Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Simon & Garfunkel's Fifth (and Last) Studio Album (1970)



From Wikipedia:

Bridge Over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by Simon and Garfunkel. [ First released on January 26, 1970, it reached number one on Billboard Music Charts pop albums list. It won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, as well as for Best Engineered Recording, while its title track won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in the Grammy Awards of 1971. It has since sold over 25 million worldwide.

Track listing

"Bridge Over Troubled Water" – 4:52
"El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" – 3:06
"Cecilia" – 2:54
"Keep the Customer Satisfied" – 2:33
"So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" – 3:47
"The Boxer" – 5:08
"Baby Driver" – 3:14
"The Only Living Boy in New York" – 3:58
"Why Don't You Write Me" – 2:45
"Bye Bye Love"* (live recording from Ames, Iowa) – 2:55
"Song for the Asking" – 1:49

This album was release while I was in the Army.My favorite songs are "The Boxer" and "Song for the Asking" While I like "Bridge over Troubled Water" it has never been one of my favorite Simon & Garfunkle songs. I liked "El Codor Pasa" when it was first released but less so now. "Cecilia" is always fun along with "Bye Bye Love". I still remember buying this album at Pay Less in North Bend, Oregon while on leave from the Army. By then, they had broken up and since then have issued concert albums, compilations and greatest hits albums but never again have they together produced a studio album. In eight short years from 1964 to 1970 they produced five studio albums that have lasted at least a life time. How appropriate that the last song on their last studio album was "Song For the Asking:"

Here is my song for the asking
Ask me and I will play
So sweetly, Ill make you smile

This is my tune for the taking
Take it, dont turn away
Ive been waiting all my life

Thinking it over, Ive been sad
Thinking it over, Id be more than glad
To change my ways for the asking

Ask me and I will ply
All the love that I hold inside



"Ill make you smile"...... that they did and so much more.