172. Simon and Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

 


This has got to be one of the worst covers ever made.  LOOK OUT PAUL SIMON, HE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!  What art director greenlit this?  Let's don't even get into Paul's medieval peasant hairdo.

So this might be the first album on the List that I can clearly remember my parents owning a copy of.  My Mom was into Broadway cast recordings and classical, while my Dad liked old country, so I listened to a lot of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "A Chorus Line" and also Hank Williams' greatest hits and the Carter family.  They had this album probably because everyone in 1968 owned this album at some point or another.

Let's address right off the bat the two iconic tracks on this album, the title song and "The Boxer," both of which are so thoroughly ingrained in the modern canon that there is little new to say about them.  "Bridge" has, of course, been covered hundreds of times - I was moved by morbid curiosity to check out the "Glee" kids' cover, which I can't especially recommend, but does manage to uncover the gospel inspiration that's all over this album.  As for "The Boxer," I've always been taken with the big splash sound after "Lie la lie," which is actually a heavily reverbed snare drum; it's the only percussion in the song, and is actually a great effect.  I was surprised to find out this one song took over 100 hours to record in three different locations; it's deceptively simple, but a lot went into it.

"Cecilia" you probably know as well, a Latin-affected rave-up that forefronts a problem heretofore only seen in adult films and late-70's sex comedies: after the narrator has sex with the title character, he goes to the bathroom and BOOM she shuffles another dude into bed in the meantime!  Nevertheless, it remains as catchy and fun and infectiously joyous a song as the day it was released.

There is one song on here that really resonates with me.  Track 8, "The Only Living Boy in New York," I wasn't really familiar with or maybe hadn't heard as an adult until my songwriting partner and former bandmate starting doing a (really excellent) cover version of.  So I guess I'll always connect that song to that period in my life when I was working on music constantly and playing a lot and writing songs.  I miss it.

I also didn't realize there's a S&G song called "Baby Driver;" I knew about the movie (which I've never seen btw) but somehow the song escaped me.  It's actually a pretty good song, more rocking than a lot of the stuff, with a rockabilly feel and lots of layered vocals.  (Edgar Wright, who wrote and directed the movie, says it isn't based on the song; he just liked the song.)

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yeah, sure.

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