Quote:
Originally Posted by 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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Well, I was only quarter-joking with that remark, but
Simon has always been an egotistical jacka
ss.
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 sh
itter, 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.