вЂњIвЂ™m empty and aching and I donвЂ™t know why.вЂќД¬ounting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,ДЇrom a young manвЂ™s struggles in finding his own way to the struggles of the middle-aged couple whose relationship has grown comfortable yet passionless. вЂњKathy, IвЂ™m lost.вЂќ I said, though I knew she was sleeping. вЂњAmericaвЂќ is a beautiful expression of the aimlessness felt by so many of that age, facing the awesome responsibility of вЂњhaving your whole life ahead of you.вЂќ вЂњA boy sat on the ledgeвЂќВ вЂ“ surrounded by adults who, from his perpsective, didnвЂ™t understand his feelings, and misinterpreted his actions.ДЇrom childhood to young adulthood, the next song is the best-known on the Bookends side of the album. Looking back,В I think that I identifiedВ with the main character of the song.

Though the song made no logical sense to me, and its odd background noises challenged my eardrums, I felt a real connection to it. вЂњSave the Life of My ChildвЂќВ holds a strange place in my memory. So the album begins with the instrumental-only вЂњBookendsвЂќ, sad and melancholy, lastly only half a minute before itВ fades into the harshly somber first notes of the nextВ song. Each is named вЂњBookendsвЂќ and each features only acoustic guitar for instrumentation. Of the seven songs, the first and last are the same song. I am as familiar with the songs on this album as any I can think of, and yet it was just recently that it occurred to me that side one of Bookends (the вЂBookendsвЂ™ side) takes us chronologically through the stages of life, and their unique struggles. That means that I first heard this album when I was no older than 10. But given her love for their music, I canвЂ™t imagine that it was very long afterВ its release. I canвЂ™t give you the precise date that Bookends took its first spin on our turntable. IвЂ™ve mentioned before that all the Simon and Garfunkel albums in my birth familyвЂ™s house belonged to my sister. It is with a fair amount of embarrassment that I admit that this realization escaped me for many years. Or perhaps better stated, the journey of a life. Seven songs, lasting just under fifteen minutes, take us through the journey of a lifetime. Artists were startingВ to use the medium creatively and Bookends is one of the first to devote an entire side of an album to a theme. Vinyl was in the beginning stages of its heyday. It is, in that regard, a breakthrough album. The albums leading up to Bookends increasingly show SimonвЂ™s developing songwriting skills, and glimpses of his creativity.В But it is with this albumВ that we really see that originality flourish. That beingВ the case, why would I select Bookends, rather than their fifth and final album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, as topic for this TBT? It is generally accepted that each Simon and Garfunkel album surpassed its predecessor in quality, popularity, critical acclaim and recognition. The album has continued to receive critical acclaim.Bookends, the fourth of five studio albums from the iconic duo Simon and Garfunkel, is just two years shy of celebrating its fiftieth birthday. Bookends was considered a breakthrough for the duo, placing them on the same level as artists such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones at the forefront of the cultural movement in the 1960s. The album sold best in the US and in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number one. Initial sales for Bookends were substantial in the US, and the album produced the number-one single 'Mrs. The album was recorded gradually over the period of a year, with production speeding up around the later months of 1967.

Much of the material was crafted alongside producer John Simon (no relation), who joined the recording when Paul Simon suffered from writer's block. Simon's lyrics concern youth, disillusionment, relationships, old age, and mortality. Side two largely consists of unused material for The Graduate soundtrack. Side one of the album marks successive stages in life, the theme serving as bookends to the life cycle.

The duo had risen to fame two years prior with the albums Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and the soundtrack album for the 1967 film The Graduate.Д«ookends is a concept album that explores a life journey from childhood to old age. Produced by Paul Simon, Roy Halee and Art Garfunkel, the album was released on April 3, 1968, in the United States by Columbia Records. Bookends is the fourth studio album by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel.

Simon and garfunkel bookends