Back to the Main Page Album List Track Lists Album Reviews Song List MIDIs Downloads Quiz Links Site Credits Disclaimer
Old Friends - Disc 2
(released in 1997)

Old Friends

Songs on this album:
Patterns
Cloudy
The Dangling Conversation
Scarborough Fair/Canticle
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
7 O'Clock News/Silent Night
A Hazy Shade Of Winter
At The Zoo
A Poem On The Underground Wall
Red Rubber Ball
Blessed
Anji
A Church Is Burning
Fakin' It
Save The Life Of My Child
America
You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies
Punky's Dilemma
Comfort And Joy
Star Carol


Patterns (2:45) MIDI
P. Simon, 1965
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

The night sets softly
With the hush of falling leaves
Casting shivering shadows
On the houses through the trees
And the light from a street lamp
Paints a pattern on my wall
Like the pieces of a puzzle
Or a child's uneven scrawl

Up a narrow flight of stairs
In a narrow little room
As I lie upon my bed
In the early evening gloom
Impaled on my wall
My eyes can dimly see
The pattern of my life
And the puzzle that is me

From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath
Like a rat in a maze
The path before my lies
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies

And the pattern still remains
On the wall where darkness fell
And it's fitting that it should
For in darkness I must dwell
Like the color of my skin
Or the day that I grow old
My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled


Cloudy (2:21) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Cloudy
The sky is gray and white and cloudy
Sometimes I think it's hanging down on me
And it's a hitchhike a hundred miles
I'm a raga-muffin child
Pointed finger-painted smile
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy
They have no boreders, no boundaries
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoi to Tinkerbell
Down from Berkeley to Carmel
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill

Hey sunshine
I haven't seen you in a long time
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like a floating question why
And they linger there to die
They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I

Cloudy
Cloudy


The Dangling Conversation (2:37) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

It's a still life water color
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives


Scarborough Fair/Canticle (3:10) MIDI Read the song on which this is based!
P. Simon/A. Garfunkel, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
   (On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
   (Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
   (Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land
   (On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Washes the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
   (A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
   (War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
   (And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine


The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) (1:42) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy

Hello lamppost, what'cha knowing
I've come to watch your flowers growin'
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doo-it in doo doo, feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy

I got no deeds to do
No promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life I love you, all is groovy


For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (2:05) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy
Softer than the rain

I wandered empty streets
Down past the shop displays
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alleyways
As I walked on

And when you ran to me
Your cheeks flushed with the night
We walked on frosted fields
Of juniper and lamplight
I held your hand

And when I awoke
And felt you warm and near
I kissed your honey hair
With my grateful tears
Oh I love you girl
Oh I love you


7 O'Clock News/Silent Night (2:03)
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

This is the early evening edition of the news.
The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill.
Brought traditional enemies together but left the defenders of the measure without the votes of their strongest supporters.
President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination by everyone for every type of housing but it had
no chance from the start and everyone in Congress knew it.
A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee.
In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdose of narcotics.
Bruce was 42 years old.
Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday in the Chicago suburb of
Cicero.
Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the police in Cicero said they would ask the
National Guard to be called out if it is held.
King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.
In Chicago, Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment.
The nurses were found stabbed and strangled in their Chicago apartment.
In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities
continued its probe into anti-Viet Nam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Viet Nam, the
U.S. should look forward to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foriegn Wars in New York, Nixon also said opposition to the war in this
country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news, good night.

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.


A Hazy Shade Of Winter (2:17) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
Released on Bookends

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
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang onto 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
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any conveient time?
Funny how my memory skips
While looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
I look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground


At The Zoo (2:23) MIDI
P. Simon, 1967
Released on Bookends

Someone told me
It's all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it's true

It's 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 a crosstown bus
If it's raining or it's cold
And the animals will love it if you do

Somethin' 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 plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently
What a gas! You gotta come and see
At the zoo


A Poem On The Underground Wall (4:30) MIDI
P. Simon, 1966
From the January 22, 1967 concert at Lincoln Center; the song was originally released on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Art: "The, uh, first album that we recorded for Columbia, called Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., has a picture on the cover of Paul and myself in the subway system in New York here, standing at the, um, Fifth Avenue station, next to an iron post; if you know the album and you're familiar with the picture, what you're not familiar with is the trouble that we went through in order to get that final picture, because the original shots that were taken for the, uh, cover were taken off, off the, uh, picture that you see, standing against the subway wall on the platform, underneath the subway sign. And we took about five hundred pictures until we were satisfied with the perfect James Dean shot, and packed up the cameras and guitars, and as we left the station, I took a glance at the subway wall in front of which we had taken all the pictures for the first time that day, and noticed that written there, rather legibly, in the baroque style common to New York subway wall writers, was, uh, was the old familiar suggestion. And rather beautifully illustrated as well. So, well, we had a conference with Columbia Records to decide what to do about this problem, and um, of course, we immediately told Columbia that this was exactly what we wanted on the cover of the LP. Forget it. I'm, um, mentioning this because we have taken a song, it's now two years later, Paul has written a song fairly recently, in London, dealing with the, uh, theme of people who write on subway walls, but treating the theme in a rather strange and serious way. The song is called 'A Poem On The Underground Wall.'"

The last train is nearly due
The underground is closing soon
And in the dark deserted station
Restless in anticipation
A man waits in the shadows

His restless eyes leap and scratch
At all that they can touch or catch
And hidden deep within his pocket
Safe within its silent socket
He holds a colored crayon

Now from the tunnel's stony womb
The carriage rides to meet the groom
And open wide and welcome doors
But he hesitates, and then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows

And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand

Now from his pocket quick he flashes
The crayon on the wall he slashes
Deep upon the advertising
A single worded poem consisting
Of four letters

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night


Red Rubber Ball (2:29) MIDI
P. Simon
From the January 22, 1967 concert at Lincoln Center

Art: "I imagine most of you know that these are all Paul Simon songs that we're singing.  There is, um, amongst the twenty-three or twenty-four songs that Paul has written, there is one that we have never recorded, it's about the only one, and a group called the Cyrkle, uh, beat us to it, recorded it, and sold 890,000 copies of it, called 'Red Rubber Ball.'"

I should have known you'd bid me farewell
There's a lesson to be learned from this and I've learned it very well
Now I know you're not the only starfish in the sea
If I never hear your name again, it's all the same to me

And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball

You never care for secrets I confide
To you, I'm just an ornament, something for your pride
Always running, never caring, that's the life you live
Stolen minutes of your time were all you had to give

And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball

The story's in the past with nothing to recall
I've got my life to live, and I don't need you at all
The roller coaster ride we took is nearly at an end
I bought my tickets with my tears, that's all I'm gonna spend

And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball

And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball
It's bouncing and it's shining like a red rubber ball


Blessed (3:40)
P. Simon, 1966
From the January 22, 1967 concert at Lincoln Center; the song was originally released on Sounds Of Silence

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit
Blessed is the lamb whose blood flows
Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on
O Lord, why have you forsaken me?
I got no place to go
I've walked around Soho for the last night or so
Ah, but it doesn't matter, no

Blessed is the land and the kingdom
Blessed is the man whose soul belongs to
Blessed are the meth drinkers, pot sellers, illusion dwellers
O Lord, why have you forsaken me?
My words trickle down from a wound
That I have no intention to heal

Blessed are the stained glass, window pane glass
Blessed is the church service, makes me nervous
Blessed are the penny rookers, cheap hookers, groovy lookers
O Lord, why have you forsaken me?
I have tended my own garden much too long


Anji (Instrumental) (2:29) MIDI
D. Graham, 1965
From the January 22, 1967 concert at Lincoln Center; the song was originally released on Sounds Of Silence


A Church Is Burning (3:27)
P. Simon
From the January 22, 1967 concert at Lincoln Center

A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They grow in the sky
Like hands that are praying
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free

Three hundred men through the back roads did creep
Torches in their hands while the village lies asleep
Down to the church where, just hours before
Voices were singing, and
Hands were meeting, and
Saying, "I won't be a slave anymore"

A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They glow in the sky
Like hands that are praying
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free

Three hundred men, their hands lit the spark
And they faded in the night, they vanished in the dark
And in the cold light of morning, there was nothing that remained
But the ashes of a battle and a can of kerosene

A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They glow in the sky
Like hands that are praying
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free

A church is more than just timber and stone
And freedom is a dark road when you're walking it alone
But the future is now, and it's time to take a stand
So the lost bells of freedom can ring out in my land

A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They glow in the sky
Like hands that are praying
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free


Fakin' It (3:17)
P. Simon, 1967
Released on Bookends

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
Look at me
("Good morning, Mr. Leitch,
Have you had a busy day?")
I own the tailor's face and hands
I am the tailor's face and hands
I know I'm fakin' it
I'm not really makin' it
This feeling of fakin' it-
I still haven't shaken it


Save the Life Of My Child (2:49)
P. Simon, 1968
Released on Bookends

"Good God! Don't jump!"
A boy sat on the ledge
An old man who had fainted was revived
And everyone agreed 'twould be a miracle indeed
If the boy survived

"Save the life of my child!"
Cried the desperate mother

The woman from the supermarket
Ran to call the cops
"He must be high on something" someone said
Though it never made The New York Times
In The Daily News, the caption read

"Save the life of my child!"
Cried the desperate mother

(Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again)

A patrol car passing by
Halted to a stop
Said officer MacDougal in dismay:
"The force can't do a decent job
'Cause the kids got no respect
For the law today (and blah blah blah)"

"Save the life of my child!"
Cried the desperate mother

"Oh what's becoming of the children?"
People asking each other

When darkness fell, excitement kissed the crowd
And it made them wild
In an atmosphere of freaky holiday
When the spotlight hit the boy
And the crowd began to cheer
He flew away

"Oh, my Grace, I got no hiding place"


America (3:36) MIDI
P. Simon, 1968
Released on Bookends

"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


You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies (2:19)
P. Simon, 1967 (?)
Released as the B side of "Fakin' It"

You don't know that you love me
You don't know, but I know that you do
You may think you're above me, yeah
What you think isn't always true

Don't try to debate me
You should know that I'm womanly wise
Still you're trying to manipulate me
You don't know where your interest lies

No, you don't know where your interest lies

You don't begin to comprehend
You're just a game that I like to play
You may think that my friend's all right
But I won't let friendship get in my way

No, I won't let friendship get in my way

Indications indicate
Running the same riff will turn you around
Obviously, you're going to blow it
But you don't know it

You don't know that you love me
You don't know, but I know that you do
You may think you're above me, yeah
What you think isn't always true

And you don't know where your interest lies
You don't know where your interest lies


Punky's Dilemma (2:13)
P. Simon, 1968
Released on Bookends

Wish I was a Kellogg's Cornflake
Floatin' in my bowl takin' movies
Relaxin' a while, livin' in style
Talkin' to a raisin who 'casionally 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


Comfort And Joy (1:49)
(Traditional; arranged by P. Simon and A. Garfunkel)
Unreleased Christmas recording

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy


Star Carol (1:46) MIDI
(Traditional; arranged by P. Simon and A. Garfunkel)
Unreleased Christmas recording

Long years ago on a deep winter night
High in the heavens, a star shone bright
While in the manger, a wee baby lay
Sweetly asleep on a bed of hay

Jesus our Lord was that baby so small
Laid down to sleep in a humble stall
Then came the star and it stood overhead
Shedding its light 'round His little head

Dear baby Jesus, how tiny Thou art
I'll make a place for Thee in my heart
And when the stars in the heavens I see
Ever and always I think of Thee