The Simon and Garfunkel songs Paul Simon couldn’t sing: “I would feel extremely anxious”
Throughout the 1960s, the gradual improvement of Simon and Garfunkel’s songwriting and performance partnership made it feel as though the duo were an inseparable pair and a match made in heaven. If they could have continued to write at the same calibre for several more years, they would quite possibly have continued to dominate the folk-rock world together, but alas, their time working together would come to an unfortunate end in 1970.
The cracks began to show towards the end of the ‘60s, with Art Garfunkel seemingly showing little interest in furthering his musical career in the same way as Paul Simon did and instead turning his focus to other activities such as starring in films. This caused the creation of what would be their final album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, to be one fraught with difficulty, and with Garfunkel absent a lot of the time while Simon penned the masterful songs, the duo rarely spent any time together by the end of their life as a duo.
They would officially break up shortly after the release of this incredible swan song record, with Garfunkel removing himself from the music industry altogether for a brief period while he went to work as a maths teacher, while Simon would turn his focus towards establishing himself as a solo performer. It was a bitter pill to swallow for fans of the duo, and many questioned whether Simon’s songwriting would have the same level of power with him assuming the role of singer and songwriter rather than handing over the songs that he felt Garfunkel’s vocals were more suited to.
The fact that Garfunkel often sang Simon’s songs was a slight point of contention, as many mistook them as being his own compositions and didn’t give Simon the credit where it was due. However, it was clear from his early solo output that Simon didn’t have to worry about not having the capacity to venture out on his own, as he impressed audiences with new material such as ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ and ‘Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard’.
However, the even bigger question was whether he would continue to perform the songs he had penned for Garfunkel to sing, or if he’d even want to touch those songs for the fear of not being able to do them justice. While some might think that there would be no issue in him singing songs that he wrote in the first place, Simon was a little more apprehensive about the prospect.
In a 1972 interview with the New York Times, Simon declared what he would and wouldn’t be touching, and laid out his reasons for these decisions for all to see. “Obviously I can’t sing songs like ‘The Sound of Silence’, ‘I Am A Rock’ or ‘Homeward Bound’,” he told the news outlet. “Maybe ‘The Boxer’. And I might do ‘Bridge’.”
As for why he didn’t want to perform the songs outlined, with a specific focus on ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, he would continue by explaining: “I would feel extremely anxious about it, because I don’t have the same vocal instrument Artie does, and it’s a song so associated with his rendition.” It’s a fair assessment to make, and it certainly wouldn’t have had the same impact without the gorgeous vocal cadence of Art Garfunkel taking the lead, but there were certainly enough songs that Simon had taken the lead vocal duties on to make his sets just as spellbinding.
