Bridge over Troubled Water
Bridge over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, released on January 26, 1970 on Columbia Records. Following the duo's soundtrack for The Graduate, Art Garfunkel took an acting role in the film Catch-22, while Paul Simon worked on the songs, writing all tracks except Felice and Boudleaux Bryant's "Bye Bye Love" (previously a hit for the Everly Brothers).
This article is about the album. For other uses, see Bridge over Troubled Water (disambiguation).Bridge over Troubled Water
January 26, 1970
November 1968 (2 tracks only);
November 1969Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (Live recording of "Bye Bye Love")
- Columbia Studio B and E, New York City
- CBS Columbia Square, Los Angeles[1][2]
36:29
With the help of producer Roy Halee, the album followed a similar musical pattern as their previous album Bookends (1968), partly abandoning their traditional style to incorporate elements of rock, R&B, gospel, jazz, world music, pop and other genres. It was described as their "most effortless record and their most ambitious".[3] After Bridge Over Troubled Water was released, several re-releases followed. The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic. Columbia Records released a 40th Anniversary Edition on March 8, 2011, which includes two DVDs, including the politically themed TV special Songs of America (1969), the documentary The Harmony Game, additional liner notes and a booklet. Other reissues contain bonus tracks, such as the 2001 version, which covers the demo tapes of "Feuilles-O" and "Bridge over Troubled Water". Contemporary critical reception to Bridge was initially mixed, but retrospective reviews of the album have been laudatory, and it is considered by many to be the duo's best album.[4]
Bridge Over Troubled Water topped the charts in over ten countries and received six Grammy Awards at the 1971 Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year. The album has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time and at the time of its release, the best-selling album ever. It has been ranked on several "greatest" lists, including number 172 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list in 2020.[5] Despite the accolades, the duo decided to split up, and parted company later in 1970; Garfunkel continued his film career, while Simon worked intensely with music. Both artists released solo albums in the following years. Bridge includes two of the duo's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful songs, "Bridge over Troubled Water" and "The Boxer", which were listed on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.
Background[edit]
Simon & Garfunkel, initially "Tom & Jerry", were already successful in the music industry. Their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, the soundtrack album for Mike Nichols' film The Graduate and Bookends peaked at number four, one, and one in the US Billboard 200, respectively,[6] with the first selling 3 million copies and the latter two selling 2 million copies in the United States alone.[7] Art Garfunkel took the role of Captain Nately in another Nichols film, Catch-22, based on the novel of the same name. Initially Paul Simon was to play the character of Dunbar, but screenwriter Buck Henry felt the film was already crowded with characters and subsequently wrote Simon's part out.[1][8] The unexpectedly long film production endangered the relationship between the duo;[8] Garfunkel later stated in a 1990 interview with Paul Zollo in SongTalk magazine: "Our way of working was for Paul to write while we recorded. So we'd be in the studio for the better part of two months working on the three or four songs that Paul had written, recording them, and when they were done, we'd knock off for a couple of months while Paul was working on the next group of three or four songs. Then we'd book time and be in the studio again for three or four months, recording those . . . . Rather than wait for Paul to write the next bunch of songs, I went off and did this movie."[9]
Releases[edit]
After breaking for Christmas, the duo continued working on the album in early 1970 and finished it in late January. Eleven tracks were featured on this album; one finished song, "Cuba Si, Nixon No", as well as other additional tracks were excluded. Garfunkel did not like this song and proposed instead a chorale, entitled "Feuilles-O", with which Simon disagreed. After a discussion, they decided to not include more tracks.[56]
Bridge over Troubled Water charted in over 11 countries, topping the charts in 10 countries, including the US Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart.[57][58] It was the best-selling album in 1970, 1971 and 1972 and was at that time the best-selling album of all time.[39] It remained CBS Records' best-selling album until the release of Michael Jackson's Thriller in 1982.[59] The album topped the Billboard 200 charts for 10 weeks and stayed on the charts for 85 weeks.[39] According to Columbia Records, 1.7 million copies were sold in the first three weeks in the United States.[37] In the United Kingdom, the album topped the charts for 33 weeks, and spent 285 weeks in the top 100, from 1970 to 1975.[39] Furthermore, it received 8× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and 4× Platinum in Canada.[39] Bridge over Troubled Water has since sold 3,163,789 copies in the UK,[60] and over 25 million copies worldwide.[61]
The songs "Cuba Si, Nixon No", "Groundhog", and the demo "Feuilles-O" were recorded during sessions but not released on the album.[62][63] "Cuba Si, Nixon No" was later released on a bootleg recording of a concert of November 11, 1969, by Simon and Garfunkel at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio,[64] while the demo recording of "Feuilles-O" was later released on the Old Friends and The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964–1970) box sets.[63] A remastered and expanded version of the album was released on compact disc in 2001, containing the demo versions of "Feuilles-O" and "Bridge over Troubled Water." It was remastered by Vic Anesini.[63] Garfunkel later recorded "Feuilles-Oh/Do Space Men Pass Dead Souls on Their Way to the Moon?" on his debut solo album Angel Clare, and as the flip-side to his single, "I Shall Sing", from the same album.[65]
Columbia Records released a 40th Anniversary Edition on March 8, 2011, comprising three discs. The first disc features the original album and the second disc contains the entirety of Live 1969, which had been released three years earlier as an exclusive at Starbucks. The third disc, a DVD, consisted of the television special Songs of America, which originally aired in 1969 on CBS and unavailable since its original broadcast, and a new documentary The Harmony Game about the making of the album. Songs of America comprised footage of the 1969 tour, intimate backstage conversations, and historic news clips; it had elicited controversy owing to the duo's political comments regarding the Vietnam War and the direction of American society at the time. The Harmony Game featured new 2010 interviews with Simon, Garfunkel, producer Roy Halee, and more principals involved with the making of the album. The 1969 special runs for approximately 52 minutes 37 seconds, while the 2010 documentary runs for approximately 70 minutes 54 seconds. A booklet of liner notes, photos, and essays by critics Michael Hill and Anthony DeCurtis was also included.[66][63]
The album is also included in its entirety as part of the Simon & Garfunkel box sets Collected Works, The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964–1970) and Simon & Garfunkel: The Complete Albums Collection.