Original subtitles

Yes, hot diggity dog.

It's 7:00 in Wimberley, Texas.

Toddy and Pooch are back at the controls here at KWVH.

Tonight, well, we have something a little different.

In our never-ending quest to get your feet moving,

and wagging its tail, we have a very special guest.

Very special, well, it doesn't even begin to cover it,

TRUE?

Our guest has won more Grammy Awards

than I could count: three for Best Album.

Two-time member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

♪ Over the mountains, down in the valley ♪

♪ Lives a former talk show host ♪

♪ Everyone knows your name ♪

He performs in front of more than half

a million people on multiple occasions.

♪ Tell him to make me a cambric shirt ♪

♪ Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme ♪

♪ Growing up and being a man

♪ It is sung with the Muppets...

♪ Be a man ♪

♪ And the devil called my name ♪

From New York, it's Saturday night!

With Paul Simon, who is one of the great

performers of all time on Saturday Night Live.

Once again, Paul Simón.

Once again, Paul Simón!

We will stay at the Pierre

and meet Jack and Angelica

and have a drink there.

And if you want to come, we'd love to have you.

Acts in a winning film

Oscar for Best Picture.

It's not a great deal.

It's just relaxing, being very calm.

Cool.

Remember we had that thing?

What thing?

♪ I know what I know ♪

♪ I know what I know ♪

♪ We come and we go ♪

♪ We come and we go ♪

♪ I know what I know ♪

♪ I know what I know ♪

And even more important than all that

is that he is simply the best composer.

in the history of American popular music.

We love you, Pablo!

"I Know What I Know" from "Graceland."

I can't believe I can say this.

Paul Simon joins us today.

Hey!

Thanks, Todd. Thanks, Ben.

Composers, I mean, obviously, you in particular,

one of the things I've always wondered,

You know, once you were writing your own material

and having success in the whirlwind of rock and roll,

You know, I contacted you, how did you experience the music?

Or how are you still doing today?

So there are different... you know,

If your career is songwriting

and, uh, it's a pretty unusual career.

I never thought anything was a risk.

I didn't really know what song was going to be a hit and people used to say:

Oh, you've got your finger on the pulse.

And I would think, no, I don't have my finger on the pulse.

I just have my finger out and the pulse

is running underneath it for the moment.

Your creative abilities, it's a mystery

why it happens and how long it lasts.

I love mystery.

I really love mystery.

Your process seems to be somewhat similar to mine,

that is, you gather a lot of information and then...

That's exactly what's happening.

And then you say, what's the interesting story here?

- That's right. - Know?

How does the story begin?

That's always an important question when writing songs.

What is the sound I want here?

You know, it's like an old saying, guitarists

spend half their lives tuning their guitar.

and the other half out of tune.

So this little guitar... riff

It is a kind of base of the-

On January 15, 2019, I had a dream that said:

you're working on a piece called "Seven Psalms."

And I hadn't written

anything for a couple of years,

I also didn't feel like writing

anything for a couple of years.

The dream was so strong

that I got up and wrote it down.

"Seven Psalms, January 15, 2019."

But I had no idea what that meant.

But little by little information was arriving, such as...

And I'd say, oh, okay, maybe that's there, you know.

Maybe this is there.

Let's play it again.

This is the opening of the registry.

I don't think you've heard this.

That's a whale bone.

I try all the time to move things in this

kind of flow that puts you in a dream.

And I think if you're willing to fall into a

dream space, you're willing to stop judging.

You know, it's like a meditation.

The information that arrives arrives in a purer form.

And you will be able to hear and feel it more clearly and intensely.

How did you hear it just now?

Well, it started out being very aware that

you're here and the camera is on, so...

I had to divide my thinking between the

music and was it a good performance?

or, you know, there's a trial going on.

Now, will those cameras be inhibiting, Paul?

I live with these cameras, Artie.

These cameras, have you ever seen them inhibit me?

Such a different medium... such a different medium.

I forgot how much I trust the fact that it

is: you can make sounds without being seen.

You can create images without being seen.

That's how I-that's how I write,

images but you don't see them, so in a way you evoke images.

But these are photographs.

I write for several reasons.

Some songs I write for the pleasure of writing a song.

It doesn't have any great meaning.

It's just a song.

The songs are beautiful.

People sing songs. Children sing songs

all the time for the pleasure of singing.

In some songs, you try to express yourself emotionally.

Those are different songs for me.

And they express what I feel, and relieve...

Tensions that I feel when I express them.

But I don't think about communicating with anyone.

♪ Train, train ♪

Growing up, I had like four idols.

Mickey Mantle, Kennedy, Lenny Bruce...

I was like a very depressed kid, you know?

And I was seven or eight years old, and

it really got me excited and out of my...

...and Elvis Presley.

It didn't matter what they did. They fascinated me.

The name Elvis Presley was one of the strangest names.

ever heard.

You know, everyone I knew was called, you

know, David Rothbaum or something like that.

♪ Well, if your baby leaves you ♪

♪ And you have a story to tell ♪

I don't really know what kind of experience you have and all that.

Were you... were you... poor?

All the songs, at least on the last album,

the one that's... isn't it number one?

Selling album in the country now or have you been?

I think it was.

- "Bridge over troubled waters"? - Yeah.

Uh, there's a lot of rail riding and...

And all that kind of stuff.

Is that your experience?

Were you a poor child?

No, I was middle class.

Yeah?

I grew up here in New York in Queens.

This is my street, 70th Road.

This was considered almost like the countryside,

it was a long way from New York City.

It was the end of the subway line.

Number 62 was my house.

Upstairs was my bedroom.

Paul was the neighbor three blocks away, who

I met in sixth grade, so there were 11 of us.

And we were singing from the beginning.

♪ She's gone ♪

We sang at my house and

played things on the recorder.

♪ Missing ♪

We are beginning to harmonize together.

♪ She's gone ♪

We were cast together in the play Alice in Wonderland.

He was the White Rabbit and I was the Cheshire Cat.

And then, the next year, in high school, we were in the same class.

I watched him form his personality and become

who he chose to be, like he did with me.

He is a very unusual guy.

He always was, even when he was ten years old.

He was-he was-

You know, the first time I met him, he

was in a candy store we used to go to.

after we left school.

And I came... and here was this child,

And he was waving boxes of Good & Plenty.

And finally, and I was looking at it, you know,

because I was going to buy my Captain Marvel comic.

And he was shaking these boxes of Good & Plenty,

and finally, the store owner kicked him out,

He said he had to get out.

And I said to the guy, "Why did you kick him out?"

And he said, "He comes here all the

time and shakes these boxes to see

which one has more Good & Plenty,

and that's the one who buys, you know."

And now here are some guys who created one of

the best songs in America not too long ago.

We used to listen to Top 20 at Artie's house.

And I used to keep a chart of all the songs

and we would follow them week after week.

I loved that the songs had numbers, you know?

These songs were competing and calibrated.

And you could see that last week's number seven

song jumped to this week's number two song.

Well, the math of that kind

of thing got to me somehow.

I was somehow caught up in that aspect as well as the music.

If you look at him now, you'd say he was obsessive-compulsive.

His handwriting... looks like a typewriter.

♪ My beloved baby until the end of time ♪

My favorite group was the Cleftones.

♪ Little, little, little, little, on-yes ♪

"My girl."

♪ Bow-bow-bow-bow ♪

♪ Can't we be boyfriends? ♪

♪ Why don't we fall in love? ♪

"Can't we be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

♪ You're the girl I'm thinking of ♪

The Moonglows, who did "Sincerely."

♪ Never let her go ♪

♪ Sincerely ♪

♪ Wah-oh ♪

♪ Angel of the earth, angel of the earth ♪

I liked the Penguins, "Earth Angel."

♪ The one I adore ♪

♪ I will love you forever ♪

"Promising My Love" by Johnny Ace.

♪ The rest of my days ♪

♪ I will never be separated from you ♪

♪ And your loving ways ♪

I don't know, I can think of 15 or 20 where

I say that I really like those albums.

In fact, they make me feel nostalgic and

bring to mind images of my neighborhood.

like standing in the corner of this

candy store where everyone hung out,

and in summer, we are in the

playground, imagine that school playground.

My culture was the radio.

It wasn't like I was singing Queens music, you know?

We didn't have people sitting

on porches in Queens singing,

You know, fables about what Queens was like in the old days.

There was nothing like that.

♪ Goodbye love ♪

♪ Goodbye, happiness ♪

When I heard "Bye Bye Love" by the Everly Brothers,

I immediately fell in love with her.

♪ Goodbye love ♪

The only record store was in Jamaica.

To get there you had to take two buses.

And it took me about an hour to

get to Jamaica to buy this record.

So I bought the album, I come back, I play it.

I turn it over, touch the second

side and then touch it again,

and I hit the record player, and the needle scraped.

I got back on the bus, traveled another hour, spent another dollar,

and I didn't have that many anymore, and bought the album again.

I couldn't stand this being scratched.

♪ She was my baby ♪

I called Artie and said, listen to this.

♪ Goodbye to romance ♪

And we were just learning what harmony was.

♪ Goodbye love ♪

♪ Goodbye, happiness ♪

The Everly Brothers sang in thirds.

Harmony was above melodies.

♪ I think I'm going to cry ♪

♪ Goodbye love ♪

That's Don singing.

Phil is singing...

♪ Goodbye love ♪

♪ Goodbye, happiness ♪

♪ Hello, loneliness ♪

♪ I think I'm going to cry ♪

Then we just practiced singing like the Everly Brothers.

We had enough Everly brothers in our

minds to know how to produce that harmony.

And we wrote together and got jealous

of the artists who recorded on the radio.

and we saw ourselves competing and learned to do demonstrations.

♪ Who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop, you're mine ♪

♪ To say, who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop ♪

♪ you are mine ♪

♪ Hey, schoolgirl in the second row ♪

♪ The teacher is watching ♪

♪ Then I have to whisper very quietly ♪

♪ To say, who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop ♪

"Hello schoolgirl", we wrote it when we were 15 years old.

We basically wrote it about our high school.

♪ She said, hey, honey, but there's one more thing ♪

♪ My school ends at half past four ♪

We'd go to record companies and

just knock on the door, you know.

We would say we wrote this song.

And, you know, in those days, people were like, "Oh, really? Come on in."

When we were almost 16, we had recorded this song

for a small record company called Big Records.

That was in the Brill building,

1619 Broadway.

♪ To say, who-bop-a-loo-chi-bop ♪

The record company gave us the name Tom and Jerry.

I was Jerry.

♪ She said, hey, baby, I have a lot to do ♪

The album was a success.

It was performed on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

The children danced.

And then we went to The Dick

Clark Show with Jerry Lee Lewis.

I told you on American Bandstand

that I came from Macon, Georgia.

I just left.

Where are you guys from?

Macon, Georgia.

He appeared with a southern

accent and was from Macon, Georgia.

I kept thinking, why didn't he

tell me he was going to do this?

I could see Artie, like, looking, like, what...?

"Where are you from?"

And he said, "Queens."

♪ See you after school at 3:00 ♪

At that time I worked in a shoe store.

But after we went to the American Bandstand,

I walked in and the boss, who I

couldn't stand, told me, "You're late."

I said, "No, no, I quit."

♪ Get out of here very quickly ♪

♪ Hey, schoolgirl ♪

Even though my father was a bassist...

He ran a band in Roseland for about 25 years.

He really wasn't encouraging

about doing rock and roll as a career.

He thought it was really stupid music.

I was like, "Why don't you like this music?"

He said, "Because it's really dumb. It's dumb."

I'd say, "Fool?"

"Earth angel."

Earth angel.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I thought that, for me, it was the first time

that a sense of irony had entered my life.

in my life, "Angel of the Earth."

He said: "I get it. I just think it's silly."

So we had fun listening to some of the early songs.

Oh yeah, which one did you like?

♪ Saturday night and I'm alone ♪

♪ I don't have a date, I'm just sitting at home ♪

I... I completely forgot and then I heard it.

And I said, wow, my voice was very pretty.

It was a sweet voice.

♪ Play me a sad song tonight ♪

♪ I don't want to listen to a lullaby ♪

♪ I can't sleep ♪

♪ I sit and cry ♪

♪ Play me a sad song ♪

My dad was very happy that I went to Queens College.

which was a free school.

I studied English literature.

And then I scored very highly on the law

boards and went to Brooklyn Law School.

But really, from the beginning,

I just said, I don't know what I'm doing here.

I've never wanted to be anything other than, you know,

a singer and songwriter since I was 13 years old.

♪ Come gather, people, wherever you go ♪

♪ And admit that the waters around you have risen ♪

♪ And accept it soon ♪

♪ You will be soaked to the skin ♪

♪ If it's worth saving your time ♪

I started getting down to the Village

to Bleecker and MacDougal folk scene,

and that was really interesting.

♪ Times are changing ♪

That's the first time I heard Dylan.

I was singing adult music.

♪ Come, writers and critics who prophesy with your pen ♪

♪ And keep your eyes wide open, the opportunity will not appear again ♪

♪ And don't speak too soon, because the wheel keeps turning ♪

♪ And it is not known who he is naming ♪

♪ Because the loser now will be... ♪

I started writing with an acoustic guitar

and finding little figures, you know,

to play on acoustic guitar.

♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪

♪ I have come to talk to you again ♪

I used to go to the bathroom at my parents' house.

♪ Because a vision creeps softly ♪

There were tiles on the wall and I turned on the water.

♪ He left his seeds while he was sleeping ♪

♪ And the vision that was planted in my brain ♪

And the tile echoed, and the

water was like a white noise sound.

♪ Inside the sound ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

♪ In restless dreams, I walked alone ♪

I was going to a space that was a zone.

♪ Narrow cobblestone streets ♪

♪ Under the halo of a streetlight ♪

There is a very easy flow of creative energy.

♪ When my eyes were stabbed by a neon light explosion ♪

♪ That divided the night ♪

♪ And he played the sound ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

A second ago that thought

wasn't here and now I'm crying.

♪ 10,000 people, maybe more ♪

You know, how did that happen?

♪ People talking without talking ♪

And how can I do it again?

♪ People who hear without listening ♪

♪ People writing songs ♪

♪ Those voices never shared ♪

♪ And no one dared ♪

♪ Disturb the sound ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

Thanks guys. We love your program.

- It's very fun. - Thank you, Edie.

- That's very good. - It was very fun.

We will do it again. We will do it again.

- Oh, yes, stop by whenever you want. - Yes, you know.

I am always here. You pass me by.

You see me at the window.

We're Wimberley people, so we'll come back and...

We will come back and do it again.

This is really something incredibly beautiful.

We can't wait to hear what's

next, you know, in your career.

Well, when it's ready, I'll come and bring it to you.

We moved to Texas a few years ago.

And Edie grew up in Paris, Texas, so

her fondest memories are of country.

And she loved the stream.

He liked to walk through the streams.

So he found a house in the Hill Country, not far from Austin.

that was right on this really pretty creek.

It's really quiet, really peaceful.

I thought, yeah, I'll be happy spending some of my time there.

I moved my recording studio there.

From the beginning of "Seven Psalms",

What I remember most is that he played this

beautiful guitar motif over and over again.

And every time I touched it, I

felt this very good, moving feeling.

And he would come out of whatever room he was in and say:

"There it is again. That's the most beautiful piece of guitar.

You have to do something with this."

Maybe because this came from a dream, you know, I was patient.

I was... I was very patient with that.

I started waking up two or three times a

week between 3:30 and 5:00 in the morning,

and the words would come.

I would write them.

And if I tried to add more to them... like, oh, that's a good verse.

I will write a second verse; would stop.

And I said, well, whatever this is, it's just coming.

He comes towards me and that's it.

I just have to wait.

And when it arrives, write it down and start putting it together.

♪ I've been thinking about the great migration ♪

♪ One by one, they leave the flock ♪

♪ I've been wondering about your fate ♪

♪ Prairie grass or irregular rock ♪

♪ The Lord is my engineer ♪

♪ The Lord is the Earth on which I ride ♪

♪ The Lord is the face in the atmosphere ♪

♪ The path on which I slip and slide ♪

And then somehow last October, I lost

hearing in my left ear and it was just...

Towards the end of October,

It was... it was almost gone, you know?

It threw me off because my voice wasn't coming from the same place.

I wasn't sitting here.

I was like sitting...

♪ Calm and tranquility ♪

♪ Starry night ♪

♪ Silver Moon ♪

♪ To soften the edge of daylight ♪

And then I started thinking, you know, this whole piece...

♪ And so the story goes ♪

It was actually...

something I had to deal with, and

maybe this hearing was part of the process.

And now it was going to be harder,

and maybe it was meant to be harder.

This is a journey I must complete.

This whole piece is really an argument.

I'm having with myself about believing or not.

I think I have to do it... let me track it wildly.

Well.

That's not going to work, is it?

I think it's a beautiful thing.

It is?

You know, it's not a thought I really enjoy, you know.

I don't like to think, oh, this is the point of this.

I like to work and then discover.

Let me see if I want this investment.

People say, why do you always want to change your sound?

I'm not thinking that way at all.

I'm looking for the edge of what you can hear.

I can almost hear it, but not quite.

But that's what I want.

Now, how do you get there?

It's... it's a journey because it's on the horizon.

And sometimes you find that you can

do something that has magic, you know?

In 1964 I did a demonstration of "The Sound of Silence."

It was just me.

It wasn't with Artie.

And through my connections in New York,

I played it to Tom Wilson, who was a

producer at Columbia Records, very cool.

He also produced Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."

He recorded Blood, Sweat and Tears.

He recorded Laura Nyro.

He recorded Hugh Masekela,

the Mothers of Invention,

the loving spoonful.

He made, I mean, hits.

♪ And no one dared ♪

♪ Disturb the sound ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

♪ Fools, I said, you don't know ♪

And I said, "I'm singing this song with a friend of mine."

♪ Silence grows like a cancer ♪

"Could we come in and audition for you?"

♪ Listen to my words that I could teach you ♪

He said, "Yeah, sure."

So Artie and I went in and sang it.

♪ Reach you ♪

♪ But my words ♪

♪ Like silent raindrops fell ♪

♪ And it echoed in the wells ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

And they said they would sign us.

We were very excited because, really, at that

time you couldn't be in a more prestigious place.

than Columbia Records.

Then there was a big debate about what our name would

be because there was a group called Art and Paul.

So Columbia was trying to come up with names and, they were horrible.

They were really horrible.

I mean, one of them was the Rye Catchers.

That's how they saw us. It's like, these guys...

These guys are like Salingers.

Finally, the president of Columbia Records,

Goddard Lieberson, intervened and said:

"No, his name should be Simon and Garfunkel."

Which, at the time, was pretty radical to have ethnic names.

People still Anglicized their names.

All the Italians changed their names, you know,

Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell.

Bob Dylan changed his name.

So, that was a big deal.

Goddard Lieberson was definitely making a statement with that.

And then we went in and recorded our first album,

"Wednesday morning, 3 a.m."

♪ I can hear the soft breathing ♪

♪ From the girl I love ♪

♪ While she lies here by my side ♪

♪ Asleep with the night ♪

♪ And who ♪

♪ will have mercy in his heart ♪

♪ And who will feed ♪?

♪ A starling sparrow ♪

♪ Not me, said the golden wheat ♪

Okay, we'll take it and cut it in half.

Right, too, when you get to "because vision",

start to balance it out a little bit.

I don't want to be so...

- Well. - ...be careful with that line.

- A little stronger too. - We're ready.

♪ And the vision that was planted in my brain ♪

The album came out and there it played

"The Sound of Silence."

but, "Wednesday morning, 3 a.m." It was a failure.

The album did not sell at all.

I was still in law school at the time.

Meanwhile, I was going back and forth to

England, after my first visit there as a tourist.

I was going on Christmas break, spring break.

And Art... he was in graduate school at Columbia.

So, we were kind of separated, you know.

By then he had already decided that he did not want to be a lawyer.

I want to be a musician who has lawyers

who work for you when you need them.

So leaving school was an easy decision, and it was

an easy decision to move to London, which I loved.

At some point in everyone's life,

not necessarily at a specific age,

Um, you're struck by the feeling

that things are slipping away from you.

And you try to grab them.

♪ I was 22 years old when I wrote this song ♪

♪ I'm 23 now, but I won't be for long ♪

♪ Time is ticking ♪

♪ And the leaves that are green ♪

♪ They turn brown ♪

I started playing, these weren't clubs.

like the clubs in New York.

They were a room above a pub.

There may be a microphone, or there may not be.

Thank you.

This woman, Judith Piepe... was a refugee from Germany.

His father was a communist.

She was Jewish.

He fled during the war and converted to the Anglican Church.

He came to all the places I sang.

The priest with whom I did my training once said:

"If you want to help people, you have to love

them. If you can't love them, don't do it.

Don't try to help them.

If you don't love them, they won't be able to forgive you for the bread you give them."

I lived in the East End of

London, by the docks, very hard.

She lived in, you know, an apartment, a tiny

apartment, she had one room, and she let me stay there.

He had a little five-minute BBC radio programme.

called "Five to Ten", which was broadcast between ten to five.

And it was five minutes, and he was talking, you know, a little while ago.

This song by Paul Simon is an

almost clinical description of isolation.

And then she would play one of my songs.

Sometimes I write songs and after

finishing them and playing them,

I am horrified by the degree of neurosis I possess.

This is one of those songs.

A kind of group therapy without the group involved.

♪ A winter day ♪

♪ In a deep and dark December ♪

I don't usually sing anti-war songs.

for the simple reason that if at this point

there is someone who is not convinced

about the absurdity of a war, eh, I don't think

they'll change their minds because of a song.

When I came to England last year, it wasn't

so much coming to England as leaving New York.

And then when I came home in September of '64, I

discovered that the same complexes I had in New York,

I immediately returned to them. They were still there.

And I found myself thinking more and more about

England and the relationships I had formed.

Kathy Chitty was my girlfriend.

And I met her at the door of the Brentwood Folk Club

collecting the money that people paid to get in.

TAPE RECORDING FOR KATHY CHITTY September 1964

Regarding your letter yesterday...

I'm going to put away my cigarette.

As soon as your letter arrived I

received it yesterday and it ruined my day

because it was such a short letter

Wait a second, I have to find another cigarette.

Well.

Artie's not here. I don't know where it is.

He told me he would come, but he

left with his motorcycle to register it.

I guess he'll be back any minute.

That tape is interesting.

That was during the time when he came and went.

I was back at my parents' house.

And it just arrived.

He spent two desperate hours registering it

and was almost arrested for threatening someone

Are you going to say something for her?

You know, I can never talk.

I get stuck on stage, I can't speak into a microphone.

On this tape, I want to play two new songs.

One of them is the one I wrote about you.

♪ I hear the patter of the rain ♪

♪ Like a memory, it falls ♪

♪ Continues soft and warm ♪

♪ Touching my roof and walls ♪

♪ From the refuge of my mind ♪

♪ Through the window of my eyes ♪

♪ I look beyond the rain-soaked streets ♪

♪ To England ♪

♪ Where my heart lies ♪

During this whole period while you come and go,

I became interested in this "Songbook" album that has a photo of you and Kathy.

- Yes, on the cover. - Yes, but it's you.

- They are not Simon and Garfunkel. - No.

♪ Write songs I can't believe ♪

♪ With words that tear and strive to rhyme ♪

I wasn't even debating whether I was going to

be a solo artist because I lived in England.

Playing in folk clubs, doing it alone.

And the experiment with Artie

singing was, at the time, a failure.

♪ So, you see, I have come to doubt ♪

♪ Everything I once held true ♪

♪ I am alone without beliefs ♪

♪ The only truth I know is you ♪

It was just a unique period of freedom.

You know, I loved it. I was 23,

24 years old, no responsibilities.

And here I am doing exactly what I want to do.

♪ I know I'm like the rain ♪

♪ There, but by your grace I go ♪

♪ Oh, sun at my door ♪

♪ I'm surprised to find ♪

♪ I'm a kid hooked again ♪

It shouldn't be like this. I can play that better

- and relate it to what is happening. - Well.

- It was ok? - Yes, the last one was great.

- Okay, then play that. - Yeah.

I know I have more control over it, so...

♪ Your love and your light ♪

♪ In your cool summer shade ♪

♪ The garden keeps a rose and a thorn ♪

♪ And once the choice is made ♪

♪ All that's left is ♪

♪ Repairing what was broken ♪

♪ Love is like a braid ♪

♪ Love is like a braid ♪

Ah!

It's good to see you, darling.

Yes, how are you?

Good good. No complaints.

- Are you? - Yeah.

Thanks for coming.

Man, come on, you know.

Where are you? I'll walk to Hawaii for you.

You tell me.

So... what are we talking about?

Where are we with the "Psalms"?

Do you want to play it all from start to finish?

Put it all in. Yes, don't stop.

We won't stop. Well, well.

Paul and I talked about "Seven Psalms" just as an

idea before he started working on it, you know?

We were talking about the Bible.

We were talking about a mystical

tradition of a troubadour's song,

the mystical meaning of seven.

You know, on the seventh day, the Lord rested.

♪ Thinking about the great migration ♪

We met years ago.

We did a benefit. This was in 2002.

I did a terrible arrangement of "I'll Take Manhattan."

It wasn't a particularly good musical experience for me.

Man, it was...

Although he seemed very calm about it.

He sang and did his thing, but I didn't help him.

One two three.

So we didn't become friends.

We became friends when he asked me to

do a fundraiser for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

After that, we started collaborating over the years.

♪ Big and fat ♪

You kind of reinvented that song on the In the Blue Light album.

"Pigs, sheep and wolves", yes.

♪ Sleep on straw ♪

Like an arranger, you always want to

try to do what someone wants you to do.

♪ He's walking down the street ♪

And with this, it was like it was a New Orleans thing.

♪ It's half a ton of pork ♪

♪ Up in the hills ♪

♪ Above the farm ♪

♪ There lives a pack of wolves ♪

Playing music is such a spiritual

thing that when you play with someone,

Most things don't get talked about, you know?

You are listening to it.

♪ Hunt until 4:00 ♪

♪ Maybe I'll catch a couple of rodents ♪

♪ You know, a carnivore ♪

♪ Sheep in the meadow nibbling on a clover ♪

I really pay attention to what he says musically.

And I often think that when I'm working on

something and I'm changing a voice or something,

"Would Wynton like this?"

♪ Candlelight vigils and behavior protests ♪

♪ It's animal behavior ♪

Hey.

♪ It's animal behavior ♪

♪ Animal behavior ♪

♪ They are pigs, sheep and wolves ♪

When I had the opportunity to really talk to him

and we sat outside of the context of the music,

- We had a lot to talk about. - Like what?

Man, like being divorced,

having children, not being married,

race relations in the United States,

New Orleans and New York,

Elvis Presley and rock and roll, black and

white, politics, ayahuasca, South American music,

integrating with other cultures and their music, being left-handed,

being at your father's rehearsal where you don't want to be,

how to pay tribute to a generation before

you, the direction our country will take.

What level of participation should

artists have with political issues?

What is it like to travel?

What do you learn from musicians from other cultures?

What does it take to write a song?

What do you think of baroque music?

What is the position of Bach versus the position of Beethoven in European music?

How much music did Duke Ellington write in 1962?

What was it like when Goodman was killed in Mississippi?

African American music and Anglo-Celtic music,

where are they found?

It goes on and on, man, and not everyone agrees.

That's what makes it so good.

Without friction, you have no movement.

The universe was created with an explosion.

And, man, everything came from that friction.

His music is always about that.

About a year after its launch, in 1965, radio

stations were beginning to receive requests.

for "The Sound of Silence."

So while I was in England,

Tom Wilson returned to the studio and

overdubbed electric instruments and drums.

to the acoustic version with the same

musicians used in the Dylan sessions

when Dylan went electric.

They sent it to me, I listened to it and said, okay.

Were you, or were you, were you initially?

Weren't you upset at first?

No, no, I wasn't upset.

The thing about Tom Wilson is that when he suggested

something, you thought it was good because it was so cool.

It was like, yeah, try again, cool.

What do I have to lose?

♪ Within the sound of silence ♪

♪ In restless dreams, I walked alone ♪

♪ Narrow cobblestone streets ♪

♪ Under the halo of a streetlight ♪

♪ I turn my neck towards the cold and wet ♪

And it started to become a success.

♪ My eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light ♪

♪ That divided the night ♪

♪ And he played the sound ♪

The record continued to rise.

♪ Of silence ♪

And Columbia wanted me to return to the US.

And a week after I came back, it went to number one.

And I said to myself, my life has changed irrevocably.

♪ People talking without talking ♪

♪ People who hear without listening ♪

♪ People writing songs ♪

♪ Those voices never shared ♪

♪ Nobody dared ♪

♪ Disturb the sound ♪

♪ Of silence ♪

♪ Fools, I said, you don't know ♪

♪ Silence grows like a cancer ♪

♪ Listen to my words that I could teach you ♪

Your music has become ubiquitous everywhere.

It's in elevators. It's in the supermarkets.

Now, how do you react when you hear it in an elevator?

- And he does it... - I love it in an elevator.

...Milwaukee Strings or anyone?

That...

I like it in the elevator. I really do. I'm not kidding.

I like to listen to it there.

The most fun thing about listening to your

music is when you walk down the street,

and you hear someone hum it

walking in the opposite direction.

- Yes. Yes. - That is a tremendous emotion.

Actually, it's a privilege, you know, to be...

being in a position where people like what you

do and accept what you do, eh, to that point.

It's a privilege.

♪ Dee-doo-doo-doo, dee-da-dum ♪

♪ Doo-dee-da-dum ♪

♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee ♪

If the pure protest song never had a great

commercial success in the field of pop songs,

a pair of folk rock singers known collectively

as Simon and Garfunkel did it with a guy

different from commentary on society.

♪ fool ♪

Paul Simon, team composer, and Art

Garfunkel, vocal and instrumental arranger,

They are song makers in a real sense

by virtue of performance and packaging.

his own musical compositions.

♪ Doo-dee-da-dum ♪

I want the sound to be like the one you

play, it's like you have a bag of hops...

What is the name of that material that you wrap like flour in large boxes of flour?

And it should be like...

a knife cuts it and then the flour spills out.

♪ I will not disturb your sleep ♪

♪ Of feelings that have died ♪

These are popular songs as they

are heard and known by the public.

through records and personal performances.

How are they made?

What does the creation of a popular song entail?

Can you hold it for a second?

I just want to record this so you can hear it.

One, two, three, two.

After “Sound of Silence” was a hit,

we went in and recorded the songs.

which he had written when he was in England.

Paul has his hands full writing the songs. Am...

I rarely do anything more than react to the lyrics and

music that Paul comes up with, although occasionally,

I prefer a letter change because I'm...

because I'm thinking about the harmony I want to use,

and I know that a melodic change will work better for me.

I was on an existential kick for a while.

I wrote a song called "Patterns."

I became concerned that our lives

were divided into so many patterns

over which we had no control.

The color of your skin, the fact that you die, what your name is.

That song should produce in the listener a

feeling of involvement and then catharsis.

Tom Wilson left Columbia and went to MGM.

So Roy Halee became our engineer.

- You're recording. - Let's go.

One, two, one, two, three.

And since then he stayed with us.

Roy, Artie and I made those records.

He had that artistic temperament.

You know, Roy could take a control room and do it well.

He was just a super qualified technician.

He also had a great ear, you know?

Roy was a wonderful engineer who thought about

sounds the moment he started listening to songs.

and so he became a co-producer because he

did more than just make clean recordings.

He made creative sound collages.

I think of him as the third member of our triumvirate.

You know, we're workaholics.

We are shooting on the 11th.

He made me do so many takes, you know?

This is with the fingers now.

Good.

I would say, how was that? That's a good one.

He said, "It is. It's good. It's... it's good."

I was like, "Well, isn't that good?"

Oh, no, no, no, it's a little out of tune.

but really nothing you couldn't...

Okay, I'll do it again.

I made a mistake. Let's try again.

- What happened? - I made a mistake.

- Vocally? - Deep breathing.

Let's see what this is.

To my surprise, I didn't even know these things still existed.

I thought they lost these things.

No, they have the "Bridge" multitracks.

It's pretty amazing that this still exists.

Roy, he truly was an innovator.

We continue to fall into adventures and discoveries.

"Cecilia" was just a rhythm track, about a

minute and 15 seconds long, and it looped.

We literally made a tape loop with two or three

machines, and we just kept going around and around.

♪ 'Cecilia, you are breaking my heart ♪

The vocal sound of Simon and Garfunkel...

Roy invented that, you know?

♪ Oh, Cecilia, I'm on my knees ♪

We were both singing into a microphone close enough

to each other that we could really blend together.

Let's take another one.

Play me a little and I'll take the tempo again.

I would capture that mix a couple of times...

♪ You are shaking my confidence daily ♪

♪ Oh, Cecilia ♪

...have multiple tracks that you combined in the mix.

♪ I beg you please come home ♪

♪ Oh, Cecilia ♪

♪ You're breaking my heart ♪

♪ You are shaking my confidence daily ♪

As soon as you heard that, it was like, there it is.

♪ Oh, Cecilia, I'm on my knees ♪

♪ I beg you please come home ♪

♪ Come home ♪

In "The Boxer", that's the drum that

Roy recorded in the elevator shaft.

It was probably eight floors that put the

drummer at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

♪ Lie-la-lie ♪

♪ Lie-la-lie ♪

♪ Lie-la-lie-la, lie-la-lie ♪

♪ La-la-lie-la-lie ♪

♪ Lie-la-lie-la, lie-la-lie ♪

The horns and the things that come

at the end were recorded in Saint Paul.

"The Only Living Boy in New York," the harmonies,

we overdubbed seven times inside an echo chamber.

♪ Here I am ♪

♪ me, me ♪

♪ The only living child in New York ♪

♪ The only living child in New York ♪

When we were working on “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the

song, we spent two or three days arranging the piano part.

We added the bass, strings and drums.

And Roy was the first to take two 8-track machines

and synchronize them and record them on 16 tracks.

But one day, when I walked in, he said, "Listen to this.

"You won't believe what happened here."

The two machines were slightly out of sync.

So for the battery...

...instead of listening...

Did you hear...

♪ Like a bridge over turbulent waters ♪

That rhythmic beat at the end was an accident

that he heard and like any good musician, he knew,

"Ah, I can take advantage of this accident."

This is great.

I was very excited.

Okay, I'm going to record this now so you can listen to it when I call back.

We will continue playing it so you can get your ideas.

Move your chair a little, I want to be more focused

Well, now you will be more focused

♪ You're going... ♪

♪ to Scarborough fair ♪

♪ Parsley, sage, rosemary ♪

♪ And thyme ♪

♪ Remember me ♪

♪ To whoever lives there ♪

♪ She once was ♪

♪ a true love of mine ♪

How did you get involved in The Graduate?

How did the idea come about?

Mike Nichols called.

And then I was in the middle of the movie.

It was almost finished and he convinced us to do the music.

And the music was supposed to be mostly original music.

♪ Sparrow tracking in snow-covered terrain ♪

♪ Without sewing or work ♪

♪ The mountain boy ♪

♪ Then she will be a true love of mine ♪

I got to work on it and a

few months later Mike said:

"You know, we've been using your music as a temp

track, but it's so good that I think we really want to

keep it in the movie as it is."

♪ April, come she ♪

♪ When the streams are ripe and swollen with the rain ♪

♪ May, she will stay ♪

♪ Resting in my arms again ♪

Listen to me.

I am Dr. Smith's brother, Reverend Smith.

And I'm supposed to perform the ceremony.

I just got back from Portland and I forgot which church, see?

Oh well, I'm not sure, but

you could try First Presbyterian.

- That's on Allen Street. - Thank you.

Allen Street, where is it?

Allen, uh, it's, uh...

The only new song he picked up was "Mrs. Robinson."

which was incomplete at the time of filming.

Do you need gas, father?

"Mrs. Robinson" was invented on the spot.

It was originally supposed to be a...

That was a chase scene and they wanted guitar music.

And I was playing, huh...

Oh, I didn't know what I was playing.

I was just riffing on the guitar, and I...

I was doing this.

And I had been fooling around with a song that was, uh...

I was singing...

♪ And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson ♪

♪ Jesus loves you more than you will know ♪

Without any specific reason. I didn't have anything in mind.

Did that just occur to you?

Yeah, boy, just in my head.

♪ Wait, wait, wait ♪

And then the next line was...

♪ God bless you, please, Mrs. Roosevelt ♪

♪ Heaven has a place for those who pray ♪

It was Mrs. Roosevelt, and then

she said, uh, well, we could just...

That would change the plot of the movie a lot, right?

Yeah.

Since there was nothing but that chorus and no lyrics,

and we made it up on the spot, we sang, uh, uh...

♪ Ba, dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee ♪

♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee ♪

♪ Dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee ♪

♪ Dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee ♪

♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee ♪

♪ And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson ♪

♪ Jesus loves you more than you will know ♪

♪ Wait, wait, wait ♪

♪ Get up, Mrs. Robinson ♪

♪ God in heaven smiles on those who pray ♪

♪ Hey hey hey ♪

♪ Hey hey hey ♪

We had a little booth and we watched.

And, like, when the car slows down,

I'm playing live to see the image.

I ran into Mel Brooks the other day.

Yeah.

He said he had no idea how miserable that song had made his life.

Oh really.

- Yes. - His wife is Annie Bancroft.

That's right, his wife, right.

Elaine!

- Elaine! - I'll take care of him.

It's already too late.

So wherever they went, it's...

♪ Yoo-hoo-hoo, Mrs... ♪

Yeah.

♪ And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson ♪

♪ Jesus loves you more than you will know ♪

♪ Wait, wait, wait ♪

♪ God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson ♪

♪ Heaven has a place for those who pray ♪

♪ Hey hey hey ♪

♪ Hey hey hey ♪

♪ Hide it in a place where no one ever goes ♪

♪ Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes ♪

♪ It's a little secret, just the Robinson thing ♪

♪ Above all you have to hide it from the children ♪

♪ Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio ♪

How did Joe DiMaggio get there?

Were you playing ball with Mrs.

Roosevelt in your mind or something or...?

It is very enjoyable to write in a stream of consciousness style.

And, very often, you discover that what you have in mind is

relevant, even if it doesn't seem that way at the moment.

And as I was writing, uh, I had no idea he'd say

that, but I said, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

And then the next line, I didn't have it, but I made one up and put it in.

And then I wondered what it meant.

And I said, well, it means something.

It will mean something.

♪ What is that you say, Mrs. Robinson? ♪

♪ Joltin' Joe is gone and gone ♪

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪

"Dear Art and Paul, consider this

your official invitation to appear.

at the Monterey International Pop Festival

on one of the nights of June 16, 17 or 18.

As described, it will act free of charge.

On the other hand, any transportation and

accommodation expenses related to your attendance

They will be borne by the festival commission.

Sincerely, Monterey International Pop Festival."

♪ Slow down, you move too fast ♪

♪ You have to make the morning last ♪

♪ Just knocking down the cobblestones ♪

♪ Looking for fun and feeling great ♪

At Monterey Pop we were one of the

big acts and we closed the first night.

♪ I feel great ♪

But we were never part of any of the movements.

♪ Hello streetlight ♪

♪ What you know ♪

♪ I come to see your flowers grow ♪

We weren't known as political people.

We weren't known as drug dealers.

♪ I feel great ♪

There were quite a few critics who

thought we were too square and cheesy.

♪ Da, da, da, da, feeling great ♪

Monterey is so cool, man.

This is something, man. This is our generation, man.

Y'all, we're all together, man.

It's great, so look into it yourself.

None of the American acts were

anything like the English acts.

Nobody, not the Grateful Dead, not Janis Joplin.

♪ Whoa Whoa ♪

Most of the people were hippies.

Nobody had ever seen anything like

The Who, you know, smashing their guitars.

I mean, I was embarrassed.

I used to think, God, when I was a kid,

I had to save up a lot to buy a guitar.

Do you know you're going to destroy it?

Hendrix, I don't know if fire was part of his act the

whole time or not, but things were getting wilder.

And we felt that we had to start

expressing what our generation felt.

♪ Kathy, I'm lost, I said ♪

♪ Although I knew she was sleeping ♪

♪ I'm empty and hurt, and I don't know why ♪

♪ Counting cars on the New Jersey Turnpike ♪

♪ They are all coming to look for America ♪

♪ Everyone comes to find America ♪

♪ Everyone comes ♪

Beethoven's 200th birthday is approaching.

- Did you know that...? - No.

1970 is 200 years.

Someone else's 200th birthday is coming up soon.

- 200th birthday? - Yeah.

- Who is that? - USA.

Do you think it will arrive?

We were offered a special with AT&T as a sponsor and

decided that the show would have a political idea.

♪ I'm empty and hurt, and I don't know why ♪

We didn't go in there looking for a fight.

We thought we were expressing

the simple truth of what is happening.

♪ They have all come to look for America ♪

As obvious as it is that we shouldn't

be in Vietnam or as obvious as it is

that people are starving in this country, until

they stop the war, until they feed the people,

It is up to people to point it

out and continually remind us.

But really, the only thing I remember

about it is how naive we were.

that we thought everyone was liberal.

However, I believe that much of

what we say, if not all of what we say,

It's extremely obvious.

♪ When you're tired ♪

♪ Feeling small ♪

♪ When the tears ♪

♪ be in your eyes ♪

♪ I will dry them all ♪

♪ Oh, I'm on your side ♪

During "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which

was the first time it was played anywhere,

We showed pictures of Kennedy, the train, and

Bobby, and pictures of Martin Luther King.

And the producer said, "You can't just keep those three."

And we said, "Why?"

And they said, "Well, they're all Democrats."

And we were like, “Really?

"We think they were all killed."

♪ Like a bridge over turbulent waters ♪

Why am I going to make this album?

What is the goal of this album?

The world is falling apart.

Chaos, what the hell is this all about?

Time has changed all those

songs, also in a very interesting way.

You turn all this around and look at it from a different perspective.

Like "Bridge Over Troubled Waters."

that became more than just a pop song.

♪ Sail away, silver boy ♪

♪ Browse ♪

♪ Your time has come ♪

♪ Shine ♪

♪ All your dreams are on the way ♪

- ♪ All you have to do is ♪ - ♪ See how they shine ♪

♪ Look how they shine ♪

♪ Oh, if you ever need a friend ♪

♪ Look around you, I'm, wow!

♪ Sailing behind you ♪

♪ Sailing right behind ♪

♪ Oh, like a bridge ♪

♪ Like a bridge over ♪

♪ Over troubled waters ♪

♪ I'll be there ♪

♪ To go to bed ♪

♪ Oh yes ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, yes ♪

♪ Oh oh ♪

♪ Yes, I do, uh ♪

♪ Yesterday's boy is gone ♪

♪ Driving through the darkness, ♪

♪ seeking your forgiveness ♪

♪ In pain, a beautiful song ♪

♪ Live in the heart and sing for everyone ♪

♪ Your forgiveness ♪

♪ Inside the digital mind ♪

♪ A homeless soul reflects on the code ♪

♪ Of forgiveness ♪

In the word "cold", it is a G chord.

- It's "code", C... - "Code"!

"Reflect on the code of forgiveness."

Code is code is absolutely crucial to...

Oh, absolutely, it's a digital code.

I understand.

...to what is happening in that verse.

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.

It is to reflect, reflect on the code of forgiveness.

Well.

Well.

♪ And me, the last one in line ♪

♪ Hoping the doors aren't closed ♪

♪ Before forgiveness ♪

I feel like we probably could have done it,

"And me, the last one in line,

hoping the doors don't close

before your forgiveness."

There's something about the loneliness of

the only instrument because there's the guy

he's just the last one in line.

There's something... you know, there's something

There's a little void there that... that can happen.

- Let's play... - That's very good.

...and see what that does.

Okay, wait.

Can you touch? When you play this, don't make it pretty.

♪ I have my reasons to doubt ♪

♪ There is a case to present ♪

♪ 2 billion beats and out ♪

♪ Waving the flag in the last parade ♪

What's going on with the song is just a debate, you know?

"Oh, okay, I guess. Oh, I don't know.

Maybe I don't believe it. No..."

♪ Dip your hand in the waters of heaven ♪

♪ God's imagination ♪

♪ Dip your hand in the waters of heaven ♪

♪ All the abundance of life in a drop of condensation ♪

I was sitting next to him and he

sang the whole thing, like in my ear.

It was very smooth.

And then I could hear it, the symbolism.

How the limitation of your belief always

tends to be linked to your conception

of your mortality in the sense that you are part of the flow of a thing.

It is a sunrise and it is a sunset, transfiguration.

♪ I have my reasons to doubt ♪

I'm still not sure what I want.

♪ A white light relieves pain ♪

♪ 2 billion beats and out ♪

♪ Or does it all ♪

♪ Start again ♪

♪ Dip your hand in the waters of heaven ♪

One more time.

♪ Put your hand in the sky ♪

One more time.

It has been a very strange year because it

happened very quickly starting in October.

until early November, boom.

- Scary. - He's gone.

But I kept thinking, oh, okay.

He'll come back and I'll do this.

I will do that. I'll see the doctors.

Do you have the one inside?

It goes here and then it goes here.

- Well. - It's on both sides.

Yeah.

It's a... It's a help in conversation, but it doesn't help at all in music.

For music, interesting.

It's real... tiny.

I don't know, suddenly, you know,

I said, oh, this is not coming back.

And I really fell into a depression.

And finally, when I hit the bottom of the depression,

I said, you better get out of bed and exercise, you know?

I was able to type with these two small Bose speakers.

connected to my computer.

If I put my head here, I could still...

I just have to figure out how to sing, and

I can't... I haven't figured it out yet.

♪ Yesterday's boy is gone ♪

♪ Driving through the dark, searching ♪

♪ your forgiveness ♪

♪ In pain, a beautiful song ♪

♪ Live in the heart ♪

No, that's all.

We'll have to deal with that another day.

Once I put these headphones on, all

the distortion there is in the damage,

whatever caused that damage,

I can't get rid of it. It is amplified.

When it first happened, I

was working with a kinesiologist

that I had a friend who was a neuroscientist.

And he invented this equipment, which is...

you put it on your tongue because it's closer to the brain.

And it stimulates your tongue electrically,

which stimulates the amygdala and your brain.

And then I would be listening to these hearing tests with headphones.

so I was really concentrating on

the frequencies that had disappeared.

And when you meditated, one of the meditations

he said was, "Choose your favorite moments."

from when you were young and, you know, in perfect

health and all that and you really focused on that.

and get that memory in your head.

And every time you start to get depressed

or something, click on that memory again.

"When you feel that you are in perfect health

and can run very fast, you could do anything."

♪ It was time, and what time it was ♪

♪ It was ♪

♪ A time of innocence ♪

♪ A time of confidences ♪

♪ It must be a long time ago ♪

♪ I have a photograph ♪

♪ Preserve your memories ♪

♪ They are all you have left ♪

Once you accept the condition as something

more than a detriment but as information

that you have to solve, then you can use it.

Especially since this whole album

is about spiritual themes, I said:

Maybe this, you know, wasn't supposed to be so easy.

Maybe you're supposed to have an obstacle that

gives you more insight into what you're saying.

And you do it for 20 minutes.

Basically, what he said was, uh, with the...

with the... with the brain... you know

with the body, but the brain is the same.

Use it or lose it.

♪ The seeds we collect ♪

♪ From the gardener's glove ♪

As Wynton told me, "Hey, it took Beethoven ten

years to get used to it and figure it out."

♪ Nothing dies from too much love ♪

He'd say, "Well, you know, it's out of tune.

I said, man, but that makes it even more poignant and beautiful.

You should leave all that there."

But I know he won't do that.

♪ The Lord is my engineer ♪

Or maybe leave a couple of them there.

♪ The Lord is the Earth on which I ride ♪

He said, "I know this is going to be hard for you, but

listen, just listening to you is kind of a struggle."

with a note to get to it is very

interesting and very moving in itself.

He said, "I know you're going to hear a note that's going to be out of tune.

"You're going to want to fix it."

He said, "Don't do it."

♪ The Lord is a forester ♪

♪ The Lord is food for the poorest ♪

♪ Welcome door to the stranger ♪

Of course, I don't pay attention to it at all.

But I understand what you're saying.

He wasn't saying, "Don't sing in tune."

He was saying, "Leave the fight there."

♪ The COVID virus is Lord ♪

That's part of the story.

♪ The Lord is the increase of the oceans ♪

♪ The Lord is a terrible and swift sword ♪

♪ The simple truth survives ♪

Do you find the need to share musical ideas with someone?

Because, I mean, obviously, I don't know how you used to work with Artie

Garfunkel, if you did, how close the writing partnership really was.

Well, we weren't a writing society.

Not us, not me, we don't write together.

So was it always your song, his song, your song?

No, he never... he didn't write any of the songs.

He didn't write anything... I don't want to say... I feel weird.

He didn't write any of the songs.

I wrote all the Simon and Garfunkel songs.

Hmm. Yeah.

No, I didn't need a writing partner, but,

uh, your question about, do I find it useful?

Exchange musical ideas with people? Yeah.

♪ Are you going to, do... are you going to ♪

- Oh, we're in the... - Pick me up.

- We stayed in the room. - ♪Da, da, da, da, da ♪

We're still on the fourth chord, but...

Well, as for the melody, stick to that higher note.

- Well. - Go down there.

♪ Da, da, da, da ♪

♪ It seems like it's a dream ♪

That sounds like something to me.

Okay, then stay, start with the lowest notes.

No, no, let me hear the chords first, before entering the note.

You sing it and get both parts in your head, and then I'll learn it.

We had an unequal partnership

because I was writing all the songs.

and basically run the sessions because I would say,

"This is how it goes, and this is the guitar part,

and this is it, and you should play it on the drums.

No, the bass should do this."

And Artie would be in the control room with Roy.

And he'd say, "Yeah, that's good."

Let's do it, you know."

But it was an unequal balance of power.

There are times when I'm

singing one of Paul's songs.

I feel like the song is actually very personal

and probably shouldn't be sung by anyone.

apart from the writer, but there are

other songs that go beyond a person.

♪ Hello darkness ♪

Which is part of the reason why Mike

Nichols, after "The Graduate," told him:

"It will be better for the group if you

become a movie star, and Paul is the writer.

It will... It will be more balanced.

So they hired him to do "Catch-22."

So he wasn't there for half of "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

You are crazy. You are all crazy.

Why are we crazy?

Because you don't know how to stay alive.

That is the secret of life.

But we have a war to win.

Ah, but the United States will lose the war.

- No. - Italy will win.

The United States is the strongest nation on Earth.

The American fighter is the best trained,

the best equipped and the best fed.

♪ Tom, get your plane right on time ♪

♪ I know your part will go well ♪

♪ Fly to Mexico ♪

♪ Doh-n-doh, doh-n-doh-n-doh ♪

♪ Honey, here I am ♪

♪ The only living child in New York ♪

"The only living boy in New York," I mean, is...

It's like a "good luck to you" song.

- Good. - My best wishes, you know?

♪ Oh, I can gather all the news I need ♪

♪ In the weather report ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ I have nothing to do today but smile ♪

♪ Doh-n-doh, doh-n-doh-n-doh ♪

♪ Honey, here I am ♪

♪ The only living child in New York ♪

♪ Half the time we leave ♪

♪ But we don't know where ♪

♪ We don't know where ♪

We were really best friends until

"Bridge Over Troubled Water."

We had traveled so much together and were so

compelled by the power of business to be together,

It started to affect our friendship, which was always true.

It started to get abrasive being forced to be together and on tour.

Artie said, "Yeah, the way it's gonna be like that is,

I'm going to make films for six months and then I'll come back.

You'll have written the songs and we'll make, you know, the album."

And I thought, yeah, actually, no, that's not going to happen.

I'm not going to do that.

But wasn't that already how it was working anyway?

No, but we were always together.

UH Huh.

You know, I'd be like, "Oh, I wrote a new song."

It wasn't like he came back and said:

"What is the collection of songs you

wrote during these last six months?"

While I was writing a song, I was like,

"Hey, you know what you think of this?"

You know, the main thing that interested us we shared.

If I'm going to wait three or four months for the logs to be recorded,

I can also do a lot of things with that time.

And when I received the offer to go down

and make a small cameo in "Catch-22",

I considered it five or six weeks tops.

Then I'll go to Mexico and do this.

I didn't think it was going to be a problem.

What did become a problem then is that

they kept me down there for a long time.

"The movie is over. "You have to come back."

"No, we can't because we have to shoot this week in Mexico."

And then: “Send what you did and let me hear.

No, that's not good. You have to change this and this."

It was as if everything had been altered.

It was a recipe for a breakup for Simon and Garfunkel.

And here it goes.

It didn't have the harmony of friendship.

That was broken.

♪ When you're tired ♪

"Bridge over troubled waters,"

When we used to play it on stage,

Artie sang the song and people jumped.

He got a standing ovation, you know?

And my reaction was: I wrote that song.

Am I the one who broke Simon and Garfunkel, or was it Paul who failed?

to accommodate Garfunkel's enrichment of his own career?

Two people are needed to form a group.

It takes two people to be idiots.

♪ Oh, when times get tough ♪

♪ And you just can't find friends ♪

♪ Like a bridge ♪

Or maybe it was my perfect Freudian

trauma that my mother once told me:

"You have a good voice, Paul,

but Arthur has a great voice."

♪ Like a bridge ♪

♪ Over troubled waters ♪

♪ I'm going to go to bed ♪

This is my oldest friend.

And we experienced anonymity and then great fame and success.

And those things have their own pressure.

It was an intense five years of being a success,

and that's close to the length of his life.

I used to think when "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was

finished, well, we're really on top of each other too much,

and the grease in the machinery isn't there,

and it's squeaking, and we could use a break.

And I'd certainly love to get some rest.

But after a break, I see a wonderful upcoming album.

He didn't see it that way.

I couldn't get over that.

♪ Slow down, you move too fast ♪

♪ You have to make the morning last ♪

♪ Just knocking down the cobblestones ♪

♪ Looking for fun ♪

♪ And feeling great ♪

That was a good friendship.

That was really the first friendship

of someone who got it for me.

♪ But you have no rhymes for me ♪

♪ Da, da, da, do, feeling great ♪

Becoming a person I hope to never see again...

that's a long way.

♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪

♪ La, la, do do, do do, da do ♪

♪ Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. ♪