History Music / SimonAndGarfunkel

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* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Paul is the duo's songwriter and arranger (technician) while Art is the pretty face and voice (performer).

** For a long time, the title song "Book Ends" was used as the music for an end of year montage ("I have a photograph / Preserve your memories / They're all that's left you".)

* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K63CD2pwjD0 Wednesday Morning, 3 AM]]" is a melancholy reflection from a man taking comfort in his lover's company one last time before the law takes him away. "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtm_ClkkcoM Somewhere They Can't Find Me]]" changes the instrumentation to angry rock and adds new lyrics in the form of a chorus (including [[TitleDrop the title line]]) that indicate the singer plans to flee, unrepentant. Note that the same band released both the original ''and'' the cover.

* ChangedForTheVideo: When they performed "The Boxer" live for their 1981 concert in Central Park, the song has an entire verse (starting with "Now the years are rolling by me/They are rocking evenly") that is absent from the original version of the song as recorded on ''Music/BridgeOverTroubledWater''. On the album, that part of the song is an instrumental break.

** Not to mention their rendition of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" from the first album. And "Seven O'Clock News/Silent Night", which turns into an AntiChristmasSong as it shifts from a simple rendition of "Silent Night" to a newscast with reports on UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and other depressing stores playing in the background.

* IJustWantToBeYou: The refrain of "Richard Cory" ends with the line "Oh, I wish that I could be Richard Cory." (Richard Cory, meanwhile, probably wishes he could be someone else, someone with real friends.)

* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: More than once. The duo first reunited at a benefit concert for Democratic presidential candidate UsefulNotes/GeorgeMcGovern in 1972. They got together to record the single "My Little Town" in 1975, as well as for a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' appearance later that year. They teamed up with Music/JamesTaylor in 1978 for a cover of Music/SamCooke's "(What a) Wonderful World". In 1981 they came together for a free concert in New York's Central Park, which drew a crowd of over 500,000 people and was televised on Creator/{{HBO}}. This led to a world tour and their first new album in over a decade--until Simon mixed Garfunkel's vocals out of the album completely and released it as a solo album titled ''Hearts and Bones''. In the 1990s the duo toured together briefly, and in the 2000s they reunited again and toured extensively.

* ProtestSong: The background lyrics of "Scarborough Fair/Canticle":
-->On the side of a hill in the deep forest green\\
Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown\\
Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain\\
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call\\
On the side of a hill a sprinkling of leaves\\
Washes the grave with silvery tears\\
A soldier cleans and polishes a gun\\
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call\\
War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions\\
Generals order their soldiers to kill\\
And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten

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

** "Blessed" from ''Sounds of Silence'' is one to those "Christians" who pay lip-service to the dogma without understanding it. It's a reminder that the second great commandment is "love thy neighbour", not "love thy white neighbour" nor "love thy well-off neighbour". Anyone, no matter how "low", is blessed.

** "The Sounds of Silence" was used during the film adaptation of ''Film/{{Watchmen}}''. It is also the opening song for ''Film/TheGraduate'', which also uses "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" several times.

Music/PaulSimon (born October 13, 1941 in Newark, New Jersey) and Art Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941 in Queens, UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) first came together in 1957 under the name "Tom & Jerry" (not to be confused with ''[[NamesTheSame that]]'' Franchise/TomAndJerry), but rose to fame as Simon & Garfunkel nearly a decade later, mostly due to their chart-topping 1965 hit "The Sound of Silence". Both men were childhood friends, having growing up in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Queens, New York]] a few blocks away from each other.

-->-- "The Sound of Silence"

Music/PaulSimon and Art Garfunkel (both born 1941) first came together in 1957 under the name [[NamesTheSame "Tom & Jerry"]], but rose to fame as Simon & Garfunkel nearly a decade later, mostly due to their chart-topping 1965 hit "The Sound of Silence". Both men were childhood friends, having growing up in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Queens, New York]] a few blocks away from each other.

* RefrainFromAssuming:
** "Feeling Groovy" is actually "The 59th Street Bridge Song," but few people remember that.
** That song where Simon wishes he could be a hammer rather than a nail or a forest rather than a street? It's called "El Condor Pasa", not "If I Could".

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** On ''Bridge Over Troubled Water'', "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").
** On ''Bookends'', there's "Voices of Old People", which consists of people in a UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity retirement home making conversation with Art Garfunkel.
** ''The Sound of Silence'' features the {{instrumental|s}} track "Anji", composed by Dave Graham.

** "The Sounds of Silence" was originally released in 1964 as a folk tune with the duo singing and Simon playing acoustic guitar. It went nowhere, and the duo broke up. But then a Boston radio station started playing it and it became a sensation among Boston area college students, then its popularity spread up and down the East Coast, including Florida (allegedly via word-of-mouth from students on spring break). Creator/ColumbiaRecords considered re-releasing it as a single, but decided the simple folk backing wouldn't appeal to Top 40 radio, so after he finished producing the session for Music/BobDylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", Tom Wilson, who produced the S&G original, asked some of the musicians to stick around to add a whole new electric arrangement (guitar, bass, drums) to the song. This time, it became a huge hit, and Simon and Garfunkel's career took off.

[[caption-width-right:350:WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead, if they were polite.[[note]]Art Garfunkel (left) and Music/PaulSimon (right).[[/note]]]]

* BrieferThanTheyThink: The duo only released five studio albums over the course of six years. There are three times more Simon and Garfunkel compilation albums.

** In 1967 they recorded two carols ("The Star Carol" and "Comfort and Joy"--the latter just a retitled "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen") for a planned Christmas single. It was never released, though the A-side turned up on a couple of multi-artist Christmas compilations and both songs were eventually included in the ''Old Friends'' box set.

** In 1967 they recorded two carols ("The Star Carol" and "Comfort and Joy"--which is just a retitled "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen") for a planned Christmas single. It was never released, though the A-side turned up on a couple of multi-artist Christmas compilations and both songs were eventually included in the ''Old Friends'' box set.

** Both "The Sound of Silence" and "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her", taken literally, consist of the narrator describing a dream he had.

* DreamEpisode: "The Sound of Silence", taken literally, consists of the narrator describing a dream he had.