The first two Simon & Garfunkel songs I featured were used in The Graduate and now the third is the song most famously associated with that film. I didn’t plan it that way… I guess Mike Nichols and I just have similar taste in music.

1968’s Bookends is an odd little album. Side One is a meditation on aging, including bookending ‘Bookends’ themes, a track called ‘Old Friends’ that was tailor made for all the eventual reunion shows these guys would do and a 2-minute collage of old people talking, including one guy who rails off a laundry list of serious symptoms and then says “To this minute, I don’t think it’s an ordinary cold.” I’ve always loved that guy.

Side Two is a collection of odds and ends, three of which — ‘Fakin’ It,’ ‘Punky’s Dilemma’ and ‘At the Zoo’ — most people have never heard of and two that are among the duo’s most popular songs.

‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ is a driving number memorably covered by The Bangles 20 years later. And ‘Mrs. Robinson’ is, of course, ‘Mrs. Robinson.’

Apparently the song was initially titled ‘Mrs. Roosevelt’ but Mike Nichols liked it so much he asked that the title character be renamed to refer to Anne Bancroft’s character in The Graduate. Smart move.

[Note: Disregard the Beatles image in this video… not sure what the guy was thinking]