For the month of November, I’ll be selecting songs in conjunction with the music Twitter challenge: #WelcomeToTheOccupation.
Bridge Over Troubled Water is the final studio album from Simon & Garfunkel, an album so good it prompts the listener to greedily beg for more. Simon carried the songwriting duties, but the harmonies are just as much a part of those songs as the melodies. The album spawned iconic songs that have made an indelible impact on the musical landscape: “Bridge Over Troubled Water” which features Art Garfunkel on lead vocals, “Cecilia” which has a persona driven mostly by its memorable percussion elements, and then there’s my favorite of the bunch: “The Boxer”.
The song is autobiographical, a rare treat inside the mind of the songwriter. The theme of being misunderstood and only remembered for what people want to remember are prevalent in the song. “The Boxer” is a masterpiece from a lyrical perspective. It bends words like poetry (“Such are promises. All lies and jest. Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”). It paints images like prose (“Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job. But I get no offers. Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.”). And it goes beyond coherent words using syllables as expressions with the iconic refrain “Lie-la-lie”. There are simply few songwriters as gifted as Paul Simon.
“Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job. But I get no offers. Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.”