I Went To Scarborough Fair With Simon and Garfunkel
Added 2025-01-28 12:19:42 +0000 UTCOne word: PERFECTION. That is all.
Comments
The jasmine in my mind. 🙂
Jeff Boice
2025-02-04 18:19:48 +0000 UTCSUMMER BREEZE is the song that I remember. It's very pleasant. Kind of reminds me of OUR HOUSE by CSN.
DJ Marquis Marc Rambeau du Tacoma
2025-02-04 17:15:59 +0000 UTCAgreed, Seals & Croft is another duo from the 70's that you might enjoy very much. Mandolin & guitar, nice vocal harmonies interesting lyrics. Funny Little Man, Irish Linen, Hummingbird, Summer Breeze, and Ruby Jean And Billie Lee are all lovely songs you might consider listening to sometime. Thank you, Amy, for sharing this one.
Jeff Boice
2025-02-03 12:57:40 +0000 UTCIn the knightly tradition sung about by the troubadours and minnesingers, if a woman put forth too arduous a test for her knight-to-be, she was called SAVAGE - and for good reason, methinks.
DJ Marquis Marc Rambeau du Tacoma
2025-02-02 23:47:01 +0000 UTCRegarding the impossible or illogical tasks, which his former true love must complete to become his true love once again. What isn't clear is if he is taunting her or if the actions would break some enchanted restriction on their love. However, we have a lot of folk songs of a lover demanding something and then not living up to their side of the bargain. Maybe it served as a warning for unmarried women against demanding men.
Rob Reed
2025-02-02 23:18:22 +0000 UTCThis song is great apart from that absolutely horrible mispronunciation of Scarborough!
Rob Reed
2025-02-02 22:47:17 +0000 UTCThank you, Amy, for an exquisite review of a favorite song of mine. Only one thing: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme all do have specific qualities or meanings attached to them. There’s a language of herbs like there’s a language of flowers. Parsley = death/rebirth; sage = healing; rosemary = memory, or as Shakespeare tells it, remembrance; thyme = valor or courage. So the refrain speaks to both “Scarborough Fair” and to “Canticle.” Something is dead (love). Something is born (child), etc. We could do a poetic analysis of the complementary lines like you did, using the herbs, too. S&G really dig deep here. I loved that you pursued it and that you plucked out the melody for us even if you didn’t want to play with the recording.
Misty Bastian
2025-02-02 19:13:10 +0000 UTCSimon & Garfunkel – Scarborough Fair/Canticle (Original Long Version) 6:19 https://youtu.be/lkpMr8CG9dQ
DJ Marquis Marc Rambeau du Tacoma
2025-02-02 19:00:52 +0000 UTCIt makes me happy that you love this music. You need to watch The Graduate now and see where it fits in the movie.
TangoEliott
2025-02-02 18:45:24 +0000 UTCAmy thank you for showcasing this lovely song. It is unique in its ability to instill a sense of calmness. There is a live version of this from their "Concert in Central Park". The instrumentation isn't as complex but their voices are blended so well and shine in the stripped back version. Even though we've had frigid temperatures lately, my parsley and rosemary are still hanging in there.
Lynn Poole
2025-01-29 02:59:01 +0000 UTCI’m sure that I never heard about the roots of the song. I never looked into it and I don’t remember it ever coming up in an discussion about the song having a folksong history. I thought that Simon wrote it from scratch. So this was a pleasant surprise for me. I can see that it is an antiwar song, seeing when it came out. But those war lyrics aren’t in your face and for me are in the background and for years I didn’t pay attention to them. Battalions, about a thousand men, and Scarlet being red, as in blood for me and more. Good review Amy, thank-you.
Paul D. Hoffmaster III
2025-01-29 01:39:24 +0000 UTCI'm really glad you got to this one -- if there's a more sonically ravishing recording in popular music, I'm not sure I could take it. There was also a British folk-rock scene developing at around this time that I really think you'd find rewarding. Fairport Convention was the first band to mix rock with traditional British music, and they boasted both a stunning lead vocalist, Sandy Denny, and a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, Richard Thompson. Denny died very young, but Thompson has had a long and consistently fine solo career, with and without his first wife Linda. Key albums to start with are Fairport's "Liege and Lief" and Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight".
Ye_Humble_Scrivener
2025-01-28 15:43:21 +0000 UTCThank you, Amy, for your deconstruction of this angelic piece from Simon and Garfunkel. I knew of it's origin from a record in my home containing solo renditions of "Greensleeves", and other folk/traditional numbers, including "Scarborough Fair". I first became interested in this duo from having seen "The Graduate" in high school, but other than a few singles, I wasn't a record buyer yet. Later, I wanted to own "Homeward Bound", so one of my first album purchases was this one. I remember being entranced by this song, which is the first cut on the album, transported in some new way. I've read quite a bit about this song since then, but you still gave me a fresh enthusiasm, with new information and your own admiration - thanks again to you both!
George Brady
2025-01-28 15:41:30 +0000 UTCI was so engrossed, I had to play it again to notice it. Nice catch!
George Brady
2025-01-28 14:51:47 +0000 UTCThere is music that is just so beautiful that it makes me cry. And that is the case here. My lasting impression is that as a 16-year-old (44 years ago) I sat on the carpet in our living room, listening to this song over and over again on the record player while reading our current school reading, the drama "Maria Stuart" by Friedrich Schiller. It was so incredibly fitting and formative...
Peter Buwen
2025-01-28 13:51:24 +0000 UTCEnjoyed that. It’s such a sound piece of a time. Seals and Crofts kelp popping in my head like rosemary and thyme. Oh the 70s
TONY SURRATT
2025-01-28 13:29:42 +0000 UTCAmy, through you, I have once again learned to hear a song (that I have adored for decades) with more depth, insight and clarity. What a gift! I SO enjoyed that, and it’s clear you appreciate this piece as much as many of your listeners most certainly do. Thank you, especially, for looking deeply at the two sets of lyrics and the “tapestry” woven between them, which has always felt deeply meaningful to me, though I couldn’t have articulated exactly why. I also really enjoyed listening to what you had to say about traditional folk tunes. I’ve always felt that both folk tunes and fairy tales are born from the same creative wellspring of collective experience and emotional memory. The way you were describing the timeless quality of the voices and them having a somewhat “detached” sound feels just so. I hope there will be more Simon and Garfunkel for you in the future. In the meantime, I’m going to listen to this one again! ❤️
Kristina Mathesen
2025-01-28 13:27:23 +0000 UTC11:10 nice use of a Beatles reference by Amy :)
Rea Lavi
2025-01-28 13:03:42 +0000 UTC
