Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

Released - April 1968

Genre - Folk Rock

Producer - Simon & Garfunkel & Roy Halee

Selected Personnel - Paul Simon (Vocals/Guitar); Art Garfunkel (Vocals); Hal Blaine (Drums/Percussion); Joe Osborn (Bass); Larry Knechtel (Piano/Keyboards)

Standout Track - Mrs Robinson

Another brief foray out of chronological order (we're up to 1973, remember) - this has been a week of listening to old albums, some of which have been impressive enough to get themselves a place on the list, hence the jumping back in time. This time, it's the Simon & Garfunkel album I've always had recommended to me considering I enjoy their other work, but have always struggled to find time for, for no real reason other than arbitrarily prioritising other things to listen to. A friend of mine named Fearchar, who has always been, I think, the biggest and most vocal Simon & Garfunkel fan among my friendship group, has always cited Bookends as his favourite and, while for me it doesn't match up to the excellence of either Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme or Bridge Over Troubled Water, it's some way ahead of the more tentative and faltering Sounds Of Silence, both in terms of the craft and intelligence put into its production, and in the quality of much of the material.

After the immense success of the duo in the wake of Sounds Of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, they were soon contacted by the director Mike Nichols, who was keen to recruit Paul Simon's songwriting talent to compose a soundtrack for his film The Graduate. As we all know now, the duo eventually agreed, resulting in some of the most popular music of their career, though Simon was initially reluctant to sell out by working for the film industry rather than staying true to his artistic and musical visions. Bookends is, at least in part, a sort of direct follow-up project from their wildly successful soundtrack album, and features a slightly re-recorded version of their huge hit "Mrs Robinson," as well as a number of other songs originally written for the soundtrack but dropped from it. Since 1966, however, when their last album had been released, it's obvious that the dynamic in the duo had shifted slightly. In my review for Bridge Over Troubled Water, I wrote about how inevitable the sense of the duo's impending split feels - the vocal harmonies of Art Garfunkel feel increasingly irrelevant and unnecessary, and that sense is strong here too. The album, in a first for the duo, is carefully structured around a concise song cycle that takes up the first side, a concept entirely orchestrated by Simon, and much of the material either doesn't bother to include Garfunkel's harmonies at all, or really relegate them almost to the point of not being needed. When they happen, they're typically pretty and enchanting, as ever, but it's obvious that Simon's increasing sense of artistic control and musical innovation was moving them away from the simple folk songs of their earlier work, meaning Garfunkel's contributions were increasingly limited.

That said, Garfunkel's most significant contribution here is in co-authoring and developing its worst track, the fairly dull and almost irritating sound collage "Voices Of Old People," nothing more than some badly edited-together snippets of sound bites from the residents of old people's homes. Conceived as being a thematic development of Simon's idea to compose a song cycle around the concept of ageing, starting with songs about youth and culminating in songs about old age. Sadly, it's a piece of totally unnecessary filler (despite being one of Fearchar's favourite pieces on the album), and does little to really develop the theme beyond Simon's already powerful and insightful compositions.

The song cycle takes up the first half of the album, and starts off with a brief excerpt from the pretty acoustic "Bookends Theme," before thundering into the blaring electronic opening of "Save The Life Of My Child." This song is honestly one of the most bizarre things the duo has ever recorded - it's not that weird in the grand scheme of things, but from the duo who made their name with simple, acoustic folk songs and with their artsy college student vibe, something so reliant on snippets of found sounds and the noisy, discordant blaring of synthesisers is truly unexpected. The song itself buried in the midst of the cacophony is a great one, with its characteristically catchy, sing-along chorus at odds with the noisy experimentation going on around it. "America" is a song I was only familiar with courtesy of Yes's 10-minute, prog-rock extravaganza cover from 1971. The concept of Yes covering Simon & Garfunkel has always amused me, but only when comparing the two versions directly to each other does the ludicrousness of that cover really become clear - stringing out 10 minutes of prog laden with guitar and keyboard solos from this simple acoustic number is one of the band's most highly comical achievements, but the original itself is a really pretty song.

"Old Friends" is close to being the runaway best song on the album. Its desperately sad, lush string arrangement renders Simon's meditations on old age both heart-stirringly touching and poignantly bittersweet, and it segues, almost dissolves, into the full version of the "Bookends Theme," another beautiful acoustic number that rounds off Simon's miniature song-cycle. The second side, consisting mainly of out takes from The Graduate soundtrack, is far more oriented around a more upbeat folk rock style in contrast to the acoustic folk of the song cycle. By far the standout on this side, and probably the best song on the album too, all things considered, is the re-recording of "Mrs Robinson," blessed with the catchiest and most hummable chorus of any Simon & Garfunkel song, and also possessing that iconic "Dee-dee-dee-dee" opening refrain that's become so iconic and immediately recognisable. There's other great stuff on show, though - "Punky's Dilemma" is a fun and bizarre little number that's playfully childlike ("I wish I was a Kellogg's corn flake, floating in my bowl,") and "A Hazy Shade Of Winter" sees the two of them taking the "rock" side of folk rock perhaps as far as they ever would. Built on a pounding, insistent rhythm and a spidery guitar riff, it's highly reminiscent of some of the more urgent rock tracks from Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, and has an almost psychedelic-rock flavour about it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Paul Simon except where noted.

1. Bookends Theme

2. Save The Life Of My Child

3. America

4. Overs

5. Voices Of Old People (Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel)

6. Old Friends

7. Bookends Theme

8. Fakin' It

9. Punky's Dilemma

10. Mrs Robinson

11. A Hazy Shade Of Winter

12. At The Zoo