Thank God this isn't a job--with this many tardies I'd be fired by now....
Surprisingly enough, considering I'm 479 posts into Friday Night Jukebox, this is the first time I've written about Simon and Garfunkel--though I did do a post about a solo Paul Simon effort. Much like this week's tune, the earlier Simon tune was about, of all things on an American political blog, America. And I suppose there's a certain symmetry to twice posting an artist's musings on the American experience....
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel met in grade school in Queens, New York City, in 1953, and by 1956 they were performing as Tom and Jerry (and had a minor hit in 1957). They would break up and reunite several times before realizing folk music was breaking big in 1963 and reformed as Simon and Garfunkel. Their first album was a dud and they broke up again (it would be a theme); a couple of years after "The Sound of Silence" from that debut album was remixed and became a #1 hit. They regrouped, and over the course of the next five years won seven Grammys and eventually sold over one hundred million records. They broke up in 1970 and over the next fifty some odd years would record together occasionally and tour together often until 2009 when their differences became too great to continue. In the end, they were elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and were listed at #40 on Rolling Stone's 2010 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." Not too bad for a band that released five--five, that's it--studio albums in their career.
"America" originally appeared on their fourth album, 1968's Bookends. The song was not released as a single until 1972, and then as a promo for their Greatest Hits album. It peaked at #97 (with a bullet! though it wasn't much of one considering its chart peak...). The album was one of two #1 hit LPs the duo enjoyed during their career.
Fun Fact #1: The song is more or less autobiographical, as it chronicles a five-day bus trip Simon took with then girlfriend Kathy Chitty.
Fun Fact #2: The song is also one of the few hit rock songs to not have lyrics that rhyme.
Widely considered one of Paul Simon's best lyrical efforts and Simon and Garfunkel's better songs, "America" is the story of not so carefree young lovers traversing across America in a not so carefree time. Simon's lyrics captures both the exuberance and angst of youth...and the exuberance and angst of America. Simon's vocals are melancholy yet hopeful, and Garfunkel's harmonies conjure the beauty that can be the American experience. Though Simon and Garfunkel had plenty of magical moments in their song catalog, there's an air of greatness in this one that seems to grow with each successive listen. A masterpiece of folk rock.
Lyric Sheet: "Kathy, I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh/Michigan seems like a dream to me now/It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw/I've gone to look for America..."
Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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