Simon and Garfunkel Archives - Page 3 of 8

Pick Five: David Olney

Posted by Ray Padgett at 10:00 am No Responses »

Aug 222018

In Pick Five, great artists pick five cover songs that matter to them.

In 1991, Townes Van Zandt wrote the following: “Anytime anyone asks me who my favorite music writers are, I say Mozart, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and Dave Olney. Dave Olney is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard — and that’s true. I mean that from my heart.”

Twenty-seven years later, Townes is gone, but Olney keeps on keepin’ on. He may not have become a household name in that time, but his reputation among his peers has only grown. Emmylou Harris has sung three of his songs. Linda Ronstadt tackled a pair herself. When Steve Earle covered Olney’s “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” he noted it took him four or five years of playing the song before he realized it was “so perfectly constructed that it doesn’t have a rhyme in it.” He added that Olney was “one of the best songwriters in the world.” Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of July

Posted by Ray Padgett at 12:00 pm 1 Response »

Jul 312018

Arctic Monkeys – Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello cover)

Arctic Monkeys got a lot of attention covering the Strokes last week (especially because on his new album, Alex Turner sings: “I just want to be one of the Strokes”). But I preferred their wonderfully sleazy “Lipstick Vogue” cover, played in honor of Costello as he recovered from cancer surgery. Turner’s a product of his influences; in addition to the Strokes and Elvis, he appears to have his Nick Cave snake slither down cold. Continue reading »

Good, Better, Best: Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 3:00 pm 11 Responses »

Jul 202018

Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

There was nothing that preceded it. I didn’t have those words. I didn’t have that melody. And I was playing chords and all of a sudden, I sang that. And I couldn’t believe it. I was dumbstruck…. I have no idea where that came from. It was far about the level I was writing at the time…. I was sort of conscious that it was a gift. And I was very emotionally moved by it.

Paul Simon knew he had something special when he wrote the first two verses of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Since Simon wrote the song in a higher key than he was used to singing, he also knew the song was meant for one man and one man only to sing. Art Garfunkel demurred at first (“You have a nice falsetto, Paul, why don’t you sing it?”), out of a giving spirit more than anything else; it didn’t take long for Simon to talk him into it. The song needed a third verse in order to properly build up (Simon whipped one up in the studio), and it took seventy-two takes to record, but “Bridge” came together beautifully. Simon may have felt that Garfunkel’s gospel touch was “more Methodist than Baptist,” but Clive Davis, head of Columbia, knew what they had immediately. Even at a longish (for a single) five minutes, he announced that it would be the first single, first track, and title song of their next record.

The Best Cover Songs of 1978

Posted by Ray Padgett at 2:00 pm 2 Responses »

Jun 152018

Welcome to the third installment in our Best Cover Songs of Yesteryear countdown, where we act like we were compiling our usual year-end list from a year before we – or the internet – existed. Compared to the first two, this one has significantly less grunge than 1996 and less post-punk than 1987. It’s hard to have post-punk, after all, before you have punk, a new genre starting to hit its peak in 1978. And don’t forget the other big late-’70s sound: disco. Both genres were relatively new, and super divisive among music fans. Lucky for us, both genres were also big on covers.

Disco, in particular, generated some hilariously ill-advised cover songs. We won’t list them all here – this is the Best 1978 covers, not the Most 1978 covers. If you want a taste (and think carefully about whether you really do), this bonkers take on a Yardbirds classic serves as a perfect example of what a good portion of the year’s cover songs looked and sounded like: Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of March

Posted by Ray Padgett at 9:00 am 1 Response »

Mar 302018

Disclaimer: Our monthly “Best Cover Songs” aren’t ranked, and the “Honorable Mentions” aren’t necessarily worse than the others (they’re just the ones we had the least to say about).

Angelique Kidjo – Born Under Punches (Talking Heads cover)

Goddammit, Angelique. We spent weeks compiling our Best Talking Heads Covers post, and only days after we finish, you announce a full Remain in Light tribute album. Judging from this first single, it’s going to be pretty amazing too. Continue reading »

Buffalo Tom Transcends ‘90s Rock Origins With Alt-Country Simon & Garfunkel Cover

Posted by Curtis Zimmermann at 9:00 am No Responses »

Mar 202018

Buffalo Tom was an alternative rock bands always on the verge of mainstream success in the ‘90s, but who never even earned “oh-they-play-that-song” status. Though they’ve definitely got a strong cult following. The band appeared on the final episode of The Jon Stewart Show in 1995 and the comedian has cited them as one of his favorite artists. Their music even featured in a 1994 episode of the teen drama My So-Called Life during a Claire Danes/Jared Leto make-out montage (it’s about as disgusting as it sounds). These days the band has returned, having just released a new studio album, Quiet and Peace, which includes a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.”

The song originally appeared on the duo’s 1970 album Bridge Over Troubled Water. Simon wrote the tune about existential longing after Garfunkel jettisoned to Mexico to appear in the movie Catch-22, hence the opening lines: “Tom, get your plane right on time / I know your part’ll go fine / Fly down to Mexico.” While not quite as iconic as “Mrs. Robinson” or “The Sounds of Silence,” the track has seeped its way into pop culture over the decades.

Buffalo Tom shifts the song into the alternative-country universe, shaping it into an anthem to aimless wandering, especially when they hit the climactic chorus, “Half of the time we’re gone, but we don’t know where.” For the accompaniment, they blend acoustic and steel guitar and include a jammy electric guitar solo to amplify the finale. Though the track might not be as edgy as some of the group’s early work, it holds up well after a few listens. The band has clearly aged better than other relics from the ‘90s (especially YouTube clips of My So-Called Life).