History Music / BridgeOverTroubledWater

''Bridge Over Troubled Water'' is the fifth and final studio album by Music/SimonAndGarfunkel, released in 1970. It is one of the best-selling albums of all time. It scored hit songs with the title track, "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia" and was awarded the 1971 UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Album Of The Year''. A weird, but true fact is that former US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson listened a lot to this album in the final years of his life, because it cheered him up when he felt down. Despite the global success tensions were already noticeable between the duo and after the release they decided to split up.

** The TitleTrack was inspired bu this lyric from mthe Swan Silvertones' GospelMusic Song "Mary Don't You Weep":

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Baby Driver" (a silly little IntercourseWithYou song in great contrast to the very serious tone of most of the other songs) and "Bye Bye Love" (a cover of Music/TheEverlyBrothers, and possibly a CallBack to their earlier years as "Tom and Jerry").

==>'''"The Boxer"'''

[[caption-width-right:350:''"When you're down and out/When you're on the street/When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you..."'']]

''Bridge Over Troubled Water'' is the fifth and final studio album by Music/SimonAndGarfunkel, released in 1970.

It is one of the best-selling albums of all time. It scored hit songs with the title track, "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia" and was awarded the 1971 UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Album Of The Year''. It was listed at #51 in ''Magazine/RollingStone'''s [[UsefulNotes/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]] and ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' included the album in their [[TimeAllTime100Albums 2006 list of 100 timeless and essential albums.]] A weird, but true fact is that former US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson listened a lot to this album in the final years of his life, because it cheered him up when he felt down.

Despite the global success tensions were already noticeable between the duo and after the release they decided to split up.

[[AC: Side One]]

[[AC: Side Two]]

* WorldMusic: "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)" has a decidedly Peruvian atmosphere, down to the panflute playing. Simon based the song on a traditional Peruvian folk tune--or so he thought. It was actually what amounted to a Peruvian show tune, composed by writer[=/=]musician Daniel Alomía Robles in 1913 for a ''zarzuela'' (a musical play based on Spanish theatrical traditions) called ''El Cóndor Pasa'' ("The Condor Passes"), about a miners in an Andes village.

** The mournful {{Tearjerker}} "The Boxer" is followed by the far more upbeat in tone "Baby Driver".

* WorldMusic: "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)" has a decidedly Peruvian atmosphere, down to the panflute playing. Simon based the song on a traditional Peruvian folk tune- or so he thought, because it turned out to be a 1913 composition by Peruvian musician Daniel Alomía Robles.

--> I do declare/There were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there

--> ''Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia''
--> ''Up in my bedroom''
--> ''I got up to wash my face''
--> ''When I come back to bed''
--> ''Someone's taken my place''

--> ''There's no-one home, we're all alone''
--> ''Oh come into my room and play''
--> ''Yes we can play.''
--> ''I'm not talking about your pigtails''
--> ''But I'm talking 'bout your sex appeal''
--> ''Hit the road and I'm gone ah''
--> ''What's my number?''
--> ''I wonder how your engine feels?''

** The mournful, Tearjerker "The Boxer" is followed by the far more upbeat in tone "Baby Driver".

--> ''When you're weary, feeling small''
--> ''When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all''
--> ''I'm on your side when times get rough''
--> ''And friends just can't be found''
--> ''Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down''

** The line "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me" from the song "Mary Don't You Weep" by Swan Silverstones was the inspiration for the title track.

--> ''Everywhere I go, I get slandered, libeled''
--> ''I hear [[AsTheGoodBookSays words I never heard in the Bible]]''
--> ''And I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine''
--> ''Two steps away from the county line''
--> ''Just trying to keep my customers satisfied''

[[caption-width-right:350:''Bridge Over Troubled Water''.]]

* {{Rockumentary}}: ''Simon And Garfunkel: Songs Of America'' is a rather unique television special that aired on CBS in 1969. Much of the special is a fairly conventional rockumentary featuring interviews with the duo, footage of the duo working in the studio, and film from the 1969 tour. This portion includes {{Early Bird Cameo}}s of "The Boxer", "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright". The rest of the film is a series of montages of the social and historical upheavals of TheSixties (civil rights protest, UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy's funeral train, etc), with Simon and Garfunkel songs as the musical accompaniment.

** The line "I'l be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me" from the song "Mary Don't You Weep" by Swan Silverstones was the inspiration for the title track.

** Music/ShiningNorway's first album ''Where the Ragged People Go'' takes its title from "The Boxer" ("When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy, in the company of strangers in the quiet of the railway station, running scared, laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters ''where the ragged people go'', looking for the places only they would know").

* TakeThat: "The Boxer" was interpreted as one of these to Music/BobDylan. Simon has {{jossed}} that interpretation, explaining that it was actually about himself in a period he felt like he was constantly criticized. Dylan's own CoverVersion was seen as a TakeThat in return.

It is one of the best-selling albums of all time. It scored hit songs with the title track, "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia" and was awarded the 1971 UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Album Of The Year''. It was listed at #51 in ''Magazine/RollingStone'''s [[UsefulNotes/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]] and ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' included the album in their [[TimeAllTime100Albums 2006 list of 100 timeless and essential albums.]] A weird, but true fact is that former US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson [[BigNameFan listened a lot to this album]] in the final years of his life, because it cheered him up when he felt down.

* BreakupSong: "Cecilia" and "Bye Bye Love". Most of the album has a feeling of breaking up and saying goodbye. Not surprising seeing that [[RealitySubtext the band itself wasn't getting along as well as they used to]]. "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" was for instance written by Simon as a veiled reference to Garfunkel, something Garfunkel himself wasn't informed about at the time.

* CoverVersion: The 1913 Daniel Alomía Robles song "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" and Music/TheEverlyBrothers song "Bye Bye Love". A version of the Haitian folk song "Feuilles-O" was recorded but was left off the album (but has since been released as a bonus track).

* CoverVersion: The 1913 Daniel Alomía Robles song "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" and Music/TheEverlyBrothers song "Bye Bye Love".

* TitledAfterTheSong: 2017 saw the release of ''two'' films named after songs on this album, ''Film/BabyDriver'' and ''Film/TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewYork''.

* LyricalDissonance: "Baby Driver", which sounds like an innocent children's song if you look at the title, but is actually about a boy who lives a comfortable life in a protected home, but who searches for adventures and one day decides to have his first sexual experience.
* MoodWhiplash: The mournful, Tearjerker "The Boxer" is followed by the far more upbeat in tone "Baby Driver".

* BreakUpSong: "Cecilia" and "Bye Bye Love". Most of the album has a feeling of breaking up and saying goodbye. Not surprising seeing that [[RealitySubtext the band itself wasn't getting along as well as they used to]]. "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" was for instance written by Simon as a veiled reference to Garfunkel, something Garfunkel himself wasn't informed about at the time.