Day 156: Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
I’m still firmly on the comfort music train today, and what’s more comforting than Simon and Garfunkel? No, seriously, email me if you know. I’ve used Bridge Over Troubled Water as a go-to since I was a kid and I’ve listen to Bookends comparatively often, so I thought I’d spice things up by going for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
Album cover courtesy of Columbia Records
Simon & Garfunkel was a duo consisting of Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon who were active intermittently from 1956 to 2010. They met in elementary school and started harmonising together, beginning their musical career as a duo called Tom & Jerry but switched to Simon & Garfunkel when they were signed by Columbia in 1963.
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was the duo’s third album, released in 1966. It consisted mostly of songs that Paul Simon wrote while he was in England. Their ongoing creative imbalance from Paul Simon writing their songs, along with some interpersonal issues they’d harboured since their teens, caused the pair to have a very inharmonious relationship over the years, and they had scuffles that tore the duo apart. They haven’t done anything publicly as Simon & Garfunkel since 2010.
Unfortunately they also haven’t been too elegant about airing out their grievances either. In 2015, Art Garfunkel did an interview where he chastised Paul Simon for not wanting to keep the band together, asking “What’s going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?” He also said to the journalist that he only ever befriended Paul Simon at school because he pitied him for being short, adding that “that compensation gesture has created a monster” – possibly a slightly ineffective way of convincing a guy to go on tour with you, but what do I know.
Even their famous beefs can’t stop me from feeling very calmed and soothed by their music, the soft singer-songwriter folk feels to me like getting wrapped in a blanket and getting a friendly pat on the head. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is no exception. I love the lyrics of Paul Simon, he’s got a way to conjure up a very specific atmosphere in his writing. The beginning of “The Dangling Conversation” being a perfect example of how he uses this visual, evocative language to bring you there with him: “It's a still life watercolor / Of a now-late afternoon / As the sun shines through the curtain lace / And shadows wash the room.”
I love the whole album, aside from “A Simple Desultory Philippic”, a snarky Bob Dylan parody that falls a bit short with its intended ironic detachment. It just tries very hard to be clever. Aside from sitting through that, I had a great time. There were a few songs on the album that I either didn’t know or didn’t remember, with the slightly ominously introspective “Patterns” being one of them, which was probably my favourite on the record. Other favourites were “The Dangling Conversation” and “Cloudy”, both of them being the angelic-sounding duo at their best.
Love a bit of the Simon and Garfunks, I’m glad there’s albums by them that I have still to discover. And apparently there’s still hope for them to get back together, as Art Garfunkel said he’d been a bit of a tit in that interview but he’s managed to make up for it:
Paul mentioned an old interview where I said some stuff. I cried when he told me how much I had hurt him. Looking back, I guess I wanted to shake up the nice guy image of Simon & Garfunkel. Y’know what? I was a fool!
Hard agree. Fingers crossed we might still see them together one day – with Simon and Garfunkel, you just want to tell them to stop fighting and get in the booth. It’s hard when all the musicians you love are 80-something. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is a strong 9/10.