Overcast

Indeed it is.

Oriphiel

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Stephen

Bleargh. Something about this song really brings out the pretentious twat in people.

OccultHawk

I cannot bring myself to choose Simon and Garfunkle over Cage or vice versa.

One of the greatest pop songs ever written next to what might be the greatest statement ever made: that music is in the mind of the listener. Plus, when Cage performed with Sun Ra it's ego death. But the pop song... How many times and how many people have listened in absolute awe of what a beautiful great song that is?

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Dude111

Simon and garfunkel w/o question!

Lisnaholic

V. interesting comment from rostasi about S & G's personalities, albeit a little harsh, no?

Thanks to Overcast's dismissal of Frownland's list of covers, I'm posting without doing my homework. I haven't listened to the alternative versions, but I did try the ones rostasi posted, and came away with the conviction that the original is the best. After all, it's an intimate, confessional type of song, so why not go with the guy whose idea it was in the first place? Also, it's chock full of despairing imagery, so handing it over to a reggae band (The Gaylads) or a bunch of schoolgirls (St.Trinian's Choir) doesn't work for me at all.

Lastly, the original original didn't have the drum overdub of the single version, so that's my favourite so far. Voting for this also means that you can, with justification, play the purist snob card against all comers:-

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Psy-Fi

That Disturbed version is LOL cringeworthy.

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rostasi

Well, I was only quarter-joking with that remark, but Simon has always been an egotistical jackass.
How his wife (who was a local, naive, but sweet, celebrity from around here) can stand the guy I'll never know.
...and Garfunkel is such a wanktastic lard pile that even he said back when he was losing his voice:

"If I can't sing, I'm just an asshole."

As for the song: Yes, it was written by a guy experiencing an existential crisis at the age of 21
while sitting on the shitter, in the dark, while wasting water in the bathroom sink and
the hippie drivel machine turned on high:

"Aloha darkness, my old friend..." [the original lyric supposedly]

(PLOP - PLOP)

"...I've come to talk with you again..."

(PLOP - PLOP)

It took him several MONTHS to write this (??).

When it was finally released (on that album in the YouTube vid),
it flopped-plopped so badly that they immediately broke up and
went to live, literally, thousands of miles away from each other.
A year went by and the producer decided to remix the song without even
telling S&G and the record people released that version - that version that burned
holes into every person's head no matter what public place you walked into.

Just me personally: I enjoy the other versions posted (St. Trinian?) because
there's some actual life injected into the song in the same way that the Isley's,
for instance, were masters of resuscitating tunes using the sweet life of harmonies
and exquisite (re)phrasings.

Lisnaholic

Apart from the fact that they've made some fabulous music together, I don't know much about S & G - least of all what went on in PS's bathroom.

I know Simon got accused of pinching people's ideas for the Graceland album then not giving them due credit, so I'm assuming there's some justification to your comments, but surely, to be fair, there is nothing in these events that PS should be blamed for:-

P.S. at the Garfunkel quote!

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rostasi

Well, I guess you could blame someone other than the songwriters themselves for the failure of their own album,
but I don't think it's the case here. I mean, it's on CBS and so you can't say that it was short-shrifted by a small
label with no money. As Tom & Jerry, they had hits that rated higher than this album initially did that actually
were on small labels, so you can't say that it was due to inexperience. No, it just didn't catch until someone had
to distract attention from the maudlin feel and attempted poorly metered "rhymes" by puffing it up and trying
hard to re-sell it to the public (something that A&R guys were good at at Columbia).

I still don't know what "St. Trinian" is. Is it a girls choir that I should be aware of?