Random Top Ten

Random Top Ten!

Random Top Ten Simon & Garfunkel Songs

10 - "Mrs. Robinson" - I really don't think I've ever understood what this song is about, but the music is the bee's knees.

9 - "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" - The counterpoint is just lovely.

8 - "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" - Simon's thinly veiled farewell to Garfunkel (who was an architecture student at one time). The soaring "dawn" on "All of the nights we'd harmonize 'til dawn" is beautiful, and the flute solo is just-jazzy enough to be neat, not cloying.

7 - "The Only Living Boy in New York" - Should have been a much bigger hit. Features the rare effective use of a choir in a pop song.

6 - "Old Friends" - Such a remarkably lovely bit of writing and orchestration - that clanging, triumphal beauty-out-of-dissonance middle section was an early hint that Simon could think theatrically, musically speaking (dramaturgically speaking is another matter).

5 - "Sounds of Silence" - This is one of those songs that someone would have written even if a young Paul Simon had been tragically killed. Just archetypical.

4 - "The Boxer" - Is that awesome banging sound that punctuates the choruses a backfiring car? That's what I've heard. One of Simon's best all-time lyrics.

3 - "America" - Wistful, sweet, and confident with a wonderfully evocative lyric.

2 - "Bridge Under Troubled Water" - Garfunkel's shining moment. Others have sung, and will sing, this song better in a lot of ways, but Garfunkel's original thin, plaintive, but soaring rendition will always be primal.

1 - "Kathy's Song" - Not a huge hit, but a gorgeous piece of songwriting, with a disciplined, precise lyric and a wonderfully understated melody and accompaniment.

Until Whenever