{"id":8946,"date":"2011-11-16T13:27:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T18:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8946"},"modified":"2011-11-17T06:48:11","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T11:48:11","slug":"midweek-music-break-simon-and-garfunkel-the-boxer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/midweek-music-break-simon-and-garfunkel-the-boxer\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: Simon and Garfunkel, “The Boxer”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The digital music market exploded as it did thanks to — among other reasons — the laziness and\/or venality of record labels, producers, and even the artists themselves: filling each album, cassette, and CD with ten pounds of musical\u00a0Styrofoam\u00a0and an ounce or two of, like, actually good<\/em> music. When it became possible to purchase single tracks, it became possible to purchase \u00a0just<\/em> the good stuff.<\/p>\n

Simon & Garfunkel have sometimes struck me as performers who did particularly well by becoming popular when they did — before consumers could pick and choose. They released only five albums together, over the course of only six\u00a0years. Each of those albums was padded with so-so covers and original songs and experiments. (Come on, now: would you really spend 99 cents for your very own copy — for repeated listening, yet — of “Benedictus,” “Blessed,” “7 O’Clock News\/Silent Night,” or “Voices of Old People”?)<\/p>\n

And yet, every album also contained a handful of songs so melodically beautiful, so sweet-sounding, so achingly meaningful<\/em>\u00a0to young people… How could you not<\/em>\u00a0buy their albums?<\/p>\n

Which became the other fact of life with a Simon & Garfunkel album: you listened and re-listened, over and over during the course of entire decades, memorizing every note and nuance, so that to skip over (say) the nerve-jangling “A Hazy Shade of Winter” from Bookends<\/em>\u00a0would throw the whole thing out of whack. Even if not actually crafted as wholes, those five albums became<\/em>\u00a0wholes. People fall madly, crazily in love with other people, seeing in them physical perfection despite lopsidedness, asymmetry, strabismus<\/span>… and so it was with Simon & Garfunkel’s albums. Even now, people who were around then can hear a lyric from a lesser song — say,\u00a0It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw<\/em>\u00a0— and be transported.<\/p>\n

Of their albums, I’ve always thought the last, Bridge Over Troubled Water<\/em>,\u00a0to be a bit peculiar. I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes; I understand that the two of them had for some time been having the classic “creative differences” (and maybe personal ones too). Whatever the reasons, in BOTW<\/em>\u00a0they managed to assemble an album in which every song is no worse than charming, catchy, pleasant<\/em>. It doesn’t feel (to me) to have been produced as<\/em>\u00a0an album, but rather to have been assembled from pearls found scattered on the floor after a lovers’ quarrel.<\/p>\n

Among those pearls, “The Boxer” really shines, I think. There is so much<\/em>\u00a0going on in this song. The lyrics, and how they wrap around and within the unconventional rhythm without ever sounding awkward…\u00a0And the music? A beautiful melody and (it almost goes without saying for S&G) beautiful harmonies in their two voices. And mysteries: I’ve always wondered what that sound is — an instrument? electronic effect? — which goes sort of wooba-wooba-wooba<\/em>\u00a0behind (for instance) the words “When I left my home and my family\/I was no more than a boy.” In its excellent section<\/a> on the song’s composition and production, Wikipedia doesn’t answer the question, exactly, but it hints that it might be a bass harmonica. (It also includes a great extended quote from an interview with Fred Carter, Jr., who played guitar during the recording.)<\/p>\n

I’m not 100% convinced that the lyrics tell a coherent story (not that they need to). Wikipedia reports, “It is sometimes suggested that the words represent a ‘sustained attack on Bob Dylan'” — which strikes me as an even goofier implausibility. But whadda I know?<\/p>\n

Anyhow, here’s that glorious pearl,\u00a0“The Boxer”:<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>The Boxer. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 5:13 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:theboxer_simonandgarfunkel.mp3|titles=’The Boxer’|artists=Simon and Garfunkel]<\/div>\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

As for Bridge Over Troubled Water<\/em>, the BBC recently broadcast<\/a> an American-made documentary about its making, The Harmony Game<\/a><\/em>. The only related things I’ve found so far on YouTube or other video sources have been blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em “trailers.” It’d be nice to see sometime<\/em>, though!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The digital music market exploded as it did thanks to — among other reasons — the laziness and\/or venality of record labels, producers, and even the artists themselves: filling each album, cassette, and CD with ten pounds of musical\u00a0Styrofoam\u00a0and an ounce or two of, like, actually good music. When it became possible to purchase single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2252,74],"tags":[2684,2685,2686,2687,2688],"class_list":{"0":"post-8946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-midweek-music-break","7":"category-music","8":"tag-simon-and-garfunkel","9":"tag-the-boxer","10":"tag-recording-industry","11":"tag-analogue-vs-digital-music","12":"tag-the-harmony-game","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2ki","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8946"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8960,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8946\/revisions\/8960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}