“I’m on your side, when times get rough and friends just can’t be found”

#31= Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

[283] Writer: Paul Simon. Producers: Paul Simon, Arthur Garfunkel & Roy Halee
21 Feb 70 – 20 weeks on chart - #1 for 3 weeks from 28 Mar 70

It was Paul Simon’s birthday yesterday (13th October), but once again it depends which book you read as to how old you think he was. He’s possibly 60 or 61.

Simon and Garfunkel were previously called Tom & Jerry, (hence the cat and mouse reference in yesterday’s clue). They had a dodgily-named hit ‘ Hey Schoolgirl’ under that moniker in the States in the 50s.
‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ is surely one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Who hasn’t felt alone and been comforted by this song? Thematically it’s in the same vein as ‘Help!’, ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, ‘Thank You For Being A Friend’ and ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ but it’s better than all of them. It’s such a shame that Simon and Garfunkel themselves couldn’t take to heart the words of their own song and actually speak to each other. The song has such a simple arrangement, with just a piano backing and Art Garfunkel’s plaintive solo vocal, until the full string section and crashing drums come in after over three minutes, and Garfunkel’s vocals start soaring. It’s an epic.

Just as in this countdown, where it’s sandwiched between two other mellow number ones, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was #1 between two other laid-back tunes; the growling tones of Lee Marvin’s ‘Wandrin’ Star’ and Dana’s simpering ‘All Kinds Of Everything’. The album of the same name was staggeringly successful. Not only was it the UK’s best seller in the year of release, 1970, but also in the year after.

Simon & Garfunkel are another of those acts whose reputation is possibly more than the sum of their parts. They only ever had six hit singles in their heyday (plus a couple of small hits in 1991 and 1992, which don’t count).

After they split, Art Garfunkel went into acting, leaving Paul Simon to clock up a few solo hits first. Art hit #1 again for two weeks in 1975 with ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’; a song from the 1930s which had been a US hit in 1959 for the Flamingos. He had to sing another song about eyes in order to get a second solo #1 with ‘Bright Eyes’, the theme from the animated Watership Down film, which became the biggest-selling single of 1979. Little did he know that Stephen Gately would murder the song many years later.

Simon & Garfunkel reunited in 1981 for a reunion concert in front of half a million people in New York’s Central Park. I seriously recommend hearing the album of that gig – it’s quite magical. They then announced that they were back together permanently. They were lying. But it did give Paul Simon the time to go to South Africa. But that’s another story…

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