I've been pretty obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel lately - with them together, and individually, apart. As much as I've always liked S&G and not been averse to Simon's solo work (we had 'Me and Julio...' as our wedding dance, after all) some greater admiration and fascination has embedded this year which hasn't been there before.
I wonder when the last time they spoke was, when the last time they thought about recording together was, how it went sour each time it went sour.
I don't know what precisely has prompted it. There were a few cool TV programmes about them, Simon's doing this audiobook thing with Malcolm Gladwell, I probably felt sufficiently incensed by the sentiment of that sour as fuck article saying Simon would only be a footnote to the Beatles and Dylan.
He's sure written a lot of great songs, Paul Simon, and yes, there's that funny thing which he himself has acknowledged astutely enough that he's never been and can never be cool, and, somehow, though probably there's no difference to most people, there'll always be something that means Simon and his fans are seen as ... prissy ... compared to others, rightly or wrongly.
That's long since stopped mattering, of course. Simon's solo career is as much of a triumph as his fabled group work. He has kept on making good albums - I enjoyed 2016's 'Stranger to Stranger' a great deal (indeed, it may well be that it was that album, late in the day as it was, that made me appreciate Simon the solo artist).
Still, the funny truth lingers. His mother said it herself - "You have a nice voice. Arthur Garfunkel has a fine voice". So Simon sang lead, or they harmonised, sang top and bottom, and it all worked beautifully, and there were many wonderful, occasionally prissy, songs.
Then he wrote this song that he knew was better than what he usually wrote, and he also knew that it was one for his friend to sing. So he gave it to his friend, and his friend and their producer, Roy Halee, persuaded him, against his better judgement, that it needed to be bigger, that it needed to have a third verse which soared, so it is that the most famous, most beloved thing Paul Simon's ever written is "LIKE A BRIDGE OHVER TROU-U-BLED WATER, I WILL EASE YOUR MI-I-I-I-IND" and really that bit belongs mainly to Art Garfunkel, and that must be a little bit annoying.
There are intriguing clips on youtube - them together being interviewed on Letterman in about 1983 talking about their new tour and album together which of course never got made, because they got sick of each other. Them on stage for a successful tour in the early 2000s, before they got sick of each other again in the early 2010s. Garfunkel lost his voice then, though it's come back in some form. Simon has retired from touring.
Perhaps, who knows, they're friends once more, safe in the knowledge they won't have to be Simon and Garfunkel again.
Anyway, I made a Paul Simon playlist once before, but this will be a better one:
Song for the Asking - S&G
American Tune - PS
America - S&G
My Little Town - PS&AG
Old Friends/Bookends - S&G
Still Crazy After All These Years - PS
Kodachrome - PS
The Only Living Boy in New York - S&G
Stranger to Stranger - PS
Leaves that are Green - S&G
St Judy Comet - PS
The Sound of Silence - S&G
The Boxer - S&G
Kathy's Song - S&G
You Can Call Me Al - PS
Graceland - PS
Slip Slidin' Away - PS
Homeward Bound - PS
The Late Great Johnny Ace - PS
Something So Right - PS
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - PS
Mrs Robinson - S&G
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