Classic or Dud: "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (the song)

Overall, "Bookends" was a way better album than "Bridge Over Troubled Water" though.

I don't recall ever hearing a cover. None of them could do it justice.

lesson on how i determined that dave marsh is full of shit -- after he praised aretha's cover of this song to the skies (and took cheap swipes at simon and garfunkel); i listen to aretha's version; i like aretha's version well enough but decide that no, it is NOT better than the original not even close.

As for the original song and original recording: the Righteous Brothers sing "Surf's Up."

However the original S&G "BOTW" is one of the select pantheon of hit singles on which one of the named artists does not actually appear (i.e. Paul Simon), in common with Ike and Tina Turner (on "River Deep Mountain High") and Tony Christie featuring Peter Kay.

Sorry, I didn't have to say any of that.

ok, going into my memory banks... it's the swan silvertones i think, but which song???

anyway i think the metaphor works better in a religious context than... well what context is the S&G song anyway? is it a love song? a gospel song? some richard thompsonlike ambiguous region in-between?

say what you want about Paul Simon, but he really knew his american roots music at at time when that was pretty rare esp. among bigtime musicians. and i think, musically at least, he really UNDERSTOOD it too.... his first LP in particular bears this out. a really great relaxed feeling that's not quite the blues nor new orleans nor gospel nor country but an organic fusion of those things with other more modern stuff besides...

Sorry to drag this up a week late but something about this bugged me until I realised that surely that's Paul Simon singing harmony during the "Sail on silver girl" verse? Or am I wrong here?

^ BBC Doc last night had footage of them both in the studio singing the third verse together. Paul also said he wrote it in the studio 'cause Art thought two wasn't enough and it needed to go whooooosh like a plane taking off, or something.

Really not convinced about the third verse tbh. Leap from the concrete to Paul's abstract poetics doesn't do it for me, the extra instrumentation is too much, especially the lurching martial snare, and the production is appallingly muddy.

Still a stone classic tho.

I never liked it much, but I'd say it needed the last verse, so hey me.

Classic, IMHO. I have a Simon & Garfunkel biography in which it was revealed that the third verse was kinda tacked on in the studio because both producer Roy Halee and Mr. Garfunkel thought it needed "that extra bit", and Paul Simon has gone on record and said that he always thought that it was obvious that it was written afterwards... I guess he would say that though, being the writer and everything. I don't have a problem with it, in fact I'm completely with Mark G here in that it sounds like it needed it.

One thing I always found interesting about this song is that it was Garfunkel's vocal on this song, especially his live performances of it during the Simon & Garfunkel years, that helped break the duo up. I've noticed in a few interviews since that Paul has admitted he was a little jealous of the attention that Garfunkel was getting from this song, and his live renditions of it. Like "yeah, thanks man, that's my song". It's almost like he resented the song being associated with Garfunkel. Personally, I don't think Paul Simon has ever sang this song as well as Garfunkel, even though he is the writer.

I have to add that it isn't my favourite song from that particular Simon & Garfunkel album though... 'The Only Living Boy In New York', with its distant and rich harmonies, wins out for me over this song easily. That doesn't make 'Bridge...' any less of a classic to me, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obJLcz-uPA

That's the bit. Paul's mike!

lots of interesting details about recording that album - for ex. Cecilia rhythm track is a tape loop of S&G and friends banging on shit in one of their living rooms

and El Condor Pasa is just Paul singing over a Peruvian folk band's already recorded track

I always liked the in-joke in the fade of 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' where you hear both Paul and Roy Halee say "so long, Artie".

Or "so long already, Artie", I think it was... going to put that on to listen to...