Product Description

From the opening finely-woven tapestry, "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", to the closing wake-up call, "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night", Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel present a powerful statement--theirs was to be the new standard in contemporary rock. These harmonies were not those of the fun-loving Beach Boys, and these two New Yorkers weren't singing about girls in bikinis. They sang about women who read Emily Dickinson. Intellectual folk-based rock flourished in this classic collection written by the poet-of-the-moment, Paul Simon. The chemistry between Paul's warm, low tenor and Art's high, airy,etheral tenor was an unrivaled mix, creating a precise harmonic exchange that lent itself perfectly to Paul's well-crafted songs. The intricate arrangement of "Scarborough Fair" is one of the prettiest in the band's catalogue.
PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY AND THYME contains songs that have since become part of the American musical lexicon: the multi-layered poetry of "Dangling Conversation", and the emotional ode "ForEmily, Whenever I May Find Her". Songs like "Patterns" signalled that there was now an articulate elite that was changing the sound of the musical landscape. The revolution in thestreets and campuses was making its way on to radio airwaves and thence into people's homes. But as heavy as they were politically and intellectually, the duo could still offer upan infectious, light-hearted ditty like "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)".

Track Listing

1. Scarborough Fair/Canticle
2. Patterns
3. Cloudy
4. Homeward Bound
5. Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
6. 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
7. Dangling Conversation
8. Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall
9. Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'dInto Submission)
10. For Emily Whenever I May Find Her
11. Poem On The Underground Wall
12. 7 O'clock News/Silent Night
13. Patterns
14. Poem On The Underground Wall

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10316 in Music
• Released on: 2001-08-20
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Poetry set to music...
Hugely popular at the time but, as with much of Simon & Garfunkle's work, now increasingly consigned to the "interesting time-piece" category, "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Time" is quite simply one of the best albums from the 60's. If you haven't listened to it recently, get out your old copy and prepare to be amazed at the quality of the songs, the complexity and superb metering of their lyrics and the often stunningly beautiful singing - captured at its finest in the breathtakingly poignant "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her". Sure, a couple of tracks sound pretty dated and a couple fall into the easy-listening "rock-pop" category, but most have a timeless clarity and sincerity that few of their contemporaries and equally few artists since then have mastered. And... if you don't own it but want to discover how good poetry set to music can be, well, it doesn't get much better.

A stunning folk-pop album
With such classic songs as Scarborough fair / Canticle (a major American hit), Homeward bound (the only UK hit from the album, this was a ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic), For Emily wherever I may find her (sung solo by Art) and the 59th street bridge song - Feeling groovy (a hit for Harper's Bizarre in the UK and USA), this is yet another masterpiece from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.

The famous songs already mentioned are available on countless hits compilations of their music, so if you are thinking of buying this, it is because you want to hear the other songs. They are all of a high quality, notably Cloudy (with its incredible imagery), Big bright green pleasure machine (about TV advertising) and Dangling conversation (about cocktail party gossip).

Yet the most notable track of all may be 7 o'clock news / Silent night. With a peaceful Christmas carol as background, this track reflects on the state of the world back then as relayed in news bulletins. Of course, news bulletins generally focus on problems and tragedies, so a piece like this could have been recorded at any time. Despite world progress, news bulletins are always full of despair, never more so than while I am writing this, soon after the Indian Ocean earthquake.

If you are interested in more than just their hits, this Simon and Garfunkel album is definitely worth a listen.

Simon & Garfunkle put together their first great album
"Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme" was the first big breakthrough album for Simon & Garfunkel as artists. Although their first two albums certainly showed promise, there was a big difference with this 1966 album. The difference was that this time Simon & Garfunkel, along with engineer Roy Halee, had total control in the making of the album. Given that their other 1966 album, "The Sounds of Silence," had been thrown together in less than a month to take advantage of the hot single, this makes a big difference. Just compare the horrible overdubbing of "The Songs of Silence" single with basically anything on this album, but especially with the opening track, "Scarborough Fair/Canticle."

This was an album that would appeal to college students, with the literary rock of "Dangling Conversation," the caustic commentary of "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)," and the simple juxtaposition of the duo singing "Silent Night" to a piano accompaniment juxtaposed against the headlines from the Nightly News (including the death of Lenny Bruce and the escalation of the war in Vietnam) on the album's final track, "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night." College students would also appreciate the sentiments of "Homeward Bound," the attack on television as "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine," one of the decade's great feel-good songs, "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)," and the drama of "Poem on the Underground Wall."

But as much as I like the opening track and "Homeward Bound," the song that puts this over the top is the simply beautiful "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her." There was a time in high school when that was my favorite song, and I did not even know a girl named Emily. Along with "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "All I Know," "Emily" is one of the songs that truly showcase's Garfunkle's soaring vocals, not to mention Simon's poetic sensibilities. As good as this 1966 album was, Simon & Garfunkle's next album, "Bookends," was even better, and the one after that was the best of all. But then discovered the magic formula here.