Friday, March 4, 2011

Songs I've Liked #4 & #5

I was heading across town tonight when the Sirius satellite radio station I was listening to started plugging a temporary "Simon and Garfunkel Channel" over on channel 38. This brought back a wealth of memories, and I immediately tuned it in.

The first LP I ever bought was Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". Got it at the little Hutzlers Westview record department down on the basement level, by the escalator. It probably set me back about $2.50. I remarked to my friend at the time "At these prices, I probably won't be buying many more of these." HA! Hundreds of LPs, hundreds of CDs, and now hundreds of MP3 downloads later, here I am.

Anyhow, I have a pretty good memory from every S&G single that was released, so I am picking a couple of their "mid period" tunes as my favorites here. In both cases, I bought the 45 single, then got them again in the "album" format.

"At the Zoo" was released in 1967 and reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was pretty typical Paul Simon lyrics for the time; full of metaphorical animal imagery. Sort of an "Animal Farm" set to music and full of political allegory that shot right over my head. I always thought the tune was pretty catchy, regardless of the cleverness of Mr. Simon's wordplay, starting jazzily around a major seventh, and building toward the last verse where the animals are described, one by one.

I was babysitting my sister the night after I bought the single, and I recall playing the song continuously, maybe twelve times.

Then there is "A Hazy Shade of Winter", with that common, catchy, declining chord progression, and a bit of the ol' Simon angst as he wonders what's become of himself as time passes on. Catchy tune, making it to number 13 on the charts in 1966, and, much later, covered more edgily by the Bangles, who took it right up to number two. And again, there was Paul singing about how those leaves that were green turned to brown, time marches inexorably on, etc.

These two songs are memorable to me, but they are probably not even my favorite S&G tune. That would most lilely be "The Boxer", one of their last efforts as a working duo. But they are the two that came to my mind first as I was flipping over to the S&G channel just in time to catch, of all things, "Hey School Girl", a very early effort that was a regional hit in New York City, when those two teenagers called themselves "Tom and Jerry", and their extraordinary careers (Paul Simon's continues with a new release sometime soon) were just taking off.

5 comments:

George said...

You brought back some great memories of Simon and Garfunkel. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go through my LPs and pull out a couple to listen to and relive some more memories.

Ben said...

Glad to help inspire you to rummage through the old LPs, George!

Gerald Neily said...

Only hundreds? Not thousands?

I just heard the Bangles version of "Hazy Shade" in Burger King the other day. The electric guitar is a nice addition, but to me, the vocals are NOT nearly as edgy as Paul Simon's - they're a bland monotone and Suzanna, Belinda and whoever just seem to cancel each other out. Give me S+G anytime! What a great song!

So you got into the major seventh but not the animal allegory? I still wouldn't know a major seventh if it bit me on my way to the zoo.

Connie said...

Nice post, Ben. This brought back some memories for me too. I've always enjoyed Simon and Garfield, both together and separately. "The Boxer" is one of my favorites. My husband and I saw Paul Simon in concert at the outdoor amphitheater at the Toledo Zoo a few years ago. It was great!

Minerva said...

Every time I hear an S&G song, I think of you. Lately, every time that car commercial comes on, I think about how great a song "Only Living Boy In New York" is. I seriously need to download some of their music..