TAPE Me Back To The Future — MADE For Tape # 8: Simon & Garfunkel, “ Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits” (1972/1987)

An occasional series here that celebrates the cassette-tape format in all its glory. Wobbles

Simon & Garfunkel, Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits (1972)

This is the first Simon & Garfunkel Greatest Hits, a single album that was compiled just a couple of years after the broke up. Simon’s solo career was away with a hum, Garfunkel was acting, there was a lot of love for their music — of course. And this was the first version of a definitive document of their songs that helped to change the world.

When it was first released it looked like this:

But I first heard the “CBS Super Sound Cassette” — whatever that actually is?!

Re-released in 1987, with a modern cover that is taken from their early 80s reunion, and possibly timed to cash in on the extra wave of popularity in the wake of Paul Simon’s Graceland — this is the version I knew. My mum bought it and we played it non-stop in her car. It would be carried inside in the weekends to play in the main stereo in the house. Then back out to the car for the week. I can remember the whole family sitting on the floor listening to this together, mum and dad sharing the music they grew up with…me and my brother in awe of this music, knowing it meant so much more than a lot of the pop dross we loved and/or consumed.

I have this thing where I think some Greatest Hits albums that are shorter, single disc, are truly the definitive. Years later, a double disc or box set arrives, and sure the single disc version is always missing something (there’s no Only Living Boy in New York on here, and that’s probably a crime). But it also holds the essence. The finite miraculousness of a band or artist in 15 songs or less is truly something to marvel at, I believe.

And so it was with Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. A tape. Very much a cassette tape. On vinyl, I’d buy all of the albums (a finite catalogue too). On CD I’d favour their finest album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and would also cave to the double-disc anthology which had far too many mid-range songs in and around the gold.

I’d also own this exact album, with its original cover, on vinyl — and I still have that. But weirdly, for me, it feels like a tape. A cassette tape with the 80s cover. Because that was how I discovered it, so that’s how I best remember it.

I knew Mrs Robinson, Sounds of Silence and The Boxer, Cecilia, and I Am A Rock, Homeward Bound, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and Feelin’ Groovy — because who doesn’t know those songs? They’re everywhere. And as they should be. But there were some surprise new things to learn when I first heard this, and I didn’t click with For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her — and still, largely, don’t. But America, Kathy’s Song, and Bookends were absolute revelations to 11 year old me, spellbinding songs. I wrote the lyrics out by hand. Pause/Rewind/Play, writing as fast as I could. Wondering how anyone could keep up and take notes or do dictation…lol

I then typed up the lyrics to America and had them on my wall for a while. It was then that I learned that Paul Simon writes lyrics not poetry. His lyrics sound incredible in the context of the song. They’re slightly baffling, and sometimes bonkers when placed on a wall. And that’s the magic of great lyric writing right there. It shouldn’t be held up as poetry — it can be — but that shouldn’t be the goal. A lyric is something that fits inside the tune, and makes the song. Good lyric writing makes the great moments of music even greater, and can sometimes cover up for the weaker musical lines. Paul Simon is mercurial and wizard-like in his way with lyric writing.

I’ve been a Paul Simon fan all my life, and a Simon & Garfunkel fan for most of it too. And this album brought such flashes of nostalgia that when I recently saw the same old cassette copy we used to keep I had to have it once again.

For some reason, the songs — these particular ones, this order — makes the most sense on cassette tape. Because, like listening to The Travelling Wilburys, or Billie Holiday, or even U2, it just brings with it the story of that time. The nostalgia of growing up in the 80s can be traced through the wheels as they whir. And here I am, grown (overgrown — groan) and just sitting there watching the wheels go round and round. I really love to watch them roll…