Category Archives: simon weekends

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Song of the Day #1,178: ‘Kathy’s Song’ – Simon & Garfunkel

Sounds of Silence is best known for the classic song that inspired its name, but it contains a few Paul Simon gems.

Among them is ‘April Come She Will,’ the haunting track that, like ‘The Sound of Silence,’ was featured prominently in the film The Graduate. Another is ‘I Am a Rock,’ Simon’s ode to detachment that English teachers the world over have used to demonstrate metaphor.

Both of those songs appeared as solo compositions on The Paul Simon Songbook, as did ‘A Most Peculiar Man’ and ‘The Leaves That Are Green.’ Essentially, Sounds of Silence was a collection of previously released material rerecorded to capitalize on the duo’s newfound success.

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Song of the Day #1,177: ‘The Sound of Silence’ – Simon & Garfunkel

When we left Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, they had split up after the failure of their debut folk album, 1964’s Wednesday Morning, 3AM, with Simon moving to London to perform in small venues and Garfunkel pursuing a Masters degree in New York City.

During the summer of ’65, one track off of that debut album showed signs of life on college radio. ‘The Sound of Silence,’ a gentle tune with grand lyrics, received a lot of airplay in Gainesville, Florida, and other college towns. Producer Tom Wilson, who had worked on Wednesday Morning, 3AM, sensed an opportunity.

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Song of the Day #1,171: ‘Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall’ – Paul Simon

I consider myself a pretty big Paul Simon fan, but I had never heard of The Paul Simon Songbook before working on these weekend posts. I’d always assumed his first solo album was released after the break-up of Simon & Garfunkel.

To be fair, Songbook wasn’t exactly a high-profile release. Simon himself killed a planned U.S. release of the album and reportedly requested that the British release be removed from circulation. Presumably he was unhappy not with the songs but with the recordings, because he went on to release almost all of the material on different albums over the next few years.

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Song of the Day #1,170: ‘The Side of a Hill’ – Paul Simon

After the failure of Simon & Garfunkel’s debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, Paul Simon headed to London, where he played folk music in English pubs and enjoyed a small amount of success.

Simon drew inspiration from the music coming out of England at the time, and like Bob Dylan, later worked elements of English folk song lyrics and melodies into his own work. The best known example is the recording of ‘Scarborough Fair’ that appeared on a future Simon & Garfunkel album.

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Song of the Day #1,164: ‘Bleecker Street’ – Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel were nearly finished as soon as they began. The failure of Wednesday Morning, 3AM sent Paul Simon to London and Art Garfunkel to college in New York, their dream of recording together shelved indefinitely.

It would have been a depressing finish for the childhood friends who first performed together in high school (as Tom & Jerry) and had been friends since they were 12 years old.

But the turbulence that marked their first stab at recording as Simon & Garfunkel would become par for the course as their careers progressed.

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