#59 Bookends- Simon & Garfunkel

Writer’s block never sounded this good…an American songwriting genius comes of age.

(CBS)

Released: 3^rd April 1968

Producer: Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Roy Halee

Topped the chart:

11^h August 1968 (for 5 weeks)

22^nd September 1968 (for 2 weeks)

7 weeks total

Although very different in sound, the parallels between the early careers of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon are profound. Both born in the arse-end of nowhere, either rural (Dylan- Minnesota) or urban (Simon- Newark, New Jersey), finding their voice in the hardscrabble of New York. Both were hailed as the future of folk music by repurposing old songs (Dylan’s classic American, Simon learning his craft in the UK), recorded by producer Tom Wilson before reaching for so much more than anyone ever considered for them.

If we follow this parallel, then 1968’s Bookends must be Paul Simon’s Highway 61 Revisited.

After years of false starts, both on his own and with childhood frenemy Art Garfunkel, Simon had hit it hard with the one-two punch of The Sound of Silence and  Mrs Robinson. Suddenly, Simon & Garfunkel were one of the biggest acts in the world.

As a result, audiences came to Bookends with a good idea of what a S&G record would be, but there is so much more here than the winsome folk and tight harmonies of their previous album, 1966’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The scene-setting title theme is a 30-second ditty in that style, but listeners are disabused of the notion that this is purely a folk album as a blast of electronic noise strikes like lightning to usher in Save the Life of My Child, a signifier of the ambition of scope of what’s to come, and one or two broken speakers along with it, too.

Like Small Faces’ Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, Bookends is another early pioneer of concept albums where the commitment only lasts for one side of vinyl. Despite that, you can’t fault the ambition, covering an entire lifetime in four songs: childhood (Save the Life Of My Child), leaving home (America), middle age malaise (Overs) and finally dealing with mortality (Old Friends). Not bad for 15 minutes of plastic, and all created while Paul Simon was particularly struck by writer’s black. It’s safe to show it doesn’t show.

Each of these stages is meticulously produced. Old Friends is exquisite in its sadness and acceptance of a life coming to an end, strings slowly overwhelming everything in their path and dropping in the occasionally unsettling discordant note. The song is lyrically rich too, imagining the sight of two old people sat on a park bench “like bookends,” who also “settle like dust on the shoulders.” Save the Life of My Child sits at the other end of the vitality spectrum, crackling into nervous life with a shout of “Good God! Don’t jump!” The story of a young boy looking to throw himself off a building in the New York skyline, the song rolls along and at several points collapses into chaos and random noises from the crowd below.  

Perhaps best of all is America, still one of Simon’s greatest artistic statements as a writer. He uses a real roadtrip that he took with his girlfriend of the time to stand in for the growing up and portion of the song-cycle. It starts quietly and nervous as our heroes board “a Greyhound in Pittsburgh” with tentative steps, soft acoustic guitar and mournful organ, but erupting into an enormous major-key chorus as confidence builds, “laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces.” That all before it tumbles back into quiet verses as Simon fights an existential crisis on the state of his country: “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,” as harmonies build and build over the closing choruses.

On the B-side meanwhile stand some of the finest singles of the late 1960s- no biggie. Enough has been written on the likes of Mrs Robinson and A Hazy Shade of Winter, though it would do to shout out the intricate and thrilling guitar intro on the former and impending sense of doom on the latter. Less celebrated are the more psychedelic influences on Punky’s Dilemma and At the Zoo. Simon & Garfunkel aren’t particularly known for their narcotic leanings, but the lyrics to both point towards the influence of something in the air. Simon’s “wish” to be an “English muffin, ‘bout to make the most out of a toaster” and the reference to “Mary Jane” on Punky certainly point that way, while Zoo takes anthropomorphism to the extreme characterising giraffes as “insincere” and talking of “sceptical” orangutans, before going full Animal Farm “reactionary” zebras and pigeons plotting “in secrecy.” It’s a heady mix, and by placing the two songs at either end of the side, there is a real sense of cohesion and completeness that shouldn’t really be warranted.

At just over 29 minutes and packed with previous singles on its back half, would Bookends have offered value for money in 1968? Potentially not but hey, it’s not 1968 is it? And when each of those 29 minutes is so dense with quality and details, it’s hard to complain from our perspective. If there is a fault with Bookends- and we’re really reaching here- it’s the lack of Garfunkel on this Simon & Garfunkel. He would his moment in the sun on the following album, of course, but here he is very much second fiddle to the increasingly confident Paul Simon, his backing vocals often sitting low in the mix. Creatively frustrating perhaps, but what a wonderful artefact to be part of.

In less than two years, Simon & Garfunkel would swallow the globe with the juggernaut that is Bridge Over Troubled Water, still a more celebrated and beloved album. But it could be argued that Bookends is the best album, perhaps not making the same stylistic leaps as its younger brother, but more concise and considered. It remains essential listening.

Score: 10/10

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1.      Bookends Theme

2.      Save the Life of My Child

3.      America

4.      Overs

5.      Voices of Old People

6.      Old Friends

7.      Bookends Theme (Reprise)

SIDE B

8.      Fakin’ It

9.      Punky’s Dilemma

10.  Mrs Robinson

11.  A Hazy Shade of Winter

12.  At the Zoo