Simon & Garfunkel put a particularly bleak spin on the outlines of your life. Thanks, Simon & Garfunkel. Life is, indeed, a maze of blind corners and dead ends which we scramble through like frightened rats, pausing only to enjoy a nice cheese. Also, lonely nights spend alone in cramped walk-up apartments. Also, angst and self doubt. Also, Paul Simon needs a hug. Honestly, there’s few things that appeal to me more that the combination of beautifully refined musicianship and dysfunctional emotional flailing. Simon & Garfunkel mastered that balance like none other, with their chamber pop harmonies, and Garfunkel’s Sunday choir vocals, and Simon’s disgruntled-nerd songwriting. Paul Simon is known as a mellow fellow, thanks to his melodic gifts, soothing voice, and nonthreatening stature, but he wrote some of the darkest hit pop songs in the pop canon. This is a song I’d like to hear in the hands of some Bad Seeds, so it can’t sneak by disguised as pretty.
