# Deep Tracks - Simon & Garfunkel - "Bookends"



## Guest (Sep 15, 2018)

View attachment 107867


Please *choose up to eight selections* for this particular poll.

On all polls created if you click on the number of votes following the song title the username of all voters and their chosen selections will appear.

The tunes themselves will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - Simon & Garfunkel - "Bookends"

"Bookends" is the fourth studio album by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel. Produced by Paul Simon, Roy Halee and Art Garfunkel, the album was released on April 3, 1968, in the United States by Columbia Records.

The duo had risen to fame two years prior with the albums "Sounds of Silence" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" and the soundtrack album for the 1967 film The Graduate.

"Bookends" is a concept album that explores a life journey from childhood to old age.

Side one of the album marks successive stages in life, the theme serving as bookends to the life cycle.

Side two largely consists of unused material for The Graduate soundtrack with many possessing a more rock-based sound than the unified folk songs that precede it. Simon felt the album's second side was composed of throwaway tracks: "They didn't mean a lot. They weren't well recorded."

Simon's lyrics concern youth, disillusionment, relationships, old age, and mortality. Much of the material was crafted alongside producer John Simon, who joined the recording when Paul Simon suffered from writer's block. The album was recorded gradually over the period of a year, with production speeding up around the later months of 1967.

Initial sales for "Bookends" were substantial in the US, and the album produced the number-one single "Mrs. Robinson". The album sold best in the US and in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number one.

"Bookends" was considered a breakthrough for the duo, placing them on the same level as artists such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Herman's Hermits at the forefront of the cultural movement in the 1960s. The album has continued to receive critical acclaim.

Reviews of "Bookends" upon its release in 1968 were largely positive.

Allen Evans of the British publication New Musical Express (NME) gave the record four out of five stars and called it "inspiring, descriptive music," while noting the album is "Imaginative and at times confusing to know what the composer is getting at, if anything."

Rival newspaper Melody Maker did not use a ratings system, but called Bookends a "thoughtful, clever and well-produced album." Reviewer Chris Welch criticized the songs as "not particularly tuneful," but performed with "Beatles fervour and Beatles conviction," praising the lyricism, opining that "The words capture part of America today, a lot of its sickness and tragedy."

In the US, Rolling Stone reviewer Arthur Schmidt wrote that "The music is, for me, questionable, but I've always found their music questionable. It is nice enough, and I admit to liking it, but it exudes a sense of process, and it is slick, and nothing too much happens."

The album, alongside The Graduate soundtrack, propelled Simon & Garfunkel to become the biggest rock duo in the world.

In 2010, a line from the song "America"-"All gone to look for America"-began appearing spray-painted on vacant buildings and abandoned factories in the town of Saginaw, Michigan, which is mentioned in the song. A loose group of artists, who eventually became known as "Paint Saginaw", began duplicating the phrase after the city's population had dwindled vastly, noting that the song now encapsulated a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era among the city's residents.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookends_(album)

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2018)

"*Bookends Theme*" -






"*Save The Life Of My Child*" -






"*America*" -






"*Overs*" -






"*Voices of Old People*" -






"*Old Friends*" -






"*Bookends Theme (Reprise)*" -






"*Fakin' It*" -






"*Punky's Dilemma*" -






"*Mrs. Robinson*" -






"*A Hazy Shade of Winter*" -






"*At the Zoo*" -


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm not a massive S & G fan but I would say that this is their strongest album.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

It's probably my favourite S&G album. Lots of great songs, first and foremost the gorgeous _America_, great melody, stunning lyrics.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Haven't listened to this one for several years. Gotta find my CD. I've always liked America. I grew up on the rock version by Yes, but the original acoustic version is very charming.


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