Paul Simon picks the best harmonies Simon and Garfunkel ever made
Simon and Garfunkel are known for their harmonies. It’s the foundation their whole career is built on, taking them from their first glimmers of attention back as a high school doo-wop group to being the stars of the folk world. Their tight vocal cohesion sounds great on each and every song they put out, but Paul Simon thinks it sounds best on one sentimental track in particular.
Theirs is the kind of musical tightness that can’t be taught. It’s something that comes from lifelong closeness as the two musicians figured out how to sing together after becoming best friends when they were only kids. Growing up together singing in a band and sharing musical tastes and discoveries, they learnt how to make music by singing together, so their easy harmonies were second nature to them by the time they hit the big time. By the time we were Simon and Garfunkel as we know them and no longer Tom and Jerry singing on street corners in Queens, their ability to create beautiful, blended harmonies was second to none.
It’s a tough call attempting to pick out a song where their voices sound best, because the quality never dropped. Even as their personal relationships began to fray under the strain of success, their music was never compromised. In fact, the track that Simon picks out as his favourite vocal performance was made during their toughest days, written as a kind of goodbye.
Maybe that’s exactly why it sounds so beautiful, as if both members were truly putting their heart and soul into ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’, their 1970 track. Written during a time when Garfunkel was off working on his own projects while Simon was left alone to make an album, the song acts as his bittersweet farewell as he realised it was time to let go of the band; this chapter of his life, and perhaps even his friend.
“Tom, get your plane right on time / I know that you’ve been eager to fly now,” he sings, calling Garfunkel by his own nickname and granting him permission to fly off into whatever was coming next for them both. It’s an emotional yet deeply tender track as Simon asks his friend to tell the truth that he wants out of the group, singing, “Hey, let your honesty shine.”
From the song and the atmosphere between them, they both knew that Bridge over Troubled Water, the album it sat on would be their last. So maybe for one last time, they both put their heart and soul into singing together on the track.
“I liked the ‘aaahhhs,’ the voices singing ‘aaah’,” Simon told SongTalk of the track, “That was the best I think that we ever did it.” It was intricately built, as if the musicians couldn’t stop adding more and more layers, both contributing several vocal stems to the track as if to make a choir of themselves. He explained, “It was quite a lot of voices we put on, maybe twelve or fifteen voices. We sang it in the echo-chamber.”
Right as their time as a band was coming to an end, it was a beautiful image to think of the two old friends coming together, elevating the simple harmonies that started it all into something stunning. Packing their goodbye song to one another with some of their best work, it’s a fitting finale.
