Simon & Garfunkel's "Blessed"

Last week I listened to Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence for the first time in over a year, and I remembered something I'd previously noticed but (apparently) haven't written about: the song's verses have the same structure as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12).  Each Beatitude has the structure "Blessed are [group] for...."  The first three lines of each verse in "Blessed" begin with either "Blessed are..." or "Blessed is...."  For instance, the first line of the song is "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit," which is almost straight from Beatitudes.  It's just missing the direct object of "inherit" - "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5).

I'd noticed that similarity years ago, but when I listened to the song again recently, I found an-other Biblical reference.  Each verse ends with the line "Oh, Lord, why have you forsaken me," which is similar to the first half of Psalm 22:1:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  This verse is also quoted by Christ on the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).

Simon & Garfunkel's "America"

Last December I thought I realized something about Simon & Garfunkel's "America," but I wanted to listen to it again before I wrote about it.  A couple weeks ago, I listened to Bookends for my Collection Audit project and took that opportunity to transcribe most of the song.  What I was thinking in December is valid, although it's only a small point about the line "'Kathy, I'm lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping."

What I realized is the importance behind the singer/speaker's admission that he "knew she was sleeping."  He knew Kathy was sleeping, but he told that he's lost anyway, which reveals something about him.  He wants to tell someone that he feels lost, but he also doesn't really want that feeling to be known.  That's why - when he does tell someone that he feels lost - he makes sure that it's at a time when it won't be heard, namely when Kathy's asleep.

Simon & Garfunkel's "Go Tell It on the Mountain"

During the last six weeks of 2014, I listened to Simon & Garfunkel's Wednesday Morning, 3 AM every Wednesday.  The album includes "Go Tell It on the Mountain," and since I was listening to this during Christmastime and heard "Go Tell It on the Mountain" in church, I started comparing the two versions.  According to the liner notes in Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, Simon & Garfunkel arranged their own version, and according to my hymnal (The Lutheran Service Book), the other version of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" with which I'm familiar was arranged by Hugh Porter.

The part that I noticed specifically is the music that accompanies the word "everywhere" in the lines "Go tell it on the mountain / Over the hills and everywhere."  I think the Simon & Garfunkel version treats this much better in relation to the text.

As far as I can tell, this is the music for everywhere, given as the individual parts and together:

There are two things here that I think are significant as far as the text.  First, Paul Simon's part sort of looks like the titular mountain.  Second, the parts are moving in opposite directions.  Garfunkel's moves down and then ascends; Simon's rises and then falls.  So, between the last two notes, there's an expansion in the parts, which helps to reflect the lyric - "Go tell it on the mountain / Over the hills and everywhere."  Garfunkel goes to the higher registers, and Simon to the lower.

The notation for the music as it appears in both Lutheran Worship and The Lutheran Service Book looks like this:

To some degree, this too reflects "Go tell it on the mountain / Over the hills and everywhere."  The first four notes could be seen as a sort of gesticulation.  It's the same sort of motion a farmer would make in casting seeds out into his field.  But I think Simon & Garfunkel's version is superior in mirroring the text to the music.  The shape of their phrase reflects the mountain itself, and the convergence and expansion of the harmony illustrates the telling mentioned in the title.

Additionally, the phrase in Porter's arrangement (in G major) ends on a G, so there's a feeling of completion.  But if the invocation is to "tell it... everywhere," it seems as if that phrase shouldn't resolve so soon.  Simon & Garfunkel's (which I'm pretty sure is in F major), ends that phrase with a C and an E.  There isn't any resolution there, implying that the telling still continues.

Simon & Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic"

I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, and I'm pretty sure that there are two bass parts in "A Simple Desultory Philippic."  There's one panned left, and other panned right with fuzz-tone.  I'm not completely sure that the right-panned one is bass, but in any case it matches the bass part pretty closely.

I haven't listened to it for awhile, but apparently "Think for Yourself" from the Beatles' Rubber Soul has two bass parts too - one regular and one with fuzz tone.  And since "A Simple Desultory Philippic" contains a reference to the Beatles ("I’ve been Rolling Stone-d and Beatle-d ‘til I’m blind"), I think the similarity is intentional.  The Bob Dylan pastiche is clearly intentional, so why not the Beatle one?