{"id":7,"date":"2018-04-14T17:16:29","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T17:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pocketfullofmumbles.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2018-04-14T17:16:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T17:16:29","slug":"the-boxer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pocketfullofmumbles.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/14\/the-boxer\/","title":{"rendered":"After changes we are more or less the same…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Simon and Garfunkel were no Lennon and McCartney. Unlike the lead Beatles songwriters, who co-signed their collaborations regardless of who\u2019d done the heavy lifting, their pop-folk contemporaries were more meticulous in assigning credit. Paul Simon wrote nearly every recognizable song from S&G\u2019s five studio albums and official credits indicate as much.<\/p>\n

The Boxer, the lead single issued from the last of those studio albums, Bridge Over Trouble Waters, stands as perhaps the most notable exception. It was co-signed by both Art Garfunkel and Simon, confirming a level of collaboration unusual to their long and fruitful partnership.

Pocket Full of Mumbles<\/em> covers The Boxer as part of its mission to revel in some of the late 20th Century\u2019s finest song-writing \u2014 a path that starts in the S&G songbook and leads us =to less-celebrated but still-stellar folks like Tom Petty, Neil Young, Ed Crawford (fIREhOSE), Jay Farrar (Son Volt) and ourselves. We\u2019re in preposterously good company, in both respects.<\/p>\n

The Boxer, for example, has been covered by hundreds of artists across several spectra of musical genres, which brings us to another PFOM mission: To demonstrate that great songs tend to have great bones. They deserve to be reinterpreted so variedly because they CAN be reinterpreted so variedly. Ornate harmonies tend to typify S&G\u2019s work (and dominate our perceptions of it), but further exploration reveals truly durable chord structures and lyrics that work regardless of singer, style, or level of orchestration.<\/p>\n

The version of The Boxer that appears on the LP and lead single (B Side: the rollicking Baby Driver) includes the five verses we all know so well. But the song was originally written with six. See here the lost verse, which S&G performed in November 1969 (before release of the album\/single) and reprised several times through the years, including, most famously, for their 1981 Concert in Central Park recording:<\/p>\n

\n

Now the years are rolling by me\u2014
They are rockin’ evenly.
I am older than I once was,
And younger than I’ll be.
That’s not unusual;
No, it isn’t strange:
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same;
After changes we are more or less the same.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

During a New York City concert in October 2010, Simon stopped singing midway through this song to relate the story of a woman who stopped him on the street to tell him that she edits when singing to her young child. Apparently she elides reference to \u201cwhores\u201d and instead goes with \u201cjust a come-on from toy stores on Seventh Avenue.” Simon admits this is “a better line.”<\/p>\n

On June 3, 2016, in Berkeley, California, Simon again stopped singing partway through The Boxer \u2014 to announce in one sentence (before resuming the song) some breaking news: \u201cI\u2019m sorry to tell you this in this way, but Muhammad Ali passed away.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon and Garfunkel were no Lennon and McCartney. Unlike the lead Beatles songwriters, who co-signed their collaborations regardless of who\u2019d done the heavy lifting, their pop-folk contemporaries were more meticulous in assigning credit. Paul Simon wrote nearly every recognizable song from S&G\u2019s five studio albums and official credits indicate as much. The Boxer, the lead … <\/p>\n

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