Simon and Garfunkel: hello darkness, my old friends
Boy, have they gotten old.
And it’s Garfunkel’s voice that’s been most affected by the passage of time, although he still appears to have much of his always-formidable hair. But that high clear angelic sound is a bit grittier than before (not surprising, really), and his low-key delivery has gotten hammier, as though to compensate.
And although—as one YouTube commenter writes, “There’s something both moving and repulsive about very old people getting back together to sing songs that were written a lifetime ago…,” I think the “moving” part comes out ahead here (and please take away that word “very!”):
And did you know that “Mrs. Robinson” was originally about Mrs. Roosevelt?
Ah, what a difference twenty-eight years makes:
They sound wonderful. Love their maturing voices as well as when they were young.
Sounded darn good to me.
I think it depends on the singer and how well they have maintained their voice.
One of my favorite BD’s now is Heart’s Alive in Seattle. Ann Wilson’s voice is much stronger (at least in 2003) than it was in her youth. I much prefer to listen to her sing in that concert, than to hear her voice in the original recordings where, to me, it sounds less mature (in a good sense) and more limited.
Sounded fine to me.
One difference is that the older version of Sounds of Silence were more taut, a little faster.
It depends on voices. Frank Sinatra’ s voice lost a lot: it was evident by his 60s. Sarah Vaughan’s voice sounded different when she was in her 60s- smoky is the word that comes to mind- but her voice was still grand. OTOH, Sarah died at 66, and Frank lived much longer.
One of my uncles had a good voice. In his younger years he sang in his college choir and at weddings and funerals. In his 60s and 70s he refused to sing any more, although my aunt would request it, because he didn’t like the way his voice had aged.
In my hippie dropout days in Berserkely I knew a guy from Queens who claimed that when he was in high school he had performed in a band with either Art or Paul. I believe it was Art.
Voices aside, there is something creepy about old. recalcitrant ad unreformed ’60’s hippies coming out of the woodwork to relive their salad days.
It would be bearable if they had actually changed their minds and apologized for all the damage that they have doe (ad will yet do) but their is fat chance of that–all the more strident they appear to be to me. Frankly I find S & G and all they stand for to be repulsive in the exptreme. It was disgusting back then; it is truly morally revolting now. That a large swath of the Boomers never got over this nonsense is why we are in the great pickle we are in (and please spare me the “it’s just a song” nonsense–after all we have seen, it is clear that it is propaganda meat to demoralize and pervert). One day these folks will be broadly held in the contempt that they deserve to be held in, or at least one pray that this be so. The only problem is that when that day comes the America of their youth, the America they destroyed, will be a distant memory. On fact it is pretty much gone now. Darkness is “their old friend”? They are more honest than they mean to be.
(It goes without saying that few generations in history saw less “darkness” in their own lives than than these spoiled and narcissistic white boomer leftists of the ’60, which is no doubt the root of the problem with them.)
The worst generation in our history. So far as I am concerned, they ought to keep their yaps shut.
Some of us were serving in Viet Nam back then, for crying out loud.
You do a disservice, neocon, to the nation, in valorizing such people.
Hattip, i guess thats one way to look at it. I don’t tend to vet music or any art i like based on assumptions it came from a valid enough source. We’d have to throw out 99% of good music if we needed its creators to pass some sort of purity test.
By the way i thought the harmony sounded pretty darn good.
Seen some footage of a James Taylor concert of not too many years ago. Middle-age bobos actually crying.
Question: Is it that they still Believe? Is it that they recall the time when they Believed? Is it simply the music in isolation?
Some songs take me back. When I was in Basic, a guy in our squad bay had his radio tuned to a NJ station which had the top eight, iirc, including Age of Aquarius. When I hear that, I smell rifle cleaning fluid. Not grass in an off-campus apartment.
It all depends.
I also remember
“Denison, the men’s clothier, Route 22, Union, New Jersey, open from nine a. am to five the next morning.” I figure I heard that forty’leven times a day.
S&G were good sound. Were they propagandizing for the left? Maybe. Didn’t occur to me. Good sound, but I’d been a folkie and some of their work was close.
Although I was too young to appreciate anything Vietnam related, I find my stomach turning over political influence of singers, actors, etc.
I don’t see movies with actors who are insultingly liberal (Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Sandra Bullock, etc), etc.
People like Johnny Cash were against the war, but you knew he loved his country. I’m with hattip – not so much a purity test, but I can’t separate the creation from the creators.
And as far as very old, I believe that Art is 69. I don’t consider that “very” old for a regular person, but when we’re talking performers….
Sounded good, looked pathetic. I imagine lots of nose, ear, and back hair, like most old people.
JuliB,
You have to remember that in those days we had Cronkite and no internet. I had cousins serving in Vietnam, so I never supported the radicals and haters of the miltary, but I was naive enough to believe the intellectuals and MSM about the futility of the war. It took me a while to gain enough life experience to realize the phoniness of the radical chic.
OTOH, Simon and Garfunkel were not just anti-war protesters. Their songs were also about love and life, and their music was beautiful. In some ways, it gave me a bit of quiet time away from all the screaming when I could think about things.
expat.
Yeah. Those were jumpin’ times. I figured the proper breakfast for a day in the Sixties was a bowl of jalapenos and a tumbler of vodka.
There’s some Youtube footage of the old Brothers Four singing at UCLA. The camera pans the audience. Dazed and engaged.
In those days cities were burning, norms overturning, 200-300 guys killed in Viet Nam each week, hippies seeming to have control over the campus.
Good to get AWAY from all that for a couple of hours.
Richard,
Another part of the picture in those days were the snotty country club conservatives in my college who spent half their time choosing their china patterns and the other half their bridesmaid dresses. Reading and thinking didn’t seem to interest them. I was definitely trying to find a path between two very unpleasant extremes.
expat.
I am nothing if not ingenious. Discovering a sorority group was running a community project in a dicey area, I offered my bad self to help them out.
My guess is that your country club types, even in a sorority, weren’t going to soil their hands with a community project. So I didn’t meet them.
Did know, however, a woman anthro-af studies grad student with what has been called elsewhere the “eastern theater accent”. Very interested in lib issues.
Married a ton of money. Does lib philanthropy with what was left after hubby passed.
So you couldn’t tell, then.
I love it! Another “voices” thread.
I’ve belabored this on this blog before, but in my opinion the greatest singer in the world is Taiwan’s A-mei:
Xia Yi Ge Ren (The Next Person):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-RjX4JzG2s
Don’t understand the words or the video, but her voice breaks my heart every time. She’s pushing 40 and hasn’t lost a step.
And oh yeah, I started losing my hair in my mid-20s, so yeah, screw you Art Garfunkel.
Thanks neo. Both versions were a treat.
We got Brown in California!
Talk about old age hippies being used past their usefulness.
I’ve hated hippies since I was a child. Kind of rare perhaps. But I grew up in the mountains and the hippies invaded my meadows and hot springs and even as a six year old I could tell there was something I didn’t like about them. For one, they were loud. And trashy. Left a mess. Kind of an epithet.
But on the other hand, one of my best friends was a clock radio. Remember the ones that clicked loudly when the minutes turned over. Yes, I very much can separate the hippies from the great music. I very much agree with Paul in ATL. Don’t look. Just listen.
If you just listen and don’t look, they aren’t hippies, they’re just singers – and their voices, especially Garfunkel’s floating harmonies, are maybe more lovely with the wear and tear of age than they were in the ease of youth. I never cared much for hippies, but I hear no evil propaganda in S&G’s singing; just lyrics that are poetic even if a little pretentious, set off by sweet harmonies and real melodies — not just the squalling and banging of so much other “music” from that time.
Besides, it reminds me that “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” was the very first record album (remember those?) I ever bought with my own money. Thanks, Neo.
Mrs. W.
Couldn’t agree more. But the worst of the music from that era sounds heavenly compared to most of the caterwauling that passes for “music” these days. I never cared much for C&W music, but it’ seems like it’s about all that’s left. Or maybe I’m just turning into my dad…
My mother loved the music these guys put out. Ditto for James Taylor and other folk musicians. She now teaches folk guitar and piano. I grew up on this sort of sound, and y’know, I still like it.
Never knew much of their politics, but my family is very strongly conservative. We would have dismissed lefty political nonsense anyway. Perhaps I’m lucky I don’t have a strong history with their non-music antics. I can accept the music as being pretty good stuff. (Not my favorite, as it happens, but I still like it. Bonus kudo points to Simon for introducing me to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I love their music. Don’t know anything about their politics either, though. *shrug*)
I don’t count S&G among the worst of the bunch. And even the musicians whom I feel did the worst damage to society (John Lennon / Imagine, and CSNY / Ohio for instance) also made a lot of really great music.
Even their most nihilist songs (America, Sound of Silence, Me and Julio) pale in comparison to the social damage inflicted by the rappers of the 80s. Bitches and hoes and guns and drugs. And a whole generation of kids (black and white) formed their worldview around that and made the world we live in today. So don’t lose perspective. Things can, and have been Much. Much. Worse.
What was that thing Rod Stewart said in 1993 when recording his MTV Unplugged appearance, playing with former Faces band member Ron Wood for the first time in 20 years:
“The last time we played together, me wife was only four”.
(Rachel Hunter was only 24 at the time)
:^D
I’m not a big fan of Geezer Rock. Most of these guys should leave the old stuff where it is in the dust. If they are capable of coming up with new stuff, wonderful**. But after a time, you’re just screwing it up by doing the old stuff over and over. It’s kind of like visiting your old high school or junior high. Yeah, there are lots of memories there, usually both good and bad ones — but being back there visiting generally doesn’t make good new ones as well as doing something entirely new can.
====================
**Very topically, I can recall when Simon was whining in the early 80s about how no one wanted him to play his “new” music, they just wanted him to play his old stuff. My own take was that, if his new stuff didn’t suck, they’d want to hear it.
And this was proved valid when he released the excellent Graceland in 1986.
[blockquote]Question: Is it that they still Believe? Is it that they recall the time when they Believed? Is it simply the music in isolation?[/blockquote]
Richard, it’s that state they live in. You know, the one named by Brooklynites for that river in Egypt.
Brown was past his “use by” date the first time he was elected.
Now it’s the voters that are past their “use by” date.
They still think it’s 1975…
That, by the way, is the mnemonic to a medieval love potion. I believe the entire song is actually that mnemonic developed, fleshed out, and set to music.
Not only S&G but the Beatles derived their vocal sound largely from the Everly Brothers. And neither of them surpassed the Everlys vocally though Simon and Lennon/McCartney of course are great songwriters.
I always thought that early on Paul Simon always admired, and just wanted to be, Edwin Arlington Robinson.
…but he found the work less rigorous, and the money better, in pop culture. And hell, poets don’t get laid nearly as often.
I do not know how one distinguishes the “source” from the “content” when it comes to communist infiltration of the Arts, which is exactly what folks like S&G represent. In any case, that is a rather self0deatic principle when one is discussing “popular culture”, a “culture” that is inherit parasitic on a larger culture and who focus should hardly be said to be on “universals”, Those who say that they “do not understand the context”, or that they “do not know of their politics” are not listening to the lyrics (Not to mention that they are also not thinking clearly or at any depth whatsoever). As for the comic idea that all this garbage is about “love and life”, well, I rather doubt that S&G in any real sense know much about either–if f they had any real experience here they would have recanted their positions. This is rather my point. Their lives are as bizarre, superficial, puerile and artificial as are their “beliefs”. Few things could be more removed for “love and life” than all this claptrap.
Many here have been taken in by the whole game–undone by the treacle and the sentimentality of the hustle. They are so inured to the manipulative collectivist cant that they cannot see what they clutch to their own chests, They unwitting and reflexively have absorbed the whole counter-cultural nonsense. This is, of course, was the intent of his sort of propaganda.
As for “country club conservatives”, well true “country club conservatives” were in those days rarely found outside the Ivys. Most of the people that are being mis-characterized here were just the children of the traditional middle classes–the children of people who owned small and medium sized businesses in small and medium sized towns. This hardly makes them either “conservatives” or “the rich”. It is a case in point of my thesis that posters here have inadvertently been corrupted by the the “counter culture” rot of the ’60’s that someone can posit “country club conservatives” as somehow an opposing force to the “New Left”, moral or otherwise, and a noxious one at that. This is just a reflexive regurgitation of the Marxist propaganda of the ’60s as articulated by the likes of S&G. (Hint: organizations like the SDS where directly funded out of the Kremlin.)
Such posters should be ashamed of themselves for projecting his or her envy and jealousy onto those who have little to do with their own conditions or to he bullied into this becuase it was “hip”. It was shameful way back when; it is deeply immoral now. Such should be ashamed, but they are not. This is the real moral damage of the ’60, and the one that I was pointing out in my prior post. It seems not to have registered.
As to the issues of “beauty’ and beautiful harmonies”, well now, I suggest you go listen to some Brahms or some Mozart, or, should that be beyond you, go listen to Glenn Miller or Ellington. Merely on the basis of aesthetics alone, the music of the hippies was (and is) as infantile as the their politics.
self0deatic = self-defeating
The classics, jazz and even blue grass instrumentals. No words for the most part. Highly skilled musicians, who, for lack of a better term, can play their ass off, will always get my ear. The words get in the way.
For sound, pure sound, try the Tallis Scholars.
Parsley, Sage, etc, is a backwards love song. Somebody done somebody wrong song.
You can’t get an acre between the salt water and the sea strand–that’s a line with only one dimension.
Shirt without seams or needlework? Impossible.
Do the impossible and then he/she….
Lots of luck, stupid. You had your chance.
Hattip, you seem to have zero perspective that the preferred artist you named also got viewed as the rebellious younger generation taking us all to hell in a handbasket.
“”Question: Is it that they still Believe? Is it that they recall the time when they Believed? Is it simply the music in isolation?””
Richard Aubrey
There are songs i love that i purposely avoid and wont put on my ipod or youtube favorited because they seem so wonderfully connected with the times i recall them from and i don’t want to dilute that. Upon hearing them, they can still conjure up feelings i held at the time and even give flashes of sights and smells from that time that my mind otherwise can’t seem to properly recall without it. I know, it’s a weird thing.
I don’t want to “own” these songs. I’m content just hearing them by chance maybe once or twice a year on the radio. It keeps their magic intact.
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Well, I don’t like entertainers of any sort who desperately hang on to the door frame to the stage with their fingernails, and don’t gracefully exit that stage when their talents diminish–not so much a problem with actors as it seems to be with singers. I can understand an addiction to adulation, but it is unseemly–if that concept is even still operative in these degenerate days. For an example, Wolftrap, here in the Washington, D. C. metro area, keeps bringing back the geriatric Peter, Paul, and Mary and other similarly aged entertainers each year. Personally, I do not want to hear some old, washed-up, often bloated, bewigged and toupeed, barely mobile geezer croak out a hacked up i.e. they change the charts, compress the range of notes to accommodate the “star’s” waning abilities–version of a song they sang pretty well many decades ago.
Then, of course, I cannot separate the singer and his or her political views from their songs, especially when those singers have broken out of character, stepped up to the mike, and lectured all of us unwashed patrons–who have made them rich–about what uninformed boobs, and mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging troglodytes, racists, and haters we all are.
Then, of course, there is the propaganda aspect it all those songs, for everything is, ultimately, “propaganda,” in the sense that words and songs, poetry and plays, TV shows, movies and video games alter our “balance,” hold up examples of behavior, tell us what is to be valued and what to be shunned, push us in one direction or another.
Never underestimate the power of Songs.
Songs set the scene and establish a mood, ratify certain behaviors and emotions, and portray others as bad, they are the almost subliminal messages that form the background of our lives, and influence us in many ways, both overt and subtle. In the case of the pernicious 60’s, those songs had a very great deal to do with promoting the culture of sex, drugs and rock’n roll, with setting us on a new cultural course; a cultural atomic bomb whose fallout we are still suffering from today. The 60s massively changed attitudes and behaviors of many, many people for the worse, and twisted and poisoned a whole generation of young people–and many older ones as well–who have transmitted those attitudes, values and behaviors foreword, and many who were so powerfully and deeply changed by the 60s or their heirs are in positions of power today ,and calling the shots.
Got the Kingston Trio on Youtube, searching for “They Call The Wind Mariah”. None of the old guys was there. Three new ones. Did a good job. They should change their name. None of the old time fans are going to pay money to see new guys just because of the name and new fans aren’t going to want to see what sounds like their grandma’s music.
Anybody remember Maynard Ferguson? His schtick was to hit high C over a cat fight on his trumpet.
Saw he was booked into a local high school not to many years ago. I bet he wishes he’d paid more attention to his 401k.
Listened to them a lot in Vietnam.
When I was in Naval Supply School in San Diego in the Summer and Fall of 1967, went to a concert by the Lovin’ Spoonful where Simon and Garfunkel were the opening act.
“Richard Corey,” “The Boxer,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – great stuff at the time.
Nowadays – old and time-worn. Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge in 1975 – doesn’t fit.
Retire and drool, guys. Is what I’m doing.
Tangentially, I’ve found it interesting to listen to songs in languages that I don’t know, Japanese and Korean lately. It’s quite possible to appreciate the vocals purely on a musical level. That said, in some cases, when I hear the song rendered with English lyrics, the words do indeed get in the way of the music.
As a kid, I didn’t so much listen to S&G as hippie poetry as I listened to it as music. Heck, some of it actually was rendered as pure music via the wonders of “elevator music” modification. Now, maybe that made me a brainless lump of a child, but I maintain it’s possible to hear only what you’re listening for, for good or for ill.
And notably, I find myself listening to lyrics more these days, and tossing out some old favorites, and even some new ones, simply because of the lyrics. The music can still be great, but the lyrics break the piece.
…and yes, most of what I listen to is pure music, classical or modern orchestral, or the occasional foreign piece (opera taps into this, too, though I can’t stand vibrato). Maybe someday, when I learn Japanese, I’ll toss out even more songs for stupid lyrics. Or if I find out Vivaldi was a mentally deficient protocommunist, I’ll toss that music, too. *shrug*
The problem is that the sixtees had an angelic and a satanic side, and both were interwoven. I remember how very good and very bad young people were into it, and I still feel the bitterness of having witnessed the truly good being crushed and the truly bad getting away with all the financial and social spoils.
The two sides are most apparent in ‘Imagine’ of John Lennon. On the one hand it is a lovely dream of universal freedom without ressentment and prejudice, on the other hand it was an evil popversion of the evil communist manifesto.
Today, thirty years later, sadder and wiser, I cannot listen to this song without being reminded and revolted of all the lies of the Left.
i am just a lowlife whose vote is bought and sold
as i squander your existence
on a pocketful of kickbacks such is politics
all hope and change still the voters hear what they’re told to hear and never find it strange
that the promises we make are never kept
when i first arrived in washington i was still a bit naive still had faith in my convictions
then power’s aphrodisia cast its spell on me
now i’m flying high seeking out the lavish parties where the richest donors go cutting deals with them that we call quid pro quos
seeking constant reelection i come pandering for votes and money for my coffers and the blandishments of those who shape your point of view
i do declare there are times when i am so loathsome that even i’m depressed
then i take comfort in the knowledge that i’m just like all the rest
lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie all us politicians ever do is lie
then i’m laying out my strategy and practicing the lies i’ll tell back home so my constituents won’t realize i’m screwing them while wooing them to vote for me mmm mmm mmm mmm
in the senate sits a boxer preening endlessly as she undermines our freedom and interrupts a general condescendingly as she cries out
in her hubris and disdain call me senator i’ve worked too hard for you to call me maam and as for your profession i don’t give a damn
lie lie lie…
First, thanks for that walk down memory lane. The music of S&G always moved me. It did more today than at any time in the past. Thanks for that. PS: Ann, I thoroughly enjoy reading through the commentary after one of your superb posts. Allow me to hattip one of your best posters – hattip! His/her comments are both timely and relevant. Thanks to hattip. I hope you will continue to comment here. Maxwell, CDR, USN (Ret)
SteveH: It is you that lack “perspective”, not to mention language skills.
Your “position:, such as one can make it out, is absurd.