Scarborough Fair

Here is a bit of music for you, just because you might feel like listening to something today. I hope you don't mind melancholy, but if like me you are rather melancholic, you must know how to appreciate the feeling and even embrace it. I rewatched The Graduate and as ever, I really enjoyed it. The soundtrack is amazing, thanks to rom Simon & Garfunkel and I thought I would share one of their tune. Well, sort if, as Scarborough Fair is not originally their tune. But anyway, here is the long version you can hear in the film.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

I thought I'd put some music on this blog, as I have not done so in a long while. Today, as we were driving home after an afternoon out of town, Bridge Over Troubled Water was playing and it got stuck in my head. This song has one rare quality: both my wife and I love it. We were singing it along on the way back, to Wolfie's indifference (he was asleep). I am not sure what I like about it, or what it is about, but I do find it quite sweet and very soothing.

"Slow down, you move too fast"

This is the feeling I am having these days, what with the accumulation of work and the last frantic few weeks or so. It should calm down, eventually, but right now I do think I move too fast. Which reminds me of that song from Simon and Garfunkel, The 59th Street Bridge Song, aka Feelin' Groovy. I didn't know of its original title until I started writing this post tonight. Not my favourite song of the duo, but good to listen to in such times, when I have a few minutes. I promise to work on feeling groovy, as soon as I can. And until then, I have the song in the head.

Cecilia (the song)

I often have in the head these days the songs of Simon & Garfunkel. Probably because I first watched The Graduate around this time of year. and every time it is on TV, it seems to be around this time of year too. Okay, so Cecilia is not from the movie, but it might as well have been. It is a silly, nonsensical and very catchy song like many from the 60s and 70s. Although its author seemed to have given it a deeper meaning, I just love it for its beat. So here it is.

America

Today is Independence Day, I barely noticed this morning. I was not sure how to commemorate it, I do want to commemorate it just because even though I have never been there, I admire and love a lot of American things, well, a lot of elements of American culture (the stuff that is admirable). This blog is my witness. And I thought maybe one of its many officious anthems could be an appropriate homage, so after thinking a lot about it I chose America by Simon and Garfunkel. It is full of sweet lyricism and is not bombastic like too many patriotic songs can be. So here it is.

Mrs. Robinson

I thought I would upload something from Simon & Garfunkel. I love The Graduate, I watched it for the first time around this time of year, right before I started the last year of my degree, so here is Mrs. Robinson.

The Sound of Silence

I watched the 9/11 ceremonies on TV today. Paul Simon from Simon & Garfunkel sang The Sound of Silence. Strangely enough, I had this song in the head these last few days. It was a fitting song for the remembrance day. I thought Simon looked really fragile and broken. I don't easily cry, but I was very close to tears then.

I associate this song with The Graduate, and September days when I was getting back to university, feeling solitary. It is a song about solitude in a crowd, something we all felt at some point or another. This is how many of us felt that day I think. The Future by Leonard Cohen is for me the song of 9/11 and the new era that the atrocity gave birth to. But this one is appropriate for grief and closure.