Their music was featured in the 1967 film The Graduate, giving them further exposure. On their third release, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), they assumed more creative control. The duo reunited to release a second studio album, Sounds of Silence, and tour colleges nationwide. In June 1965, a new version of 'The Sound of Silence' an acoustic song on the duo's debut album, was overdubbed with electric guitar and drums and became a US AM radio hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., sold poorly Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In 1963, aware of a growing public interest in folk music, they regrouped and were signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel. As teenagers, under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with 'Hey Schoolgirl' (1957), a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize and began writing songs. Robinson' (1968), ' The Boxer' (1969), and ' Bridge over Troubled Water' (1970), reached number one on singles charts worldwide. They were one of the best-selling music groups of the 1960s, and their biggest hits, including the electric remix of ' The Sound of Silence' (1965), ' Mrs. Now.Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. I guess I have the films of my teenage years to thank for my initial connection to Simon & Garfunkel, but I'm overjoyed to have found a true friend in Bookends. The music took on its own identity in my eyes, and the album itself became personified - it was almost like the record and I had been through some tough times together and that we'd come out stronger on the other side. Whether I was dancing along or on the brink of tears, I loved the fact that Bookends engaged me emotionally from start to finish.īy the end of the album, the feeling that this record and I were old friends was only intensified, and with further listens I realized that I had an even deeper connection to the album than I wanted to admit. But luckily, the album kept rolling and the upbeat tone of 'Fakin' It' and silly lightheartedness of 'Punky's Dilemma' almost immediately lifted my spirits. If I had been listening to it on vinyl, I don't think I would have been able to muster the wherewithal to cross the room and flip over the record.

In fact, it kind of scared me how much of an impact the first seven tracks of Bookends had on my psyche. Simon & Garfunkel hit on so many elements of music that I am naturally drawn to - simple instrumentation, thought-provoking lyrics with narrative leanings and arrangements that allow both to shine.Īnd that's what I've come to discover that I love about Simon & Garfunkel - they are absolute masters of emotive, transformative lyricism. Listening to Bookends was like reuniting with an old friend I didn't know that I had: only after hearing the album start to finish did I recognize that these songs have been around me all along. 'America' breezed right by me in Almost Famous, and I never quite understood why the song surrounding a particularly poignant scene in 500 Days Of Summer was called 'Bookends.'īut now, my narrow cinematic context of Simon & Garfunkel has been broadened. Robinson,' I've never seen The Graduate in its entirety. From there, my knowledge of Simon & Garfunkel continued to be informed solely by incomplete pop culture encounters with the duo. My musical relationship with Simon & Garfunkel began with an influence that any self-respecting, music-loving twenty-something would now be ashamed to admit: The Garden State soundtrack.

Simon garfunkel bookends