This is an album built backwards. Its centerpiece had already been recorded, already failed, and already been left for dead before anyone decided there should be an album at all. The track that gives the record its name (note the plural, the song is singular) only became a hit because a producer quietly rebuilt it while the duo were apart and not speaking professionally. The record exists because that rebuild worked.
So the songs around it were assembled fast, in the wake of a success nobody planned for, to capitalize on a moment that arrived by accident. You can hear that hurry in places, and you can hear the relief. This is the sound of two men being handed back a career they thought was finished, scrambling to fill out a record around the one track that did the rescuing. Start with the title song, then work outward. The whole thing makes more sense once you know it should never have existed.
Tracklist
1 of 11 coveredThe songs we’ve dived into are lit in gold, tap to read. The rest are here for the full picture.
More from Simon & Garfunkel
Album · 1970
Bridge over Troubled Water
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Album · 1968
Bookends
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Album · 1966
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
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See Simon & Garfunkel’s full discography →