Sometimes listening to music is like putting on an old coat or pair of shoes. Music from when we were younger can be comfortable and just feel right. Some music makes you recall a moment, a period; other music can make you recall events that were happening, and some music.. well, some music just was. So it is with Simon & Garfunkel’s melodies, harmonies and lyrics. They weren’t just part of the 60’s and early 70’s, they helped make the 60's and 70's what they were. Along with artists such as Dylan, the Stones and Santana, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are still doing today what they do best.
Kodachrome, released by Paul Simon in 1973, is one of my S & G favourites. Hearing it brings back memories of when they (and I) were a lot younger. We knew then that the lyrics of Sounds of Silence were heavy poetry, even if like Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, we didn’t know what the lyrics meant. Nonetheless, being in high school, we all understood the opening lines of Kodachrome: “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school/It's a wonder I can think at all ..” Today, the familiarity of the opening notes and the opening lyrics immediately sets my foot tapping and the psyche grooving.
So sit back for a moment, click on:
and listen to Simon & Garfunkel at the Reunion Concert in Central Park sing about simpler days, before 9/11, before economic global downturns, before global warming and pollution… Mind you, they were also the days of the Vietnam War, racial bigotry, oppression, gay intolerance, women’s inequality, US covert destabilisation of governments… However, as Simon and Garfunkel say, those days don’t match imagination, everything looks worse (or better – see below) in black and white…
