640 the other songs, starting with El Condor de Pezza. As 1:44:07.680 --> 1:44:10.920 we touched on, Paul Simon was inordinately proud of writing 1:44:11.000 --> 1:44:14.200 Bridge over Troubled Water. So let's touch on a song 1:44:14.320 --> 1:44:18.240 that he didn't write, although he initially did claim credit 1:44:18.280 --> 1:44:21.080 for doing so. Yes, folks, let's bring it right around 1:44:21.240 --> 1:44:24.120 back to Heigel's woke Corner, where we advance the radical 1:44:24.200 --> 1:44:27.080 notion that people who aren't straight white men should have rights. 1:44:35.760 --> 1:44:39.799 It's Heigel's woke corner, folks may remember from our Graceland episode. 1:44:39.840 --> 1:44:43.120 Even leaving aside the whole breaking an international boycott over 1:44:43.120 --> 1:44:45.639 at Parthid because Henry Kissinger said it was a cool 1:44:45.680 --> 1:44:48.360 thing to do. Old Polly Walnuts doesn't have the best 1:44:48.439 --> 1:44:51.040 track record when it comes to, let's call them charitably, 1:44:51.200 --> 1:44:54.479 his collaborations with black or brown people. Members of the 1:44:54.520 --> 1:44:57.160 band Los Lobos contend that they were fresh off a 1:44:57.200 --> 1:44:59.760 Grammy of their own. Their label pushed them to work 1:44:59.800 --> 1:45:02.759 with Simon, who was in a fallow point of his career. 1:45:03.600 --> 1:45:05.800 He just came and, according to them, sat in the 1:45:05.840 --> 1:45:09.200 control room for a few days silently just watching them play. 1:45:09.920 --> 1:45:10.360 I liked it. 1:45:12.640 --> 1:45:15.519 He perked up when he heard David guitarist David Hitaligo 1:45:15.600 --> 1:45:17.720 playing a song that the band had been working on 1:45:17.880 --> 1:45:20.840 for their next album. That song would eventually appear on 1:45:20.960 --> 1:45:23.960 Graceland as All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints, 1:45:24.120 --> 1:45:28.120 credited solely to Simon. Band member Jeff Berlin said that 1:45:28.160 --> 1:45:30.879 when Los Lobos reached out to Paul's team for more information, 1:45:31.280 --> 1:45:36.680 Paul's reaction was, sue me see what happens anyway. As 1:45:36.720 --> 1:45:39.240 we mentioned with some of the Swan silvertone stuff, that 1:45:39.439 --> 1:45:45.160 trend started so much earlier than eighty six. Elcandor Pezza 1:45:45.760 --> 1:45:49.360 was written by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robrez, who 1:45:49.439 --> 1:45:51.519 based it off the traditional music of the Andes and 1:45:51.600 --> 1:45:55.880 specifically Peru. This song partially because yes, I mean I 1:45:55.960 --> 1:45:58.400 might as well saying this song because of Paul Simon, 1:45:58.920 --> 1:46:02.760 has become something of the national anthem of Peru. But 1:46:03.000 --> 1:46:06.439 it's interesting because Robez was a bit of an Alan 1:46:06.479 --> 1:46:10.439 Lomax character. He ditched his a career in medicine to 1:46:10.640 --> 1:46:14.720 just journey through the Andes and study folk music. So 1:46:14.920 --> 1:46:16.760 right away we have a bit of this conflict of 1:46:16.960 --> 1:46:19.200 like an Alan Lomax situation of like, did this guy 1:46:19.320 --> 1:46:22.320 just actually notate a song that had been circulated for 1:46:22.439 --> 1:46:26.720 centuries and then claim credit for it? So there's there's layers, man, 1:46:26.800 --> 1:46:28.000 there's layer layers. 1:46:28.080 --> 1:46:28.240 You know. 1:46:30.840 --> 1:46:35.479 So Daniel Alomio Robez premiered the song of Condo Pazza 1:46:35.560 --> 1:46:39.360 in nineteen thirteen at the Tiatro Mazie in Lima as 1:46:39.400 --> 1:46:42.880 part of a Zarzuela, a Spanish light opera that featured 1:46:42.920 --> 1:46:47.080 social commentary in a hilarious bit of irony. This zarzuela, 1:46:47.240 --> 1:46:51.600 in particular concerned Peruvian miners in Cerl do Pasco and 1:46:51.680 --> 1:46:56.040 their struggle with a foreign mining company. Do you guys 1:46:56.160 --> 1:47:00.759 get it? Do you get the resonance? My favorite gags 1:47:00.800 --> 1:47:03.320 in Don't Be a Menace, the parody movie by the 1:47:03.320 --> 1:47:05.439 Ways Brothers that they have one of the Wayans constantly 1:47:05.479 --> 1:47:10.479 popping in from out of frame going message I forgot 1:47:10.520 --> 1:47:14.960 about that. Marcella Rolls granddaughter of Daniel contends that this 1:47:15.120 --> 1:47:18.640 operetta was performed something like three thousand times at that 1:47:18.760 --> 1:47:22.240 opera house. Twenty years later, piano arrangement of the melody 1:47:22.400 --> 1:47:26.080 was legally registered by Roblas courtesy of the Edward Bimurk's 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:29.759 Music Corporation with the Library of Congress under the number 1:47:30.240 --> 1:47:33.880 ninety six four three. So you can probably guess where 1:47:33.920 --> 1:47:37.000 this is all going. Regarding Paul Simon, while in Paris 1:47:37.040 --> 1:47:39.640 in nineteen sixty five, Simon heard a version of this 1:47:39.840 --> 1:47:43.280 song by the band Los Incas, who, interestingly enough, were 1:47:43.320 --> 1:47:47.000 formed in Paris nine years prior by an Argentinian and 1:47:47.120 --> 1:47:52.439 two Venezuelans, no Peruvians. When he asked the band about it, 1:47:52.840 --> 1:47:54.560 they told Simon that the song was a piece of 1:47:54.640 --> 1:47:58.800 Andean folk music, but that their arrangement was by Jorge Milchberg, 1:47:59.760 --> 1:48:05.080 who was an Argentinian born to Polish immigrants. Simon took 1:48:05.160 --> 1:48:09.040 this white man at face value, wrote his own English 1:48:09.400 --> 1:48:12.479 lyrics to the tune and didn't credit Robles as the 1:48:12.560 --> 1:48:18.160 initial composer. However, Milchberg, I'm so sorry. The guy's name 1:48:18.240 --> 1:48:22.719 is Milchberg. At least they weren't Nazis, right, Maybe is Italian. 1:48:24.680 --> 1:48:28.320 I mean, come on, dude, Polish German, last name in Argentina. 1:48:28.479 --> 1:48:31.960 The guy was born in nineteen twenty eight. What's the 1:48:32.040 --> 1:48:35.240 over under on that anyway? Now, I frontloaded this with 1:48:35.320 --> 1:48:37.640 a lot of salt, but it actually had quite a 1:48:37.720 --> 1:48:42.200 happy ending. In nineteen seventy, Armando Robles Godoy, the original 1:48:42.240 --> 1:48:45.719 composer's son and who's since become a filmmaker in Peru, 1:48:46.000 --> 1:48:48.680 filed suit against Simon, pointing out that his dad had 1:48:48.720 --> 1:48:51.519 held the copyright to the song in America since nineteen 1:48:51.600 --> 1:48:54.920 thirty three. It was an almost friendly court case because 1:48:54.920 --> 1:48:58.200 Paul Simon was very respectful of other cultures. This man said, 1:48:58.880 --> 1:49:02.840 according to a wicked I can no longer verify it 1:49:02.960 --> 1:49:05.800 was not carelessness on his part, And then he called 1:49:05.800 --> 1:49:08.760 the entire court thing a court case without further complications, 1:49:09.439 --> 1:49:11.800 adding that he held no ill will towards Simon for 1:49:11.880 --> 1:49:15.400 what he considered a misunderstanding and an honest mistake. Paul 1:49:15.479 --> 1:49:19.040 Simon amended the writing credits and went away, vowing never 1:49:19.200 --> 1:49:22.639 ever to be so weak as to credit an original 1:49:22.680 --> 1:49:25.800 writer of a song, and we are so much the 1:49:25.920 --> 1:49:28.880 richer for it. Then to add insult to injury, Perry 1:49:28.960 --> 1:49:34.240 Como released a version of Alcondo Pesa also in nineteen seventy. 1:49:34.320 --> 1:49:40.080 Oh god, what yeah, I mean, I assume it's horrendous. 1:49:40.479 --> 1:49:41.040 Take a listen. 1:49:43.400 --> 1:49:49.840 I'd rather biggest sparrow than a slam. Yes, I would, 1:49:54.320 --> 1:49:55.679 I surely would. 1:50:00.400 --> 1:50:01.480 Nope, this is unlistenable. 1:50:01.600 --> 1:50:01.760 Wow. 1:50:01.840 --> 1:50:05.360 Yeah, that blows. That's terrible. Okay, yeah, all right, now 1:50:05.400 --> 1:50:08.519 we're gonna talk about Cecilia, a song until this afternoon 1:50:08.600 --> 1:50:11.839 I thought was Cilia. I don't hear the first syllable 1:50:11.880 --> 1:50:14.760 in the chorus. Nope, okay, I don't eare good, thank you? 1:50:14.840 --> 1:50:15.400 I feel better. 1:50:15.960 --> 1:50:17.760 This is a song that I used to hate, but 1:50:17.840 --> 1:50:19.880 it's kind of grown on me in recent years. It 1:50:20.000 --> 1:50:22.960 originated at a small party that Paul Simon held in 1:50:23.040 --> 1:50:26.200 the summer of sixty nine. I can't even say it, sorry, 1:50:26.800 --> 1:50:30.920 first reed six streme modulate tone. Not long after the 1:50:31.080 --> 1:50:33.040 Manson murders occurred nearby. 1:50:33.360 --> 1:50:35.120 I got my first real six string. 1:50:38.479 --> 1:50:41.360 The gathering took place at Paul's rented home at fifteen 1:50:41.520 --> 1:50:44.760 sixty seven Blue Jay Way. And if that street name 1:50:44.840 --> 1:50:47.759 sounds familiar, that's because it's the same house George Harrison 1:50:47.800 --> 1:50:50.800 rented in nineteen sixty seven, which led him to write 1:50:50.840 --> 1:50:53.439 the Magical Mystery Tour track of the same name, Blue 1:50:53.520 --> 1:50:53.880 Jay Way. 1:50:54.120 --> 1:50:56.679 Dude, I love that song. That is such a great 1:50:56.760 --> 1:51:00.160 deep cut. I find it so like sinister in free be. 1:51:00.320 --> 1:51:04.240 Like boom long please do. 1:51:06.960 --> 1:51:09.320 It's uh it shivers thinking about it. 1:51:09.600 --> 1:51:13.080 But Cello or whatever that is, it's like, yeah, yeah, I. 1:51:13.160 --> 1:51:15.639 Listened to it a lot and on acid in college. 1:51:15.680 --> 1:51:16.920 That might have something to do with it. 1:51:17.080 --> 1:51:19.840 But you know, that's that's an odd choice. It seems 1:51:19.880 --> 1:51:24.360 like you were actively seeking out bad trips A yeah. 1:51:24.360 --> 1:51:26.280 I mean, there's definitely like a couple like you know, 1:51:26.360 --> 1:51:28.240 when you're like tripping, you don't really want to hear 1:51:28.400 --> 1:51:30.439 like the early chit. You want to hear the like 1:51:30.800 --> 1:51:33.240 I'm a Tibetan monk singing from the mountainous stuff. 1:51:33.360 --> 1:51:33.560 You know. 1:51:33.720 --> 1:51:35.599 So Magical Mystery Tour has a couple of good ones 1:51:35.640 --> 1:51:38.240 on that white album, you know, good, good trippy. 1:51:39.920 --> 1:51:42.840 Anyway, back to Blue Jay Way, Paul Simon is having 1:51:42.880 --> 1:51:45.960 a house party. Let's all take ourselves there. Wayne's World 1:51:47.560 --> 1:51:50.680 nineteen sixty nine. The Manson murders just happened nearby, but 1:51:50.760 --> 1:51:52.400 at Paul Simon's house on Blue Jay Way. 1:51:52.960 --> 1:51:53.599 It's a party. 1:51:53.720 --> 1:51:55.000 It is. It is a party. 1:51:55.800 --> 1:51:56.960 The room smells terrible. 1:51:57.360 --> 1:51:59.840 Yeah, well, yes, Paul's there. 1:52:00.200 --> 1:52:02.639 You hear a gentle squeak at your shoulder. You look down. 1:52:03.080 --> 1:52:07.240 It's all four foot six of Paul side our garf 1:52:07.320 --> 1:52:09.320 uncle towers over him, stoned out. 1:52:09.160 --> 1:52:11.240 Of his mind with a road map in his hand, 1:52:11.320 --> 1:52:16.120 looking for places to go on extended walks. Yeah, Paul 1:52:16.120 --> 1:52:18.960 and Art are there. Paul's brother Eddie, Eddie Simon. We 1:52:19.000 --> 1:52:22.080 all know Eddie Simon. He's there. Perhaps a few others. 1:52:22.479 --> 1:52:25.800 Memories are hazy. They all came to play with this 1:52:25.960 --> 1:52:29.160 new fangled Sony Real, the Real tape deck, which came 1:52:29.240 --> 1:52:32.559 equipped with a reverb switch, and so they all started 1:52:32.640 --> 1:52:36.880 doing these improvised percussion patterns on their legs. And because 1:52:36.920 --> 1:52:39.360 this tape machine had a reaver effect, it added a 1:52:39.400 --> 1:52:43.519 little more punch to their their thighs slapping. And as 1:52:43.560 --> 1:52:46.120 the party progressed, Paul and Art they slapped their thighs. 1:52:46.479 --> 1:52:48.760 Eddie Simon offered a four to four beat on a 1:52:48.840 --> 1:52:53.040 padded piano bench. Another friend strummed the d TUN's guitar 1:52:53.240 --> 1:52:55.960 with slack strings that was basically just a rhythm instrument. 1:52:56.040 --> 1:52:59.280 Could chuck it, Yeah, exactly apparently they did this for 1:52:59.360 --> 1:52:59.960 a few hours. 1:53:00.520 --> 1:53:02.400 Yeah, well that's what you do. 1:53:02.520 --> 1:53:06.200 Paul would say, Perhaps we lost track of time, but 1:53:06.360 --> 1:53:08.240 for days to come. Paul would come back to this 1:53:08.360 --> 1:53:11.080 infectious groove that he had on the tape, and he 1:53:11.160 --> 1:53:14.400 composed a simple melody and guitar line to it. He 1:53:14.520 --> 1:53:17.240 excized a minute and fifteen second section of the original 1:53:17.280 --> 1:53:20.920 tape and turned it into a loop, which in pre 1:53:21.080 --> 1:53:23.519 digital times was a very literal thing. You had a 1:53:23.720 --> 1:53:26.800 giant loop of tape that stretched around the studio because 1:53:26.800 --> 1:53:28.840 it was a minute in fifteen seconds. That's a lot 1:53:28.920 --> 1:53:32.839 of tape. This formed the bed of the track Cecilia, 1:53:32.920 --> 1:53:36.720 the percussive bed, onto which Paul and already improvised other 1:53:36.800 --> 1:53:40.680 rhythmic elements, like dropping drumsticks onto a parquet floor in 1:53:40.760 --> 1:53:44.280 the studio, and also doing random notes on a xylophone 1:53:44.360 --> 1:53:47.640 that were somehow compressed to such an effect that the 1:53:47.720 --> 1:53:50.880 actual note didn't matter anymore. It was just became another 1:53:50.960 --> 1:53:51.800 percussive sound. 1:53:52.800 --> 1:53:55.720 Oh yeah, that's actually so. When you're doing that, you know, 1:53:55.800 --> 1:53:59.839 compressors have a tack and release function, and that basically 1:54:00.120 --> 1:54:03.800 is how quickly the squashing of the note happens and 1:54:03.880 --> 1:54:06.479 then how you know how much it takes before it 1:54:06.560 --> 1:54:11.320 releases that effect. So if you're diming those or if 1:54:11.360 --> 1:54:12.680 you're turning one of those all the way they up, 1:54:12.680 --> 1:54:14.120 but the other way the other you get these really 1:54:14.160 --> 1:54:17.439 wacky effects where you can literally just get like just 1:54:17.560 --> 1:54:20.400 the percussive hit on a note that doesn't have any 1:54:20.479 --> 1:54:22.519 real body or pitch to it. It's just sort of 1:54:22.560 --> 1:54:25.000 a side trick of how they get those gated drums 1:54:25.040 --> 1:54:28.519 that are so popular, where you compress the shit out 1:54:28.560 --> 1:54:31.840 of the drums and then like a really really fast attack, 1:54:31.920 --> 1:54:35.840 so it's an ultra fast attack and then a really 1:54:35.960 --> 1:54:38.880 short reverb tail and then you gate, so you cut 1:54:38.960 --> 1:54:40.920 off the tail the reverb. So all of those phil 1:54:41.000 --> 1:54:42.840 call In songs and like a lot of the shit 1:54:42.920 --> 1:54:45.360 on Gracelaine that we talked about, you get that gated 1:54:45.480 --> 1:54:49.040 snared gated percussion sound by sort of the same effect 1:54:49.080 --> 1:54:52.480 where you're essentially compressing it to the point where you've 1:54:52.920 --> 1:54:56.520 squashed out all pitch and just shortening it to the attack. 1:54:56.840 --> 1:54:58.920 It's a neat trick. Yeah, And I love this because 1:54:59.000 --> 1:55:01.480 like this is the it was making bone machine with 1:55:02.320 --> 1:55:05.520 its It's literally the exact same process where he was like, 1:55:05.600 --> 1:55:08.080 I just go into a room and I just go like, oh, merger, 1:55:10.160 --> 1:55:12.400 and he's like, yeah, well, Paul Simon got there first. 1:55:12.720 --> 1:55:36.520 Pal is the fun song some Nights not alarmingly similar 1:55:36.600 --> 1:55:36.840 to this. 1:55:37.000 --> 1:55:40.360 Though, Oh yeah, I think that's been commented on, possibly 1:55:40.440 --> 1:55:41.800 with Okay lawyers involved. 1:55:41.960 --> 1:55:45.080 Yeah, okay, worth a punch because it I just checked 1:55:45.120 --> 1:55:46.800 it out again and it still pisses. 1:55:46.520 --> 1:55:47.480 Me any. 1:56:23.240 --> 1:56:23.360 Well. 1:56:23.400 --> 1:56:26.720 By Simon's own admission, the lyrics to Cecilia were something 1:56:26.760 --> 1:56:30.040 of an afterthought, so he explained an interview with Rolling Stone. 1:56:30.360 --> 1:56:32.400 Every day I'd come back from the studio working on 1:56:32.480 --> 1:56:34.839 whenever we were working on, and I played this pounding 1:56:34.920 --> 1:56:37.440 thing on tape. And then I said, let's make a 1:56:37.520 --> 1:56:39.560 record out of that. So we copied it over and 1:56:39.640 --> 1:56:41.880 extended it. So now I pick up the guitar and 1:56:41.960 --> 1:56:44.560 I start to go, well, this will be like the guitar. 1:56:44.400 --> 1:56:47.040 Part Dunk Chicken, Dunk Chicken, Dunk Chicken, and. 1:56:47.160 --> 1:56:49.840 Lyrics were virtually the first lines. I said, you're breaking 1:56:49.880 --> 1:56:52.680 my heart. I'm down on my knees. They're not lines 1:56:52.720 --> 1:56:54.280 at all, but it was all right for the song, 1:56:54.400 --> 1:56:56.320 and I liked that it was like a little piece 1:56:56.360 --> 1:57:01.360 of magical fluff, but it works. I theorized by my friend, 1:57:01.480 --> 1:57:04.680 the music journalist David Brown, a wonderful journalist, that the 1:57:04.800 --> 1:57:07.760 name Cecilia is derived from Saint Cecilia. 1:57:07.320 --> 1:57:09.880 The patron saint of music, which I think is interesting. 1:57:11.440 --> 1:57:13.600 One line that did stick out to listeners at the 1:57:13.680 --> 1:57:17.080 time was making love in the afternoon with Cecilia up 1:57:17.120 --> 1:57:20.440 in my bedroom. The lyric was Simon's most explicit to date, 1:57:20.560 --> 1:57:23.520 and he'd recall a conversation with a veteran who'd recently 1:57:23.600 --> 1:57:27.160 returned from Vietnam. Soon after the song's release. Leavet said 1:57:27.160 --> 1:57:30.240 that he and his fellow soldiers heard the line and said, whoa, 1:57:30.400 --> 1:57:32.560 you can say that in a pop song. Things must 1:57:32.600 --> 1:57:36.160 be really changing back home. I've said this before, but 1:57:36.240 --> 1:57:39.280 it's interesting to note the parallels between the breakup of 1:57:39.400 --> 1:57:42.160 Simon and Garfunkel and the fracturing of the Beatles, who 1:57:42.240 --> 1:57:44.840 split publicly around the same time in the spring of 1:57:44.880 --> 1:57:45.560 nineteen seventy. 1:57:45.600 --> 1:57:48.080 Oh, Jordan, have you said that before? Jordan said's an 1:57:48.200 --> 1:57:50.680 unexpected opinion on would advanced from you, but please go on. 1:57:51.240 --> 1:57:54.040 The Beatles ended their last album they recorded, nineteen sixty 1:57:54.120 --> 1:57:56.960 nine's Abbey Road, with a track called the end, which 1:57:57.040 --> 1:58:00.320 featured solos from each member, as if allowing each to 1:58:00.360 --> 1:58:03.360 take a curtain call. Simon and Garfunkle made an equally 1:58:03.440 --> 1:58:05.760 poignant farewell on the last album that they. 1:58:05.760 --> 1:58:07.720 Recorded together, but Jovia Troubled Water. 1:58:08.440 --> 1:58:11.320 They revisited their early passion for the Everly Brothers with 1:58:11.400 --> 1:58:14.960 a cover of Bye Bye Love. The idea came after 1:58:15.040 --> 1:58:17.240 they performed it in concerts in the fall of nineteen 1:58:17.320 --> 1:58:20.720 sixty nine, and Simon liked the fact that the audience 1:58:20.760 --> 1:58:23.520 clapped along on the two of four, and they decided 1:58:23.520 --> 1:58:26.320 that they should record it live quote with the audience 1:58:26.400 --> 1:58:27.120 as our drum. 1:58:27.320 --> 1:58:29.200 And that's an extending quite a bit of grace to 1:58:29.280 --> 1:58:32.080 your average white audience at this time period. 1:58:32.160 --> 1:58:34.240 I mean, you were correct, because they never got a 1:58:34.280 --> 1:58:36.640 take that was satisfactory that they recorded live. 1:58:36.960 --> 1:58:40.080 Well, our buddy Wes, you know, who played in the 1:58:40.200 --> 1:58:42.360 same band of mine that you played in, went and 1:58:42.440 --> 1:58:45.080 saw New Young at Carnegie Hall and it was like 1:58:45.280 --> 1:58:48.040 just Neil acoustic. And so he's doing one of his 1:58:48.120 --> 1:58:51.360 songs and people start clapping along and he fully stopped 1:58:51.400 --> 1:58:53.800 the song and was like, please don't do that. The 1:58:53.880 --> 1:58:57.400 acoustics in here are just like such that your off 1:58:57.480 --> 1:59:00.520 time clapping is now throwing me off? Oh yeah, like 1:59:00.960 --> 1:59:04.880 launched right back into the song, just like ah Man 1:59:05.040 --> 1:59:10.520 are probably autistic. King from the North, Yes, but. 1:59:10.680 --> 1:59:13.600 Yes, simonc. Goarth never got a live version of Bye 1:59:13.640 --> 1:59:16.640 Bye Love that was satisfactory, so they recorded it in 1:59:16.760 --> 1:59:21.200 the studio and then took that version to their next concerts, 1:59:21.720 --> 1:59:24.320 played it live to the audience and said, here, clap 1:59:24.400 --> 1:59:27.720 along to this, we're gonna record. We're going to record you, 1:59:29.360 --> 1:59:32.600 which is amazing. I've never heard of that being done ever. 1:59:33.040 --> 1:59:37.160 So they just live overdubbed the clapping onto the version 1:59:37.200 --> 1:59:38.800 of Bye Bye Love that you hear on Bridge over 1:59:38.880 --> 1:59:39.440 Troubled Water. 1:59:39.760 --> 1:59:43.760 Was that preferable to bringing a metronome on stage or 1:59:43.960 --> 1:59:46.240 a drummer? I couldn't tell you. 1:59:47.280 --> 1:59:49.839 But that cover of Bye Bye Love with the crowd 1:59:50.120 --> 1:59:53.200 cheers against a song that they did in their bedroom 1:59:53.240 --> 1:59:55.840 when they were dreaming of being musicians, and now they're 1:59:55.880 --> 1:59:59.720 doing it on stage to a huge packed auditorium and 2:00:00.080 --> 2:00:01.760 you can hear them singing it, and you can hear 2:00:01.800 --> 2:00:04.760 the crowd cheering, and then it dies away, which is 2:00:04.800 --> 2:00:07.040 a very sweet way to end with me. They kind 2:00:07.080 --> 2:00:08.800 of figured was going to be the end of their career, 2:00:08.880 --> 2:00:11.880 and it segues into the final track on the Bridge 2:00:11.880 --> 2:00:15.160 Over Troubled Water album song for the Asking, and it's 2:00:15.200 --> 2:00:18.680 been described as an olive branch from Simon to Garfunkle 2:00:18.880 --> 2:00:21.960 and vice versa. In the making of the Bridge Over 2:00:22.000 --> 2:00:25.120 Troubled Water album documentary, Simon admits that there's a note 2:00:25.200 --> 2:00:27.800 of contrition in the song. He said, that's just to 2:00:27.920 --> 2:00:31.560 say I haven't forgotten what I did. I was not 2:00:31.680 --> 2:00:34.920 an angel, that's for sure. And he would add it's 2:00:34.960 --> 2:00:39.280 a sweet song. It's almost embarrassing, which is the second 2:00:39.320 --> 2:00:43.880 time this episode that he characterizes an authentic display of 2:00:43.960 --> 2:00:48.600 a deeply held emotion as embarrassing, which I find endearing. 2:00:49.600 --> 2:00:51.120 Man. Yeah, that's time yea. 2:00:52.160 --> 2:00:55.080 Cyberon and Garfuckle intended the Bridge Over Troubled Water album 2:00:55.120 --> 2:00:58.600 to have twelve tracks, but in a beautiful metaphor, they 2:00:58.720 --> 2:01:02.800 crashed over the twelfth song to include. Simon had written 2:01:02.840 --> 2:01:06.520 a song called Cuba c Nixon No Golf Vuncer was 2:01:06.560 --> 2:01:12.280 turned off by its overt political commentary. Instead, Art suggested 2:01:12.360 --> 2:01:18.160 doing a Haitian creole corral called Foyo. Neither side would 2:01:18.160 --> 2:01:21.880 budge and Paul would tell Rolling Stone. We were fighting 2:01:21.960 --> 2:01:23.600 over what was going to be the twelfth song, and 2:01:23.680 --> 2:01:26.080 then I said, screw it, put it out with eleven songs. 2:01:26.400 --> 2:01:28.440 If that's the way it is. We were at the 2:01:28.520 --> 2:01:31.040 end of our energies over that, and as they wrapped 2:01:31.040 --> 2:01:33.840 the album Deceummer nineteen sixty nine, they had a feeling 2:01:33.920 --> 2:01:36.160 it would be their last. Paul said, at that point 2:01:36.280 --> 2:01:39.840 I just wanted out, and in this instance scarfunk Will agreed. 2:01:39.960 --> 2:01:43.000 We just went our separate ways without ever officially agreeing 2:01:43.600 --> 2:01:44.320 to this band. 2:01:45.640 --> 2:01:52.560 Well they should have waited. No Bridge Over Troublewater was 2:01:52.600 --> 2:01:56.440 released January twenty sixth, nineteen seventy. Critical appraisal was initially 2:01:56.520 --> 2:01:59.880 not great. In Melody Maker in February of nineteen seventy, 2:02:00.160 --> 2:02:03.720 Richard Williams identified quote a few dull moments on the album, 2:02:03.800 --> 2:02:06.400 while adding that they're worth enduring for the jewels they 2:02:06.440 --> 2:02:13.040 surround fair Williams concluded, not perhaps another classic like book Ends, 2:02:13.120 --> 2:02:16.320 but still worth hearing for Simon's constantly surprising timing and 2:02:16.400 --> 2:02:18.000 for the way he can make his guitar sound like 2:02:18.040 --> 2:02:21.080 a small orchestra and the orchestra sound like a big guitar. 2:02:21.520 --> 2:02:24.440 This enforces your opinion that book Ends is the superior album. 2:02:25.040 --> 2:02:27.040 New York Times critic John S. Wilson was even more 2:02:27.120 --> 2:02:29.440 savage in his review of the title track, writing, in 2:02:29.560 --> 2:02:33.360 its mawkish, undiluted sentimentality, it was reminiscent of the songs 2:02:33.400 --> 2:02:36.080 of faith that were once great favorites on the lesser 2:02:36.200 --> 2:02:41.360 circuit concerts. Uh that's yeah, that's kind of on the nose, 2:02:41.440 --> 2:02:45.560 man like. They went from singing like actual spirituals and 2:02:45.640 --> 2:02:51.800 stuff to uh, a pastiche, yes, a pastiche in. Yeah, 2:02:52.600 --> 2:02:55.080 it's a great song. It's a good song. 2:02:55.360 --> 2:02:55.560 Yeah. 2:02:56.320 --> 2:02:58.400 But in an off repeated refrain on this show, what 2:02:58.520 --> 2:03:03.080 did the critics know? Damn them in their eyes, making 2:03:03.160 --> 2:03:06.920 Paul Simon write the boxer and hurting his little feelings. 2:03:07.320 --> 2:03:11.840 He's just a little guy. Bridge Over Troublewater was the 2:03:11.960 --> 2:03:16.160 best selling album in nineteen seventy, seventy one and seventy two, 2:03:16.480 --> 2:03:19.240 and was at the time the best selling album of 2:03:19.320 --> 2:03:23.240 all time until those English misanthropes in Pink Floyd came 2:03:23.320 --> 2:03:28.200 around and blew their echoplex Leyden meditations on death right 2:03:28.280 --> 2:03:31.520 over the honey soaked harmonies of the Nice Boys from Queens. 2:03:32.280 --> 2:03:36.480 It remained CBS Record's best selling album, Simon CARFN one 2:03:36.520 --> 2:03:38.560 not Dark Side of the Moon until the release of 2:03:38.600 --> 2:03:42.240 Michael Jackson's Thriller in nineteen eighty two. Bridge Over Trouble 2:03:42.280 --> 2:03:43.840 Watt took home the Grammy Award for Album of the 2:03:43.920 --> 2:03:47.560 Year and Best Engineered Recording's title track on the Grammy 2:03:47.640 --> 2:03:51.240 for Song of the Year, Best Contemporary Song, Best Arrangement 2:03:51.320 --> 2:03:54.720 Accompanying Vocalists, and Record of the Year in nineteen seventy one, 2:03:55.160 --> 2:03:58.960 beating out James Taylor's Firing Rain Good, The Carpenter's Close 2:03:59.000 --> 2:04:02.640 to You, Noah p and the Beatles Let It be Well. 2:04:02.720 --> 2:04:04.920 This was the Specter one, right, Yeah, yeah, I have 2:04:05.000 --> 2:04:08.200 no opinion about that. Interestingly, this was to be the 2:04:08.240 --> 2:04:11.400 first Grammy ceremony where the winners were not announced in advance. 2:04:11.960 --> 2:04:14.240 They were hoping to mimic the Oscars for the kind 2:04:14.240 --> 2:04:19.160 of show Busy Suspense by Danny Rose. So Simon and 2:04:19.240 --> 2:04:22.080 Garfunk was sweep is poignant in retrospect because on stage 2:04:22.120 --> 2:04:24.480 the duo could barely make eye contact with one another. 2:04:25.120 --> 2:04:27.560 Clearly they knew what they were walking away from. 2:04:28.000 --> 2:04:30.280 Art said in twenty ten, when Bridge Over Troubled Water 2:04:30.440 --> 2:04:33.480 was over, I wanted a rest from Paul the amount 2:04:33.520 --> 2:04:36.000 that we were in the studio in each other dueling 2:04:36.080 --> 2:04:38.880 for what makes a great record. That duel was tiring, 2:04:39.200 --> 2:04:42.520 Simon agreed. Yet another wedge between them was their ill 2:04:42.600 --> 2:04:46.280 fated TV special Songs of America in nineteen sixty nine 2:04:47.040 --> 2:04:49.800 and Yes, It's as bloated as the title would suggest. 2:04:50.560 --> 2:04:53.040 Clive Davis had the right idea, thinking that they could 2:04:53.080 --> 2:04:56.680 parlay their massive post graduate success Postgraduate the. 2:04:56.720 --> 2:04:59.360 Film not Arts their doctorate work. 2:04:59.440 --> 2:05:03.320 Yeah, had parlay that into a primetime TV concert a 2:05:03.400 --> 2:05:06.320 La Elvis's Comeback Special, which had aired the previous December, 2:05:06.760 --> 2:05:10.160 But unfortunately the duo had way too much creative control. 2:05:10.840 --> 2:05:14.080 Paired with the young Charles Grodin Arts co star in 2:05:14.200 --> 2:05:17.840 Catch twenty two and future Dad in the Beethoven Movies, 2:05:18.280 --> 2:05:22.040 they crafted a special that basically registered as lefty Pinco 2:05:22.160 --> 2:05:26.200 communist bunk to their sponsors Bell Telephone. It's described in 2:05:26.320 --> 2:05:30.000 Robert Hilburn's Paul Simon biography as quote a documentary style 2:05:30.120 --> 2:05:33.240 show about how they saw themselves. Paul Simon arc ourfuncle 2:05:33.280 --> 2:05:37.480 saw themselves in sixties America and saw America in the sixties, 2:05:37.600 --> 2:05:41.800 with footage interspersed of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, 2:05:42.120 --> 2:05:45.960 Ralph David Abernathy, and Robert Kennedy, bits from Woodstock and 2:05:46.080 --> 2:05:49.960 newsreel footage of Vietnam. Although today the show looks relatively tame, 2:05:50.120 --> 2:05:53.200 in nineteen sixty nine, Songs of America had a startlingly 2:05:53.360 --> 2:05:56.480 radical feel to it, more Woody Guthrie than Greatest Hits 2:05:56.560 --> 2:05:59.600 That Sounds Awesome. Its visual style edgy and jump cut 2:05:59.720 --> 2:06:02.600 for an hour, usually filled with the music of Perry Como, 2:06:02.920 --> 2:06:05.480 Bing Crosby and Andy Williams. It was one of the 2:06:05.520 --> 2:06:09.440 most daring shows ever presented on network television. It's okay, 2:06:09.720 --> 2:06:12.640 I've seen some of it, Okay. The show began with 2:06:12.800 --> 2:06:15.640 aerial shots of what looked to be Vietnam, which then 2:06:15.720 --> 2:06:20.080 cross faded into overhead shots about soundtracked by Yeah. Actually, 2:06:20.120 --> 2:06:24.760 well no, it was soundtracked by America. Because the Vietnam 2:06:24.920 --> 2:06:29.760 cross faded into overhead shots of American highways, Pittsburgh and 2:06:29.880 --> 2:06:35.280 a new Jersey Turnpike, poverty shacks, police, African American poor, 2:06:35.920 --> 2:06:40.880 and garbage heaps. Both sides dug in a little too 2:06:41.000 --> 2:06:42.840 deep when it came to trying to get this show 2:06:42.880 --> 2:06:45.960 onto the air. Paul and Lady Maybe didn't need to 2:06:46.040 --> 2:06:48.920 do a moody documentary piece with footage of RFK and 2:06:49.080 --> 2:06:53.160 mlk's funeral trains. They didn't even do any concert footage 2:06:53.280 --> 2:06:56.440 until the last fifteen minutes of the hour long documentary. 2:06:57.120 --> 2:07:00.680 That being said, the censors were being jerks. First off, 2:07:00.920 --> 2:07:03.200 they were pissed that Paul had turned in the finished 2:07:03.280 --> 2:07:06.640 version a week before air, which was his strategy to 2:07:06.760 --> 2:07:10.080 ensure that they messed with it the least, But then 2:07:10.320 --> 2:07:13.959 they flipped when they saw the content. Paul was very displeased. 2:07:14.000 --> 2:07:15.960 He said, you mean there are certain people in this 2:07:16.040 --> 2:07:18.320 country who will object if we say you must feed 2:07:18.400 --> 2:07:19.560 everyone in this country. 2:07:19.960 --> 2:07:22.040 Oh you sweet, sweet boy. 2:07:22.160 --> 2:07:24.800 And they said, your god damn right, someone will object. 2:07:24.880 --> 2:07:27.560 You have to change this. It's not going on. And 2:07:27.720 --> 2:07:30.200 we said, well, too bad, then it's not going on 2:07:30.360 --> 2:07:34.640 because we're not changing anything. The sponsors also complains that 2:07:34.800 --> 2:07:38.600 the Bridge over Troubled Water montage playing over JFK, RFK 2:07:38.760 --> 2:07:43.440 and mlk's funeral footage was quote unbalanced, and Paul said, 2:07:43.480 --> 2:07:46.840 what do you mean, how is it unbalanced? They're all Democrats, 2:07:46.920 --> 2:07:52.480 came the reply. Ah, Paul said, no, they're all assassinated. 2:07:52.600 --> 2:07:52.920 People. 2:07:54.400 --> 2:07:58.040 A compromise was eventually reached, and a re edited, slightly 2:07:58.160 --> 2:08:01.080 toned down version of the special was on November thirtieth, 2:08:01.200 --> 2:08:02.160 nineteen sixty nine. 2:08:02.320 --> 2:08:04.320 I got you know, I didn't know about this man. 2:08:04.400 --> 2:08:06.400 It actually makes me like both of them more. 2:08:06.720 --> 2:08:09.160 It's pretty wild. It's I mean, check it out. 2:08:09.200 --> 2:08:09.879 It's on YouTube. 2:08:10.640 --> 2:08:14.000 It bombed completely. As Charles Groden later said during the 2:08:14.040 --> 2:08:17.800 first commercial, which came just after Robert Kennedy's funeral train, 2:08:18.200 --> 2:08:21.160 one million people turned over to a Peggy Fleming figure 2:08:21.200 --> 2:08:24.400 skating special. It was just too honest for a lot 2:08:24.440 --> 2:08:27.640 of people. We mentioned all this because, over the course 2:08:27.680 --> 2:08:30.640 of the production of these songs for America Special, Charles 2:08:30.720 --> 2:08:33.880 Groden accidentally let it slip to Paul that Art had 2:08:33.920 --> 2:08:37.000 agreed to make another movie with Mike Nichols, a comedy 2:08:37.080 --> 2:08:40.840 drama titled Cardinal Knowledge. Paul would later say that quote 2:08:40.920 --> 2:08:43.000 something was broken between them after that. 2:08:43.240 --> 2:08:45.360 Wait, I thought they'd already decided. I thought they'd already 2:08:45.360 --> 2:08:46.160 decided to break up. 2:08:46.160 --> 2:08:48.800 Though. This was before the Bridge Over Troubled Water album 2:08:48.880 --> 2:08:51.200 came out. This was during the session. This was like 2:08:51.560 --> 2:08:52.520 fall sixty nine. 2:08:52.800 --> 2:08:53.160 Gotcha. 2:08:53.360 --> 2:08:55.520 It was basically like a you know, a very parental. 2:08:55.640 --> 2:08:57.840 It wasn't that you did it, but that you lied. 2:08:58.040 --> 2:09:01.600 Kind of situation. Simon confronted his partner. He said, I 2:09:01.640 --> 2:09:03.240 asked why he didn't tell me he was going to 2:09:03.320 --> 2:09:05.200 do this movie, and art said he was afraid I 2:09:05.240 --> 2:09:07.240 would stop working on Bridge over Troubled Water. 2:09:07.760 --> 2:09:10.360 In other words, he hit it from me a reasonable fear. 2:09:10.640 --> 2:09:12.600 He hit it from me. He knew how I'd feel, 2:09:12.640 --> 2:09:14.680 but he did it anyway. It's like an old married couple. 2:09:14.800 --> 2:09:17.400 He knew I'd feel, and he did it anyway. Mike 2:09:17.520 --> 2:09:19.240 Nichols told Artie that he was going to be a 2:09:19.280 --> 2:09:22.200 big movie star and already couldn't say no. He later 2:09:22.280 --> 2:09:23.720 told me he didn't see why it was such a 2:09:23.760 --> 2:09:25.560 big deal to me. He would make the movie for 2:09:25.640 --> 2:09:27.320 six months and I could write the songs for the 2:09:27.400 --> 2:09:29.720 next album in that time. Then he thought we could 2:09:29.720 --> 2:09:32.520 get together in the studio again and record them. I thought, 2:09:32.960 --> 2:09:34.600 you know, I'm not going to do that. And the 2:09:34.680 --> 2:09:36.960 truth is, I think if Artie had become a big 2:09:37.040 --> 2:09:39.880 movie star, he would have left. Instead of just being 2:09:39.920 --> 2:09:42.000 the guy who sang Paul Simon songs, he could be 2:09:42.120 --> 2:09:45.240 Arc Garfunkel, a big star all by himself and This 2:09:45.360 --> 2:09:46.960 made me think about how I could still be the 2:09:47.000 --> 2:09:50.680 guy who wrote songs and sing them. I didn't need Artie. Peggy, 2:09:50.840 --> 2:09:53.280 his new wife, encouraged me. She thought it was time 2:09:53.320 --> 2:09:55.920 for me to leave and do what I wanted. The 2:09:56.040 --> 2:09:58.600 duo played their last concert as a dedicated team on 2:09:58.720 --> 2:10:03.000 July eighteenth, nineteen, at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, not 2:10:03.160 --> 2:10:06.000 far from where they grew up together, and afterwards they 2:10:06.080 --> 2:10:11.240 reportedly walked to the parking lot, paused, shook hands, and 2:10:11.360 --> 2:10:16.040 quite literally went their separate ways. He was an unspoken split. 2:10:17.400 --> 2:10:19.960 Paul placed a call to Columbia Records head Clive Davis 2:10:20.000 --> 2:10:23.000 at some point around that same time, saying, before others 2:10:23.040 --> 2:10:24.800 find out, I want you to know I've decided to 2:10:24.840 --> 2:10:27.840 split with Artie. I don't think we'll be recording together again. 2:10:28.360 --> 2:10:30.920 Once words spread throughout the music industry, Paul got a 2:10:31.000 --> 2:10:34.600 call from George Harrison. They'd become friendly after Paul took 2:10:34.640 --> 2:10:37.640 over his lease on the Blue Jay White House, drawing 2:10:37.720 --> 2:10:42.560 on his own experience with the Beatles. You know those guys. George, 2:10:42.880 --> 2:10:45.040 who was then flying high with the success of All 2:10:45.120 --> 2:10:47.760 Things Must Pass and his worldwide hit My Sweet Lord, 2:10:48.440 --> 2:10:50.920 urged Paul, to use this opportunity to see what he 2:10:51.000 --> 2:10:53.960 could really do as a solo performer. Fuck yeah, but 2:10:54.160 --> 2:10:57.720 Paul he faltered slightly. He began teaching the aforementioned class 2:10:57.760 --> 2:11:01.240 at New York University, assuming it was to compete with 2:11:01.400 --> 2:11:03.320 arts mathematics doctorate from Columbia. 2:11:04.080 --> 2:11:04.200 Uh. 2:11:04.320 --> 2:11:06.480 This theory is bolstered by the fact that he's quoted 2:11:06.520 --> 2:11:08.960 as telling a friend in this period, you can't teach 2:11:09.040 --> 2:11:09.600 someone how. 2:11:09.520 --> 2:11:12.840 To write a song, yeah, but you can still get 2:11:12.880 --> 2:11:14.240 paid for Crucially, he. 2:11:14.280 --> 2:11:17.320 Started going to analysis three times a week and feared 2:11:17.360 --> 2:11:20.840 that his rural retreat in Bucks County, Pennsylvania wasn't secluded enough. 2:11:20.960 --> 2:11:23.280 So Paul, I think it's worth saying he was having 2:11:23.320 --> 2:11:26.200 a breakdown. He's going through something. It's like Paul McCartney 2:11:26.240 --> 2:11:28.600 going up to his farm in Scotland. The Beatles broke up, 2:11:29.080 --> 2:11:31.480 but eventually, in the early months of nineteen seventy one, 2:11:31.640 --> 2:11:34.040 he began work on his self titled post Sarmon and 2:11:34.120 --> 2:11:39.120 Garfunkle debut, which rules, Oh so good, Duncan check out 2:11:39.160 --> 2:11:41.680 that song that I love Duncan. 2:11:41.480 --> 2:11:44.520 Man, That song is so good. Mother and Child Reunion. 2:11:44.920 --> 2:11:46.360 What Let's just look at this. Let's look at it. 2:11:46.440 --> 2:11:50.920 Yeah, it's a it's it's laden with bangers, Mother and. 2:11:51.000 --> 2:11:55.480 Child Reunion, duncan everything put together. He's got me and 2:11:55.920 --> 2:11:56.440 me and Julia. 2:11:56.560 --> 2:11:57.760 Yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah. 2:11:57.840 --> 2:12:04.440 Paranoia Blues is really is really completely undersold in his catalog. 2:12:04.600 --> 2:12:08.040 I also love this album because he got Stephan Grippelli 2:12:08.760 --> 2:12:13.640 to play violin on Hobo On Hobo's Blues. Stephan Grippelli 2:12:13.880 --> 2:12:16.000 was a peer of Django Ryan Right and one of 2:12:16.080 --> 2:12:20.880 the principal architects of what is semi derogatorily or problematically 2:12:20.920 --> 2:12:24.920 these days called gypsy jazz. They prefer the term jazmine nouche, 2:12:25.040 --> 2:12:26.080 but that's crazy. 2:12:26.120 --> 2:12:26.240 Man. 2:12:26.320 --> 2:12:29.440 He just called up like a seventy something year old 2:12:29.520 --> 2:12:32.000 jazz legend and was like, hey man, come slap some 2:12:32.080 --> 2:12:35.080 violin on this song. Like I had not heard that 2:12:35.200 --> 2:12:39.360 George Harrison thing before. Man, that whips so hard. Hey man, 2:12:39.560 --> 2:12:42.880 I was chafing under a bunch of unreasonable egomaniacs for 2:12:42.960 --> 2:12:45.280 a long time. And look at me now, and look 2:12:45.320 --> 2:12:47.440 at me now on top of the fucking world. 2:12:47.560 --> 2:12:50.840 Yeah, their relationship is cute. Then they performed on the 2:12:51.080 --> 2:12:54.280 SNL a few years later, uh, doing homework band together 2:12:54.400 --> 2:12:58.839 and stuff. Yeah, their relationships, very sweet art. Garfuncle released 2:12:58.880 --> 2:13:03.360 his solo album Angel Claire on September eleventh, nineteen seventy three. 2:13:04.200 --> 2:13:06.040 It would hold the title of the worst thing to 2:13:06.080 --> 2:13:08.919 happen on September eleventh for almost two decades. 2:13:10.480 --> 2:13:10.640 Uh. 2:13:11.560 --> 2:13:14.720 Boy, that date just had it out from the start. Huh. 2:13:15.240 --> 2:13:18.320 Fans have long debated what went wrong between the pair ego, 2:13:18.520 --> 2:13:21.080 personality differences, artistic differences. 2:13:20.640 --> 2:13:21.080 Et cetera. 2:13:21.840 --> 2:13:25.520 But let's get the last word to Quincy Jones. Shall 2:13:25.560 --> 2:13:29.360 we just why not? Just as an exactly tree. Yes, 2:13:30.200 --> 2:13:33.600 the relationship was too restrictive, he said. Simon wanted the 2:13:33.680 --> 2:13:37.000 freedom to move beyond the mostly soothing folk strains that 2:13:37.080 --> 2:13:40.600 lifted Simon and Garfunkle the superstar status in rock. He 2:13:40.720 --> 2:13:42.640 heard a whole new world of music in his head, 2:13:42.760 --> 2:13:45.040 and he wanted to pursue it. There are a lot 2:13:45.080 --> 2:13:49.080 of factors that comprise great artistry, including passion, musical curiosity, 2:13:49.120 --> 2:13:52.400 and fearlessness, and the first rule of being an artist 2:13:53.000 --> 2:13:56.000 is you've got to protect all three. If Paul hadn't 2:13:56.040 --> 2:13:58.880 left Garfuncle, a piece of an artistry could have died. 2:13:59.600 --> 2:14:00.840 He did what he had to do. 2:14:02.800 --> 2:14:05.640 Is that your kicker, that's my kicker. Okay, my kicker 2:14:05.800 --> 2:14:07.760 is if any of you are in a creative partnership 2:14:07.800 --> 2:14:10.840 and you find yourself not doing the bulk of the 2:14:10.880 --> 2:14:14.360 work and still being the bulk of the ego, learn 2:14:14.400 --> 2:14:14.840 from art. 2:14:15.400 --> 2:14:17.240 Learn from art. 2:14:17.520 --> 2:14:19.600 No, that's a terrible kicker. Let me take that back. 2:14:20.600 --> 2:14:23.960 Rather than going out on a note of richly deserved 2:14:24.080 --> 2:14:27.960 hate or art garfuncle, I would like to look down 2:14:28.280 --> 2:14:33.919 to all six inches of Paul Simon and really applaud 2:14:34.040 --> 2:14:35.960 him for sticking with it as long as he did 2:14:36.320 --> 2:14:39.960 and giving this albatross around his neck as many chances 2:14:40.320 --> 2:14:44.440 to make things work as he possibly could. And I 2:14:44.520 --> 2:14:47.560 have my gripes with the guy, but you know, the 2:14:47.720 --> 2:14:52.280 art stands on its own, bald one lie scoreboard. Great job, Paul. 2:14:52.880 --> 2:14:56.360 Maybe all be free of our albatrosses and go on 2:14:56.440 --> 2:14:56.600 to a. 2:14:56.640 --> 2:15:02.240 Rich career stealing from those less fortunate from Yes, maybe 2:15:02.240 --> 2:15:04.800 we all emancipate ourselves from the burden of those who 2:15:04.880 --> 2:15:09.080 take from us and instead become the taker. The Paul 2:15:09.160 --> 2:15:13.640 Simon story. This has been too much information. I'm Alex 2:15:13.960 --> 2:15:16.480 and I'm Jordan, and we'll love you like a rock 2:15:16.840 --> 2:15:22.720 Next time. Baby, will l condor pesare signing off with 2:15:22.840 --> 2:15:29.520 some Paul Simon lyrics El condor pasa Uh that's the 2:15:29.640 --> 2:15:34.240 drum from me and j Yeah, there's also pan flutes 2:15:34.280 --> 2:15:38.600 on Duncan. Maybe he actually called some Indians on that one, 2:15:38.920 --> 2:15:43.760 or probably not, though probably just a probably just Argentinian 2:15:43.880 --> 2:15:47.400 Nazi again because he already had him in the rollodex 2:15:47.480 --> 2:15:54.320 right saleon silver Birds. We'll see you next time. 2:15:59.360 --> 2:16:01.880 Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio. 2:16:02.160 --> 2:16:05.360 The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog. 2:16:05.560 --> 2:16:08.360 The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. 2:16:08.680 --> 2:16:11.760 The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog 2:16:11.840 --> 2:16:12.920 and Alex Heigel. 2:16:12.760 --> 2:16:15.960 With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. 2:16:16.320 --> 2:16:18.360 If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave 2:16:18.440 --> 2:16:21.360 us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the 2:16:21.400 --> 2:16:24.680 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 2:16:24.720 --> 2:16:25.440 favorite shows