this was definitely my favorite album...when i was 5 years old. 40 years ago. every song a classic. i was always trying to figure out what the guy in back looked like - a garfunkel. Art Garfunkel was recently in the area for a concert. I should have gone.

Chillingly good tune. I remember sitting with my Dad listening to this on our Sears LP turntable. Good times...

birdland wrote:

Had to scroll down a ways for this one, but what a great response!!

1969.
The war rages.
Yet golden moments of love, peace and music swell.
The chorus intones "lie, lie lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie."
We were waking from the Lies.

Anything Simon & Garfunkel should be an 8, 9 or 10!! Its like comfort food. Yes, Bill....perfectly constructed!

Now THIS is a classic!
BOTW, classic album also!

I thought it very ironic people commented about the post 9-11 performance. How prophetic, because everytime I hear this song now I think mostly of the Bush-Cheney rush to war post 9-11 and the classic line "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..." Pretty much sums up WMD and Colin Powell's puppet PowerPoint presentation to the nation.

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains
Yes he still remains

This song is a 10 for those lyrics alone. The finest song on one of the finest albums ever produced.

prickelpit96 wrote:


total classic, always...

billbangert wrote:

Ok, now we're not in the mentioned row now,
but I deeply disagree with your opinion about
S&G.
This is one of the best songs _ever_ .



P.S.:

I don't know what I really knew back then..... but in junior high I played this record over and over and felt so sad and so moved. Thanks dad for hiding the records in the attic.

It's a 10 but I'd like to go ten more years without hearing it
ed: that was a bit harsh...maybe 4 years

I guess it's a bit repetitive and apparently ineffective to threaten to kill myself everytime RP plays this song, but at least I can post the same emoticon to keep the thread going...

billbangert wrote:I just had to reply to this post because I like the synchronised emoticon effect, 4 in a row now :)

billbangert wrote:

...a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...

billbangert wrote:
Hey man, your loss.

Stop it with the S & G. This stuff makes me want to kill myself. I just turned off RP and put on the Cold War Kids.

I have always thought the elongated chorus "Lie lie lie lie lie lie" was an accidently/unconscious capturing of the Times, the Sixties, the War, the Troubles, Nixon, all the shit. Captured in "Lie lie lie lie..."

stephq123 wrote:

Very moving performance.

Did anyone see Saturday Night Live right after 9/11? Paul Simon was on there, and sang this solo. It was one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen.

I love that bass(?) harmonica...what a sound!

And that beautiful slide guitar (some think it's a trumpet)....

a classic - 9

Googled the instrumentation & here's what I found:

"The odd, choppy, boing-boing sound you hear in the background on Simon
& Garfunkel’s tune “The Boxer” is not the result of some mysterious
unknown instrument. The sound is actually generated by a clever chorus
of instruments working together, namely guitars (played by Paul Simon
& Fred Carter Jr.), a dobro (played by Peter Drake) and most
importantly, a bass harmonica (played by Charlie McCoy, one of the
greatest Country music “session” harmonica players in existence).

A bass harmonica (or bass harp) is big and has two rows of holes
instead of one. It looks like two large harmonicas stacked on top of
one another. It produces a very unique sound because of the resonance
between the two octaves (not unlike a 12 string guitar) and it is, in
effect, more than one instrument – a harmonica capable of accompanying
itself."

MissAmy wrote:

It can't said any better than that.

This song is timeless.

Great set!!
Elliott Smith followed by Simon & Garfunkel...
Guitar troubadours... only on RP

Man I totally agree with your assessment of Simon's recent solo work. I love worship and adore the songs he wrote while Garfunkel was in tow and the crap he has written in the last 20 years is insipid, vapid, and banal (and that's a compliment).

A wonderful song off a wonderful album.

The combination was magic, but I find solo Simon to be unlistenable. When the ego is dripping out of the songs you know there's an issue. I guess Art just figured that out before the rest of us.

I can't believe I haven't rated this before now. One of my favorites.

A 9.2 rating as of 80107...

This is a true masterpiece.

the album cover is gay