{"id":804731,"date":"2020-02-28T11:49:13","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T18:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=959725"},"modified":"2020-02-28T11:49:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T18:49:13","slug":"flashback-simon-and-garfunkels-bridge-over-troubled-water-hits-number-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/flashback-simon-and-garfunkels-bridge-over-troubled-water-hits-number-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s \u2018Bridge Over Troubled Water\u2019 Hits Number One"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rock & roll was in full creative bloom, the film version of the Woodstock festival was about to open in theaters, and Led Zeppelin had overtaken the Beatles as favorite rock band in a U.K. poll. But 50 years ago, on February 28th, 1970, the song that would hit Number One and remain there for six weeks wasn\u2019t a rocker but a ballad, and, it turned out, the ballad the country seemed to need at the moment as the tumultuous Sixties ended.<\/p>\n

Musically, Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d would be a key moment in Simon\u2019s creative development, demonstrating that he wasn\u2019t simply limited to folk rock. A fan of gospel music, he had always loved the Swan Silvertones\u2019 \u201cOh, Mary Don\u2019t You Weep\u201d and its opening line: \u201dI\u2019ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust my name.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Simon later told biographer Robert Hilburn, the song was written quickly in his apartment on New York\u2019s Upper East Side: The \u201cessence\u201d took 20 minutes, and he said \u201cthe first two verses were done in two hours\u201d \u2014 all exceedingly efficient for the notoriously methodical Simon. The formative version of the song only had two verses. A third \u2014 starting with \u201cSail on, silver bird\u201d \u2014 arrived later, inspired by the moment Simon\u2019s first wife, Peggy, looked in the mirror one day and saw a few early gray hairs.<\/p>\n

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The Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s loyal engineer Roy Halee and their manager Mort Lewis loved the song, but Art Garfunkel<\/a> was initially cool on it, feeling it was, he said, \u201cnot his best song, but a great song.\u201d As Simon told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 1972, \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to sing it himself. He couldn\u2019t hear it for himself. He felt I should have done it. And many times I think I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

During recording sessions in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, pianist Larry Knechtel transposed the chords from Simon\u2019s guitar to piano and wrote the introduction, further taking it into gospel territory. Then the work began: In an interview shortly before his death in 2009, Knechtel recalled playing at least 72 takes as Simon watched over him. It eventually took four days for the piano, although Simon would still think the last note of the orchestration went on too long.<\/p>\n

Garfunkel eventually did sing the song, carefully adhering to the melody and transforming it from gospel to hymnal; at the song\u2019s climax, he reached for and hit a high note that would be one of his defining moments on record. The next twist arrived when Clive Davis<\/a>, head of Columbia Records, argued that \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d should be the first single from the duo\u2019s forthcoming album. They preferred the more rhythmic and upbeat \u201cCecilia,\u201d but Davis felt there was something beautiful and universal about \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they often did, Davis\u2019 instincts served him well. Released during an uncertain time in the country, \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d was the comforting balm that the culture, and the world, needed at that moment. It not only lorded over the U.S. charts but went Top 10 in South Africa, Malaysia, Lebanon, Denmark, Switzerland, and other countries. Everyone from Aretha Franklin and country banjo legend Earl Scruggs to cabaret star Peggy Lee covered it. Columbia claimed that the Bridge Over Troubled Water <\/em>LP sold nearly 2 million copies in three weeks.<\/p>\n

The song and album\u2019s crowning achievement would arrive the following year, when \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d won Song and Record of the year and the accompanying LP snagged album of the year. The song also won an arranging Grammy, Best Contemporary Song, and the award for best nonclassical engineering. At the ceremony, Franklin, whom Simon also had in mind when he wrote it, performed \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d as Simon and Garfunkel looked on from the audience (here\u2019s a clip of her performing it in 1971). After six weeks, the song was eventually displaced at number one by the Beatles\u2019 \u201cLet It Be\u201d \u2014 also written with Franklin in mind.<\/p>\n

And check out Aretha Franklin performing an arrangement again, in 1992, below.<\/p>\n