Celebrating Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' Forty Years Later

I was 12 years old when the single Bridge Over Troubled Water was released. The first time I heard the song on the radio I felt it was the best song I had ever heard. Early Sunday morning before church, the local radio station did a Top 40 countdown.

I listened every week and it didn't take long for the Simon and Garfunkel song to break into the top ten. I danced a jig when it got to number one, where it stayed for several weeks.

When the album came out, a buddy of mine and I went to the local record store and 'liberated' some albums. The one I freed from the capitalist grips of its owner was the Bridge Over Troubled Water album.

I snuck upstairs our attic and played it on a small phonograph player. The first song was the title track, I had heard it many times.

The second song, El Condor Pasa, was an Incan/Peruvian melody that Simon had written lyrics for. It was haunting where Bridge had been uplifting. Cecelia, also a hit single, followed. It was sheer fun and included some lyrics that were, for 1970, quite risque.

Another buddy said his dad told him the fourth song, Keep the Customer Satisfied, was about a drug dealer. This, for me, lent an air of danger to the blaring brass sounds. I loved the line "I hear words I never heard in the Bible."

The last song on the first side was far too mellow for my soon to be thirteen soul to enjoy. Garfunkel's delicate voice crooning about a dead architect meant nothing to me at the time.

But after that, one flipped the album over and the first song was The Boxer.

"I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises; All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

I was blown away by the opening lyrics, and the song just kept getting better as it spun on the turntable. The conclusion left me drained but spiritually uplifted.

The funny and fun Baby Driver followed, also with some wonderful cheeky lyrics. "I'm not talking about your pigtails, but I'm talking about your sex appeal."

The Only Living Boy in New York was a song I was not prepared for, it was delicate, beautiful, full of longing and loss. The vocals were probably the most striking I had heard.

Why Don't You Write Me hit a chord in my adolescent heart, visiting feelings of unrequited affections and rejection.

I knew that the Everly Brothers were a big influence for Paul and Artie, but I still couldn't stand the next song, Bye Bye Love. I realize now it's because even then I didn't like audiences that clapped or sang along to the songs. Most people can't sing AND don't have any rhythm, so for me most concerts are unbearable. More on this later.

But after eight truly incredible songs and the architect song, I forgave them for this boo boo. Besides, I am told there are people that like that kind of thing, my partner being one of them. Ahem.

The song that closes out the album, Song for the Asking, is an offertory of love that to this day, moves me. Maybe because it is about giving and not taking.

When I went to Boy Scout camp that summer in 1970, I took Bridge and my portable record player with me. I played the album every night over and over again. To this day, I have the lyrics to the album (except Bye Bye Love and Frank Lloyd Wright) memorized. It's a part of my soul, it inhabits every fiber of my being.

Last year (2010) the 40th Anniversary edition of Bridge was released. I didn't think I needed another copy until I discovered the new edition came with a dvd of the 1969 Simon and Garfunkel TV special. That TV special deserves its own pages. Until then,

"If you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind."

Thank you, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Thank you.

Divide and Conquer, Collective Bargaining, and the Tower of Babel

"Let us build a city and a tower ... lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

This verse from Genesis Chapter 11 gives the motive for those who built the Tower of Babel.

The LORD comes down to see the city and tower the children of men had built and reaches this conclusion:

"The people are one ... and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do."

The LORD consults with advisers. They declare "Let us go down and confound their language so they may not understand each other."

The result of the divine intervention in the affairs of the children of men was exactly what they feared. "The LORD scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth."

The Tower of Babel story, besides being one of the many interesting stories in Genesis, also illustrates the method used by those in power to frustrate the plans of the children of men: Divide and Conquer.

This strategy has worked so well for those in charge over the millennium that it has remained largely unchanged. Let's look at the efforts to destroy collective bargaining in Wisconsin. Those in charge in the United States have always feared unions and collective bargaining (anybody seen the film 'Matewan?')

There is a good reason for this. It is the same fear the LORD expresses in Genesis. Collectively, the children of men are capable of accomplishing whatever they desire.

We leave aside for now the obvious question of "what is wrong with that?" and move toward the Divide and Conquer strategy used against unions in the United States.

I was still in college when President Reagan declared war on the Air Traffic Controllers Union. The same arguments, almost word for word, used against the Air Traffic Controllers were employed against public workers in Wisconsin. Since 1980, the wages of blue collar Americans have dropped. Most of this has been due to loss of blue collar jobs overseas and the destruction of blue collar unions in manufacturing.

So when apologists for those in power point out that most American workers earn less than the public employee (largely white collar) unions it is classic Divide and Conquer. Pit blue collar workers against white collar workers.

The end result is that all American workers wages and benefits drop.

The prosperity of blue and white collar workers in the United States following WWII combined with the socialist policies enacted by Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt previously, scared those in charge.

They feared the same thing the LORD feared in Genesis, that the children of men would have the means to fulfill all of their dreams. Employing their strategy of Divide and Conquer, efforts to destroy the prosperity of workers in America have been extremely successful.

Racial Equality, Sexual Equality, Abortion Rights, Immigration Rights, and Marriage Rights are examples of social issues that have served this strategy well.

Popular culture plays a role, serving as a Distraction Machine that keeps workers from spending time thinking about who their real enemies are and what they are doing to them.

Let's return to the earlier question. What do we wish for our children? What is wrong with wishing their dreams will come true?

What is wrong with workers in this country doing well? What is wrong with teachers, fire fighters, policemen getting paid well? What was wrong with Air Traffic Controllers having good benefits?

I don't know, I'm going to check out what Charlie Sheen is ranting about today and complain about how greedy school teachers are to my favorite radio talk show host. I'm sure that it will please the LORD.

It Was a Moving Experience

Moving is stressful. Right up there with grieving and divorcing. The top three stressers, yessir.

I have moved so many times I've lost track. I can only remember two phone numbers, and neither of them are mine. Most of the moving occurred when I was single.

In the last eight years, the three moves have been with a family. Big difference. Four people have way more stuff.

Three years ago, we moved from a suburb in central Jersey to a small community five miles from Manhattan. It was a stressful move. We had to sell our condo and find a place to rent and get moved within a two week window.

If you want to sell quickly, you need to hire a realtor. A good realtor. We were fortunate to have a great realtor. On her advice, we rented storage space and de-cluttered and de-personalized our condo. It worked, we sold our condo in three days.

The move itself was tough, though. Two weeks is just not enough time.

So last December when we decided to downsize, I vowed to make this move less stressful. Renting storage space works well. You can pack stuff up and store it so when you move the furniture you don't have a lot of stuff in the way.

We decided to move over three months and three phases, overlapping one month where we would have two apartments. Phase one - spend a month filling up storage space. Phase two - move everything from apt to apt. Phase three - unload storage space. It made all the difference.

We also took the advice of one of our friends, a former nun who has been a mentor for my partner in the rehab field. Her philosophy is to hire young people whenever possible. We asked Max, the 18 year-old high school senior we live with, to convince three of his friends to help us move. Max is a big, strapping young lad and so are his friends. My partner and I are AARP members who don't do the heavy lifting well anymore. It was a good move.

Young people bring great energy and spirit to their endeavours. It changed the whole chemistry of the move. We rented a 16-foot truck, bought them pizza and had a blast. It didn't matter that there was a couple of feet of snow. I'm from Minnesota and my partner is from Ontario. Snow is no big deal.

Max and his friends came up with a name for their group (The Partial Moving Company) complete with slogans. We just had to take a photo of them in the back of the truck (you can see the snow). They are thinking of using the picture as an album cover for their band.

The most gratifying part came when we had finished unloading the truck and paid them for their efforts. It was wonderful to see their faces light up. They would have done it for just the pizza. We paid them well. They earned it.

I have a tradition going back to my Radford University days where I give away vinyl albums to those who help me move. Max told me his friends were huge Pink Floyd fans. I had several of their albums, including the early Syd Barrett stuff as well as 'Dark Side.' They were well pleased. It made my day. Good music is meant to be shared.

We just finished phase three, unloading the storage space. Now if we can just get everything unpacked ... whew!