Album: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Year: 1970
. . .
I was going to say that “Bridge Over Troubled Water” invented the power ballad, but since there is nary a guitar to be found on it — even though Paul Simon wrote it on an acoustic guitar — but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. Obviously, there’s some Spectoresque qualities to it, as well, though it’s also too piano-driven to be full Spector.
And it would probably feel like damning with faint praise to point that this song invented Barry Manilow, even if we didn’t realize it for a few years.
And so, if you’re in the camp that “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is just too much, than I totally get that: I wasn’t all that enthralled with it when it came on the AM radio as a recent oldie in the mid-1970s, and it didn’t win me over until I got decades of distance from its initial impact.
That said, its message of love and friendship is simple and direct, and especially during the opening verse, the dual sublimeness of Larry Knechtel’s gospelish piano and Art Garfunkel’s sympathetic vocals are hard to shake off. In fact they’re so sincere, they’d make the Great Pumpkin weep.
When you’re weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I’m on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
For reasons that he later came to regret as it was hard for him to let Garfunkel shine by himself for even a couple of verses and choruses, Paul Simon had to talk Art Garfunkel into taking the lead vocal, and while Garfunkel initially demurred, he eventually did it, coming back after the filming of Catch-22 to sing the vocals, getting bigger and louder during each chorus.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Which fit the arrangement, of course, though it didn’t really start getting big until the third verse, as drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn all came in. As did Paul Simon, who wrote the third verse in the studio at the insistence of Art Garfunkel and producer Roy Halee, and he also sang harmonies on it as all of those other instruments started coming in. And I think it made all the difference: the entire atmosphere of the song suddenly changed.
Sail on Silver Girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine, ohhhhhhhhhhhh
If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind
And so by the time they get to the final choruses, Hal Blane’s drums are sounding like fireworks exploding over the sea of strings, while Art Garfunkel’s vocals are soaring higher than everything else. Even now, it sounds impossibly big, despite the fact that — outside of the strings, of course — there isn’t that much instrumentation on the song.
But of course it worked. Despite the nearly five-minute run time (Paul Simon had a fight with Columbia just three years prior over the 3:14 running time of “Fakin’ It” to the point where the single claimed the running time was “2:74”), “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was an insanely gynormous hit, becoming Simon & Garfunkel’s third #1 hit single, topping charts all over the world, including here in the U.S., where it was the biggest single of 1970, and won the Grammys for Record of the Year, Song of The Year, and a zillion other awards. It’s also been covered more times than anybody can count, and a half-century later, is absolutely a standard.
“Bridge Over Troubled Water”
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” live in Central Park, 1981
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