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Rating: Bookends is the story of ordinary people. It's the story of a lesser America. It's about living not by looking, but by seeing. Reality painted with broad strokes that are neither too heavy nor too light. These are the impressions of two young men who are growing up, who are becoming famous when they least expected it and who respond to the world with a whisper. Simon & Garfunkel, a moniker, or simply a name and last name, of two simple guys. Two voices, two waves, that alternate between dark bitter swells and frothy denouncements of dissatisfaction. They move among women coming home with groceries, tired and without time to stop, to think about what they really desire. Men who smoke in the cold walking along the boulevards near Sunset Boulevard, zig-zagging through pains and seeking a bit of hope at the end of hard, monotonous urban days.
While Bob Dylan wants to break the world and the Beatles want to build a new one, Simon & Garfunkel close themselves in their little universe, trying to save what good remains. It's with seemingly innocent and insecure eyes that they look at us from the sparse, wonderful cover. Perhaps they don't need poses and attitudes, perhaps they already have the image of their horizons before them. It's a search for the pure, the genuine, the true, stronger feelings, and finally with a maturity and awareness that was lacking in their earlier (still interesting) works. The concrete illusion, the fleeting trust that everyday life, after all, has what we were looking for. But what were we looking for? Something good, the mythology of the ordinary revested with extraordinariness, making faces from a bus, staying to talk with the elderly, listening to what they have to offer us, stories of husbands dead in distant wars, yellowed loves from which we want to learn magic and mistakes. Reflecting by the window, marveling at the beauty of a flower, getting lost inside a zoo, smiling because of a woman, and joking with the animals. There is no air of revolution, but of reform. And so, for now, they don't renounce the faithful folk in the raw manner of an Highway 61, but instead embellish it with delicate, gentle, sometimes frantic adornments. The percussion of Mrs. Robinson will set a precedent, in that air of excitement where we are no longer good boys but not too loud rebels either.
The choice of songs by the duo for the successful soundtrack of the epochal "The Graduate" by Mike Nichols (1967) proves to be spot-on. The film is perhaps the perfect cinematic transposition of the same atmosphere, of the same personalities we were talking about: Dustin Hoffman's character is almost an alter-ego of Paul Simon and the heroes that animate his sensitive stories. These are not the visionary and quirky youths of "Easy Rider," nor the troubled and drifting ones like Jack Nicholson in, for instance, "Five Easy Pieces": they are petty-bourgeois poets who need to find an ideal, a value, a woman to sacrifice for, they want to believe and lose themselves in something that can last, they are hunters and lovers of time. They want to give a future to the children about to be born, save the past of the grandparents, their wisdom as an elixir of long happiness. They record the sounds of life to recover them and to value what would be a "simple" song. Which thus becomes a three-dimensional body. Within this short dozen stories, we can hear testimonies, doors slammed in faces, hand claps and deafening choruses, laughter, bottles and glasses clinking, whistles, cigarettes lit before starting to sing...and to reassure us between a new discovery and another, many blues-rock'n'roll sugar cubes served on silver plates just to make us feel we are still close to home, safe, in the most sincere America, that questions itself just mildly frowning, but (to the delight of the dreamers) also knows how to give itself a sweet, decisive answer.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Bookends Theme (00:32)
Time it was, and what a time
it was, it was
A time of innocence,
A time of confidences
Long ago, it must be,
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories;
They're all that's left you
03 America (03:35)
"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together"
"I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off to look for America
"Kathy" I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've come to look for America
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera"
"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America
04 Overs (02:18)
Why don't we stop fooling ourselves?
The game is over,
Over,
Over.
No good times, no bad times,
There's no times at all,
Just The New York Times,
Sitting on the windowsill
Near the flowers.
We might as well be apart.
It hardly matters,
We sleep separately.
And drop a smile passing in the hall
But there's no laughs left
'Cause we laughed them all.
And we laughed them all
In a very short time.
Time
Is tapping on my forehead,
Hanging from my mirror,
Rattling the teacups,
And I wonder,
How long can I delay?
We're just a habit
Like saccharin.
And I'm habitually feelin' kinda blue.
But each time I try on
The thought of leaving you,
I stop...
I stop and think it over
06 Old Friends (02:35)
Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends
Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends.
Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy
Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears
Time it was
and what a
time it was
it was
A time of innocence
a time of confidences.
Long ago
it must be
I have a photograph
preserve your memories
they're all that's left you.
07 Bookends Theme (01:23)
Time it was, and what a time
it was, it was
A time of innocence,
A time of confidences
Long ago, it must be,
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories;
They're all that's left you
08 Fakin' It (03:19)
When she goes, she's gone.
If she stays, she stays here.
The girl does what she wants to do.
She knows what she wants to do.
And I know I'm fakin' it.
I'm not really makin' it.
I'm such a dubious soul,
And a walk in the garden
Wears me down.
Tangled in the fallen vines,
Pickin' up the punch lines,
I've just been fakin' it,
Not really makin' it.
Is there any danger?
No, no not really.
Just lean on me.
Takin' time to treat
Your friendly neighbors honestly.
I've just been fakin' it.
I'm not really makin' it.
This feeling of fakin' it.
I still haven't shaken it.
Prior to this lifetime
I surely was a tailor
I own the tailor's face and hands.
I am the tailor's face and hands and
I know I'm fakin' it,
I'm not really makin' it.
This feeling of fakin' it
I still haven't shaken it.
09 Punky's Dilemma (02:17)
Wish I was a Kellogg's Cornflake
Floatin' in my bowl takin' movies,
Relaxin' awhile, livin' in style,
Talkin' to a raisin who 'casion'ly plays L.A.,
Casually glancing at his toupee.
Wish I was an English muffin
'Bout to make the most out of a toaster.
I'd ease myself down,
Comin' up brown.
I prefer boysenberry
More than any ordinary jam.
I'm a "Citizens for Boysenberry Jam" fan.
Ah, South California.
If I become a first lieutenant
Would you put my photo on your piano?
To Maryjane--
Best wishes, Martin.
(Old Roger draft-dodger
Leavin' by the basement door),
Everybody knows what he's
Tippy-toeing down there for
10 Mrs. Robinson (04:05)
And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
God bless you, please Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home
And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
Hide in the hiding place where no one ever goes
Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
It's a little secret just the Robinsons' affair
Most of all you've got to hide it from the kids
Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidate's debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio
Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson
Joltin Joe has left and gone away
Hey hey hey
11 A Hazy Shade of Winter (02:17)
Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter
Hear the Salvation Army band
Down by the riverside
It's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around you
Leaves are brown now
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter
Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around
Grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life
Ah, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory skips
While looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
I look around
Leaves are brown now
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter
Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground
Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground
Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground
12 At the Zoo (02:22)
Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it, I do believe it's true.
Its a light-and-tumble journey from the East Side to the park,
Just a fine and fancy ramble to the zoo.
But you can take the crosstown bus if it's rainin' or it's cold,
And the animals will love it if you do...
(If you do, now...)
Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it, I do believe it's true.
The monkeys stand for honesty, giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but they're dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages,
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.
Zebras are reactionaries, antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons blocked in secrecy, and hamsters turn on frequently,
(what the...)
Guess you'll have to come and see at the zoo,
At the zoo, at the zoo, at the zoo, at the zoo.
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