Poet Musician Artist -

By Robert Matthew-Walker, 1984 

When ten million people buy a copy of the same album, it is safe to assume that it is a recording of some significance. The reverse is not necessarily true. While a great many unworthy albums manage to be released and deservedly do not sell, there are also a significant number of very worthwhile musical statements, sometimes great ones, which for one reason or another never get the chance of reaching a wide audience. If Simon and Garfunkel had issued twenty-one albums that sold in small quantities, the reason for such a book as this would be hard to seek: what significance, within a popular culture, can there be for something which is manifestly not popular? Only a handful of enthusiasts would be interested in pursuing the subject, though there have been instances where artists have had greater success after their death than when they were alive. Such instances are mercifully few, yet there is always an element of inverted snobbery that implies that something which is popular cannot possibly be worthwhile. The main body of this book - the detailed analyses of the recorded legacy to date of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel - has attempted to show why we should investigate the phenomenon of this remarkable pair, and this concluding essay, divorced from the detailed discussion of each album, attempts to put their work into perspective.

 It is as well to state now that the old widely held belief that popular music is essentially ephemeral and without lasting significance is no longer tenable. Since the advent of rock music in the mid 1950s, and the myriad developments it has spawned since then, the number of worthwhile artists has grown to such an extent that that old-fashioned view of popular music has to be discounted. If the music of early rock musicians was worthless, why is it that, getting on for (in some cases) thirty years after it first appeared it still retains the power to affect people, to move them in some way, to make them want to return again and again to the performance? If such music is indeed worthless, it would have disappeared along with the fashions of its day. The fact that it has not, and appeals anew to younger generations, conclusively proves that factors other than fashions are involved. Simon and Garfunkel, although they were impressionable teenagers when rock music began and, being American, were in the thick of the action, were influenced by early rock. They could hardly have remained untouched by it, if only by the circumstance of history.

 This book began with a biographical outline that detailed the United States involvement in the Second World War. The war changed the Western world in many ways, not least in political and sociological ones. It was the last great conflict in our history, and it is to be hoped that it will remain so, but because it was so great, so wide- ranging in its effects, a whole generation of mankind was changed by it. When it was over, and victory for the Allies had been achieved, the cost in human and economic terms could only begin to be counted.

 Popular culture, the entertainment of the masses, has always had an element of escapism about it. This is no recent phenomenon: it is the essence of popular art. Between the wars, with the economic climate of the world in tatters, the entertainment industry flourished. Millions flocked to what were termed 'picture palaces' - and palaces they were. Large, extravagant buildings with fittings and decoration on a scale far removed from everyday life. The working class lived in dwellings that were barely adequate; their centres of mass entertainment, the cinemas and ballrooms, were literally palaces compared with their places of work and habitation.

 For their escapism after the shocking experience of the Second World War people naturally turned in music to a style that offered aural balm and comfort from the rigours of postwar austerity. As America was at that time the richest nation on earth, whose civilian population had largely escaped the sufferings Europeans had endured, it may at first seem strange that such a movement as rock and roll should have started there. But it did not start in the affluent cities of the north. It began and grew from an essentially white, often deprived, working class, and a working class that, ten years after the cessation of hostilities, had begun to reject the established popular music. We know that each generation reacts against the previous one, if only to establish its own identity, and so such an event as the rock revolution should have been foreseen and expected; and for other reasons, too. It is a curious fact that movements in painting and literature often precede similar movements in music by several years. Just why music lags behind the other arts in this way is difficult to understand, but it does. As this is true in 'art' music, so it is in popular music. The archetypal rock and roll enthusiast has - by and large - always dressed in a certain way, but the D.A. hairstyle, with greased, high-combed hair, the leather truck driver's jacket, the jeans and chunky footwear, were already fashionable before Elvis Presley cut his first Sun single, as the Marlon Brando and James Dean films of 1951-4 show. This fashion was a rejection of ordered clothing, of conformity, of the standards of the older generation. The juke-box music in these films, however, is an anachronism, being largely a kind of watered down big band jazz. The youth of the time had to wait several years before Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' and 'Heartbreak Hotel', but when it did arrive, it was clearly recognized for what it was.

 It is often maintained that rock music became watered down and lost its drive at the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s, and that it was not until The Beatles that these qualities were regained. While this is plausible enough, up to a point, the fact remains that what we call the 'rock revolution' was not as complete as some would like to think. A glance at the charts at the time of Presley's early successes, for example, shows a wide range of music (far wider in technique and range than we encounter in the charts of the early 1980s) which also had followers, and this was not strictly rock music. What evolved from the fusion of what one might call ethnic rock and the then current 'Hit Parade' material was an attractive kind of popular music: music with a beat, but not wildly emphasized, based on rock rhythms, allied to a melodic strain, often harmonized, which clearly came from ballad singers. This music is cited as proof of the decline of rock, but it was a new fusion of its own, and produced some very fine records and highly talented musicians into the bargain. Of this kind, the Everly Brothers constitute a very good example.

 They were intensely musical, very gifted, with distinctive voices that blended admirably. A whole succession of hits came from this duo, and they in turn influenced a great many other artists. The young Simon and Garfunkel, harbouring dreams of being a singing duo, could hardly fail to become influenced by the Everlys, and their early Big records show this influence almost to the exclusion of any other.

 Simon learned the guitar as a child in the late 1940s; he and Garfunkel were intelligent and clever, both born into musical homes. With such a background, it is not  surprising that they were familiar with a wide range of music and sympathetic to all styles, even as young teenagers. This breadth of sympathy was remarkable in early rock singers, who tended to plough one furrow, and to the elements of rock (transformed into a softer style by people such as the Everlys - although this 'softness' is one of degree: listen to their electrifying 'Claudette', which is great rock music) which caught the eager ears of Simon and Garfunkel should be added the purer sound of folk music. The folk group The Kingston Trio had a number one hit with 'Tom Dooley' (a genuine folk song) in 1958, and this created great interest in the folk idiom. It was yet another reaction: acoustic guitars, devoid of electronic blasting, are more basic, and infinitely more supple. This was the instrument Paul Simon played, and sang to: what could be more natural for the young singer-songwriter than to absorb elements of folk into his evolving style? What is still missing from this is Simon's notable ingredient: literacy. What catalyst managed to bring out Simon's literary qualities ? It was another singer- songwriter of broadly similar background - Bob Dylan. Dylan's influence on popular music has occasionally been overestimated, but it was wide and profound - exceptionally in his literary influence, far less for the musical. Dylan, like Simon - though Simon had less flamboyance - had remarkable gifts for verbal imagery of a truly poetic nature. Dylan's abrasive qualities and his primitive instrumentation (at least in the early days) are nowhere to be found in Simon's work, apart from the occasional suggestion in the earlier songs, but his literary skills must have struck a responsive chord in Simon's imagination.

 It is the consistently high standard of Simon's work as a lyricist that is one of the most important aspects of his art. It is important, because whereas a tune can make itself felt at a first hearing the words, and their subtler implications, often do not. This view can be applied to any musical setting of words. It is only after a period of familiarity that the inner meanings of the poetry being set make themselves clearer. To some, it matters little about the words of a popular song; they claim - with some justification - that no one bought a record because of the words, for it was the music that attracted them in the first place. While this may be true, it is also right to point out that only with greater familiarity can the implications be explored.

 To the two influences identified earlier, poetic imagery was the third main ingredient, and by 1963 Paul Simon had been exposed to them long enough for the synthesis with his own creativity to have become complete. As a performing musician he needed the contact and experience of live gigs. Unable to get work in New York, he travelled - somewhat surprisingly - to England, rather than going to look for America. By late 1963 London was becoming the swinging capital of the decade. The Beatles had had their early major successes and were on everyone's lips, being followed by a whole succession of British bands of the highest significance. London was 'where it was at', and it says much for Simon's strength of purpose that having chosen to go to England to live and work, performing and creating in such an exciting environment, his own art remained itself, utterly without influence from such groups. This is principally because Simon performed at folk clubs and pubs, away from the group venues. His art has always been more intimate, more personal, and yet the temptations to change his style must have been great.

 Another influence, and one that soon was to become most important, was reuniting with Art Garfunkel. Garfunkel's background was similar to Simon's, but not being a performing musician himself he could bring a sympathetic yet detached view to any problems. Garfunkel's main contribution - and indeed the only one as far as the public was concerned - was his voice, so distinctive and memorable that his timbre is as much a part of those classic recordings as Simon's words and music. It is impossible to define exactly the influence one person has upon another, especially when they have known each other from the cradle, but in the light of Garfunkel's solo albums he must have contributed much in the creative process.

 And so, by the time of their first success together, they had a combination of qualities that enabled them to withstand the rigours of pop music superstardom. The time was ripe for any success they were likely to achieve. Why then, was this combination - of Simon's songs and their expression within a distinctive vocal style - so successful at the time, and in what manner do these songs possess lasting qualities?

 There are two main reasons for the first, apart from any inherent qualities the songs had. The first was that Simon and Garfunkel had the good luck to be signed to  the most important record company of the time. CBS's connections were world-wide, and no sooner had a single showed signs of being a hit in one country than it was immediately available in others as part of the same organization. International pressure could be brought to bear very quickly, which is essential in the case of a film, released simultaneously in many countries, and the phenomenal success of The Graduate album bears witness to the organization at work. Apart from their worldwide connections, CBS also possessed the advantage of being run by a very remarkable man, Clive Davis. Davis's tenure of the office of president was colourful and exciting, and during the time he ran the company a number of very important signings were made: apart from Simon and Garfunkel there were Janis Joplin, Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and The Byrds, among many others, and the combination of this impressive roster of the best of the new American bands and performers made the company the most significant in rock music at the time. They knew how to promote: the sampler albums Rock Machine Turns You On and Rock Machine I Love You opened up a whole new market for music that only a few years previously would have been regarded as almost impossible to sell.

 Not that all the credit must go to Davis: the company was successful before he took over, and has gone from strength to strength since his unsavoury departure, but he symbolized the aggressive urgency that was brought to bear by the company in the market-place to get the music across to as wide an audience as possible. No other record company - not even EMI with The Beatles, or Decca with The Rolling Stones - had quite that burning commitment to music. At times CBS handled their product with an almost religious fervour, and without Davis at the helm at that time things might have been very different.

 The second main reason is that Simon and Garfunkel offered a viable alternative to the proliferating rock bands of the time. Duos are by no means unknown, but at the time of the rise of Simon and Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers were on the wane. This is not to say that Simon and Garfunkel took their place but that there was no international competition for such a duo. This alternative meant that without a heavy drum section (in spite of Tom Wilson's efforts to the contrary) and the obligatory electric guitars, the sound of Simon and Garfunkel was quieter, calmer and altogether more subtly fashioned. They did not possess rock voices, and could no more shout the blues than an operatic soprano. Their voices were naturally quiet and even, so that no matter what song they sang - and their range was very wide - the song always stood the best possible chance. Subtle they may be, but they were not obtuse, and there was no mistaking the point being made.

 To a society troubled by the growing US involvement in Vietnam, by the assassinations of that country's more enlightened leaders, by the upheaval of the black civil rights movement and its proliferating violence, by student unrest in Europe and in America, by the instability of seemingly secure European political institutions (particularly in France), and the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the disillusionment by the realization that unchecked personal liberty (made easier by more liberal laws and the invention of the Pill) does nothing to curb aggression: in short, in a world that was going through a major upheaval as millions of babies born to the families of returning soldiers after the war were coming to maturity, the popular music of Simon and Garfunkel appeared above the din and hectic activity of everyday life, pointing towards more lasting values. The very titles of their hits, 'The Sounds Of Silence', 'Homeward Bound', 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', suggest this, and their detached sympathy for the helpless Mrs Robinson struck a responsive chord in the children of the generation of Mrs Robinson's own children, and in the millions of Mrs Robinsons. Their appeal was consequently wide and covered several generations. The reasons for their success were artistic quality and originality, at the right time, and offering a necessary alternative.

 Having divined the influences and charted the progress, let us now examine their artistic qualities. The first thing that strikes the listener to the early Paul Simon songs (i.e. those written between 1963 and 1967) is their resemblance to folk song. Occasionally Simon took an existing song and turned it to his own purposes, but in so doing he often changed it- not out of all recognition but for his own purposes - and by so doing created a new and perhaps more relevant and worthwhile statement. This is nothing new in popular music, for singers invariably take material as a basis for their own interpretation, but Simon added new dimensions in changing the material to a virtually original creation. In classical music Handel, for example, was the master at taking other people's work and recomposing it to make it his own. His oratorio Israel in Egypt is possibly the best case of this, and the use of classical influences is another part of the Simon and Garfunkel mix. 'American Tune', although not strictly speaking a classical piece, as we have seen, falls into this category, but the prime example from their earlier work is 'Benedictus'. This was Garfunkel's most important public contribution, and he followed it on Angel Clare with another Bach adaptation. This interest in classical music extended to the use of classical instrumental timbre: harpsichord (essentially a baroque instrument) and oboe solos are not uncommon in Garfunkel's work, and occur in Simon's solo work as well. The result is that the listener's experience of sound is stretched, is intrigued by an instrument he is unlikely to encounter in rock music. In this regard, Simon and Garfunkel were not alone among their contemporaries: the Moody Blues used classically based orchestration to showcase their distinctive talents and were highly successful with it, and the classically trained Rick Wakeman was able to bring the same approach, albeit a more rock-oriented one, to his work. On the other side, David Bedford, the English composer and ex-rock musician, who played with Kevin Ayres and The Whole World, utilized his experience from both sides of the fence to create a fascinating sound-world in his later classical pieces, and Bedford's association with Mike Oldfield has done much to break down the unnecessary barriers that still exist between rock and classical music. These names are but a handful, chosen at random, from a veritable school of popular music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but Simon and Garfunkel took what they needed from classical music and likewise turned it to good use.

 Simon, being classed as a 'folk' singer at the start of his career (the Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m. album claims  that the contents are 'exciting new sounds in the folk tradition' in a desperate attempt to express what the album contained, though 'folk' music, as it is generally understood, was but a small part of the album) was nevertheless able to use just what he wanted from folk music and no more, in the same way that he used other streams. 'Scarborough Fair' is the prime example of this, but as has already been demonstrated this too became virtually an original composition. From folk Simon took not only the contour of tunes and somewhat simple harmonies, but also the instrumental sounds. 'El Condor Pasa' is an excellent case: an original folk recording to which modern words have been added, to create anew a composition and a more relevant statement. Of course anyone can take existing material and play with it, but it takes a composer of genius - which I believe Paul Simon to be - to show us a new perspective and in the process create a distinctive and original work of art. It is almost the musical equivalent of the objets trouv廥 movement in pictorial art, and this was also mirrored in contemporary classical music of the time. The Sinfonia by Luciano Berio, for example, a remarkable composition originally written for the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic, uses the third movement from Mahler's Second Symphony as the basis for one of its own movements, superimposing above Mahler's music, which is played complete, a veritable collage of sounds and verbal patterns, like a hallucinatory dream.

 Simon and Garfunkel had utilized a kind of musical collage for years before this: even the mixture of two songs on 'Scarborough Fair' shows this process at work, and the 'Voices of Old People' carries it to its extreme. It is significant that after this experiment, which is largely successful, Simon and Garfunkel never again returned to an album track that contained no music.

 The later adoption of gospel procedures in Simon's work might be thought to be an extension of the awakening black consciousness movement in the America of the 1960s, and the growing international success of black groups and singers. Tamla Motown and the Philly Sound have already been mentioned, but gospel music is not just black music: it is religious music, and religious themes have been in Simon's work from the start. Indeed, it may be stretching the point, but it is possible to discern them in his latest work, 'Silent Eyes' and 'That's Why God Made The Movies', as well as in the earliest songs, 'Blessed', 'The Sounds Of Silence', 'A Church Is Burning' and others. The religious aspect of Simon's work has fascinated many people, and has even prompted a book. This can be overemphasized, and it is probably better to think of such references as essentially spiritual ones, divorced from everyday life but commenting upon it and raising wider implications. The mention of the religious content of these songs leads to Simon's literary gifts. They are considerable; he is a true poet. His lyrics run the whole gamut of literary devices, from alliteration to imagery. The very titles of the songs, from 'Sounds Of Silence' to 'Slip Slidin' Away' demonstrate this, but Simon must have been attracted by such alliteration in very early rock and roll: 'Good Golly, Miss Molly', 'I Ain't Sharin' Sharon', 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy', though in these cases the alliteration is manufactured. For Simon it is gentler, more subtle, but literate and expressive as well. He is fascinated by words, sometimes admitting that the more obscure imagery has arisen because he likes the sound of the word sequence, without giving too great a thought to their exact meaning. In this regard he has much in common with Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose line 'Glory be to God for dappled things' is echoed in the '59th Street Bridge Song' - 'I'm dappled and drowsy'. Apart from this, Simon's imagery is breathtaking. He possesses the enviable gift of creating a scene, of painting a picture, with a mere cluster of words, as in 'America', and 'Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard', to take two examples from different periods of his art. It is a remarkable achievement, and one that would have ensured his immortality in popular music even if the music had been written by someone else. But it is Simon's music, the expression of all the varied influences noted earlier, transformed into a personal yet fluently adaptable style, that has created the most immediate impression. A frequent criticism of his songs, at least in the earlier period, was that the harmonies which accompanied the singers were a little foursquare, somewhat too predictable. This is to complain that a leaf is green. Clearly, a folk-influenced writer will use those elements of folk music that he pleases, for in art anything is possible, given imagination and technical ability. As the message of the song, contained in the lyric, was of prime importance, it would have been stupid in the extreme to detract from the message by underpinning it with a whole succession of unrelated harmonies. Later on, as we have also seen, his harmonic thinking was given freer rein, until by the time of the Still Crazy album it had developed out of all recognition. But this is not the too-easy surprise of a style in which anything can happen: Simon's use of strange harmonies underlines the anguish of the songs concerned. Just as one cannot overload folk-oriented melodies with irrelevant harmonies, so one cannot express grief in a bland succession of major related chords: the expression demands a more fluid style. In short Simon has moved with impressive consistency throughout his career. At no time does he appear uncertain about what he wants to express or how to express it. He is consistently sane in his approach, which does not preclude fantasy and vivid flights of imagination when they are called for. This personal integrity in just about his every song we have considered in this study is the most impressive of all his achievements.

 Paul Simon's music is civilized in the best possible sense. He does not offend gratuitously, he is able to see both sides of a situation and express both with equal conviction. Running like a thread through these albums has been the duality of an emotion. Time and again one hears a song, is impressed by it, only to have it followed immediately by another song, completely different in its construction and expression, which on examination proves to be another aspect of the song which preceded it. This is a wholly original manner of composition, and although astrologers will claim this is because Simon is a Libran, and able to see both sides of a situation equally, it remains one of his most remarkable innovations in album layout.

 If anything is possible in art, given the provisos mentioned above, then at times it should be proved. The song 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' is a classic example. Apparently Garfunkel, impressed by his friend's ability to write a song about almost any subject, suggested he write one on architecture. The result is a fascinating and wholly original creation, an object lesson in songwriting and final proof - if it were ever needed - of Simon's ability to do just that.

 Above a pedal bass, like the deep foundations of a building, quietly insistent and permanent, strange disconnected chords prepare the entry of the singer. The chords fall in half steps, but because they are so close and yet so far, they have a tension that immediately connects with the curious. The first line 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, I can't believe your song is gone so soon', is set to music in which the note values gradually get shorter until the last, which is the longest of the phrase. At this point the harmony falls to the major a third below, echoing the first two notes of the tune. By this simple device, a gentle oscillation of keys, Simon changes the image and perspective in readiness for the next phrase, which rises, passing through chromatic harmonies, almost like the musical personification of Wright's modern buildings. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Frank Lloyd Wright could be anyone, though the reference to 'architects may come and architects may go' brings us down to earth, containing with it a faint implication of 'architects = Art Garfunkel', set to the same note, constantly repeated over gently moving harmonies, like the permanence of a piece of architecture seen against the slow movement of the skies above and the motion of the earth below. 'I never laughed so long' is followed by 'so long', repeated irregularly like the intermittent waving of a railway passenger as the train slowly pulls out of the station and out of view. Against this, the harmonies again move with impressive consistency, slowly, inexorably, like the passage of time, and all related to the tonic note that has been either heard or implied throughout the song, no matter how far away from it the passing melodies and harmonies seem to drift.

 This song is by no means the best, and certainly not the most famous, on the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, but it is a remarkable achievement, not just by itself but in context: it comes at the end of side one, and fades into nothing, the 'so long' recalling the repeated 'ewig' (ever) at the end of Mahler's 'Song of the Earth'. The theme is of leaving, but leaving with a permanent memory ('we'd harmonize till dawn', 'when I run dry I stop awhile and think of you') and this must refer to Garfunkel and the planned separation.

 What remains are the songs, and will remain so long as people retain the human qualities that can never fail to respond to them. These frequently flawless expressions of timeless human conditions and emotions, from birth to death, from tragedy to happiness, have been created during our lifetime by the genius of Paul Simon, perhaps the most wide-ranging and complete singer-songwriter of them all, a true 'child of our time' - but for all time.

Simon And Garfunkel. A Musical Biography
by Robert Matthew-Walker, (C)1984

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