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Song of the Day #1,241: ‘Train in the Distance’ – Paul Simon

Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones carries a lot of baggage but I wasn’t aware of any of it when I first heard the album. I didn’t know it was a Simon & Garfunkel reunion album gone bad, or that it was a critical and commercial flop that seemed to derail Simon’s solo career.

My first exposure to the songs on this album came during a concert in the early 90s. I was familiar with everything Simon played that night except for two gorgeous, musically ambitious ballads — one called ‘Hearts and Bones’ and one called ‘Train in the Distance.’

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Song of the Day #1,240: ‘Think Too Much (b)’ – Paul Simon

Following the success of their Central Park reunion show, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel embarked on a world tour in 1982 and ’83. Riding the high of those performances, the duo headed back into the studio to record their first album together in 13 years.

The record had a working title of ‘Think Too Much,’ named after a pair of songs in its track list.

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Song of the Day #1,239: ‘Che gelida manina’ – Luciano Pavarotti

I’m wrapping up my week of opera arias with my very favorite — ‘Che gelida manina’ from Puccini’s La Boheme. As I mentioned on Monday, La Boheme is the one opera I’ve seen in its entirety (Baz Luhrmann’s version on Broadway).

This is among the best-known, best-loved and most referenced operas of all-time (it was the inspiration for Rent and features prominently in Moonstruck — remember Cher’s memorable line, “I didn’t think she was gonna die. I knew she was sick… I mean, she was coughing her brains out, and still she had to keep singing!”?).

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Song of the Day #1,238: ‘E lucevan le stelle’ – Luciano Pavarotti

I apologize to those who might find fault with my choice of Luciano Pavarotti as the singer of most of the arias I’m featuring this week. As I posted yesterday, my introduction to these songs came from a Pavarotti CD my parents owned, and therefore I will always make that association.

Based on comments I’ve read around the Web, some people are decidedly anti-Pavarotti, dismissing him as overrated because he’s one of the few opera singers who enjoyed a measure of crossover popularity.

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Song of the Day #1,237: ‘Nessun Dorma’ – Luciano Pavarotti

Almost all of my opera knowledge comes from a Pavarotti album my parents owned when I was a kid — The World’s Favourite Tenor Arias (pictured at right).

We would listen to this album while shooting pool in the finished basement of our northern Virginia house. And while I expect most teenagers would cringe at the idea of having to both hang out with their parents AND listen to opera, I loved doing both.

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