Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDLXXIX--Simon and Garfunkel: America

 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

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXI--The Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop

"Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

And with those four words a legendary rock and roll band was born

It's hard to overestimate the legacy of the Ramones--despite their lack of commercial success (their highest charting album hit #49, their highest charting single hit #66--both, one presumes, with a bullet!) their influence on the punk movement and later the alternative scene (much like their non-selling kin The Velvet Underground) was astounding.  Formed in Queens, New York in 1974, the Ramones would spend the next 22 years making fourteen albums and touring over two hundred days a year.  They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, were listed as #26 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," and in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Grammy's.  Sadly, much of this glory was missed by the original band members, as three of the four (Joey in 2001, Dee Dee in 2002, and Johnny in 2004) had passed away less than eight years after their dissolution, and the last original Ramone (Tommy) died in 2014.

Fun Fact:  There have been 48 (yes, 48) full-length tribute albums devoted to the Ramones.  Not bad for four middle class kids from Queens....

Released on their oh so cleverly named debut album (which was certified gold--500,000 copies sold--thirty eight years later in 2014), The Ramones, in 1976. "Blitzkrieg Bop" was the world's vinyl introduction to the Ramones.  I'm not sure there's ever been another band whose first song on their first album transformed a generation of musicians the way "Blitzkrieg Bop" did--when you listen to the guitars it's not hard to guess where the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and Green Day (among a multitude of others) borrowed their guitar sounds from.  In keeping with the Ramones disdain for long songs (their songs are generally three minutes or less in length), "Blitzkrieg Bop" is two minutes and nineteen seconds of pure adrenaline with Joey's shout singing vocals, Johnny's blistering guitar, and Tommy's no holds barred drumming.  Even at the age of fifty-eight, it's hard when listening to it to not jump around the house with arms and legs thrashing.  It's power pop at its finest...and as it often went in the Ramones' career, the song never even made the damn charts.

And it's a reminder that all too often, greatness is only seen in retrospect (Hello, Hillary Clinton!).

Liner Notes:  What else?  "Hey! Ho! Let's go! Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee