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Simon & Garfunkel - Cecilia

Simon & Garfunkel - Cecilia Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Released: 1970

Cecilia Lyrics

Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home

Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home

Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom (making love)
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed someone's taken my place

Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

Jubilation
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing

Jubilation
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing

Whoah-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Whoah-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Whoah-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Whoah-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Writer/s: SIMON, PAUL
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Cecilia

This song is about a guy who had a girlfriend, but then she broke up with him. Like it says in one of the verses, "I got up to wash my face, when I come back to bed someone's taken my place." But later on they get back together - "Jubilation, she loves me again." No too much should be read into the lyrics of this song. As Paul Simon explained in an interview with Rolling Stone: "Every day I'd come back from the studio, working on whatever we were working on, and I'd play this pounding thing. So then I said, 'Let's make a record out of that.' So we copied it over and extended it double the amount, so now we have three minutes of track, and the track is great. So now I pick up the guitar and I start to go, 'Well, this will be like the guitar part' - dung chicka dung chicka dung, and lyrics were virtually the first lines I said: 'You're breakin' my heart, I'm down on my knees.' They're not lines at all, but it was right for that song, and I like that. It was like a little piece of magical fluff, but it works." (thanks, Lisa - Palatine, IL)

In the Catholic church, Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians. In this context, the song can be interpreted as the singer asking for musical guidance, possibly to help writing a song. Paul Simon says he can't remember the specific inspiration when he was writing the song, but he knew Cecilia is the goddess of music. (thanks, Peter - L.A., CA)

According to the liner notes to Paul Simon's Anthology album, the strange sounding rhythm to this particular track was Paul and Art slapping their thighs, while Paul's brother Eddie thumped a piano bench and a friend named Stewie Scharff strummed a guitar with its strings slackened to the point of atonality. This all happened at a house Paul and Art were living in on Blue Jay Way in the summer of 1969, not long after the Charles Manson murders took place at the nearby home of the actress Sharon Tate. After they started the pounding and came up with the rhythm, they got out their Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder and made the recording. There was a 1:15 section that Simon thought was great, so they looped it in the studio, which wasn't easy in 1969 - you had to actually cut out the tape and put it on the recorder in a loop. Their producer Roy Halee added some reverb, and they had their basic backing track from this home recording. (thanks, Nick - Auckland, New Zealand)

Worked into the mix is the sound of drumsticks falling on the parquet floor of the Columbia Records studio in Los Angeles. Simon also played a bit of xylophone that was heavily processed and added to the track. They had a lot of fun recording it and were enjoying various experiments in sound.

In 1996 Suggs, the lead singer for Madness, teamed up with vocal duo Louchie Lou and Michie One to record a cover that peaked at #4 in the UK. This is the only time the song reached the Top 75 in Britain as surprisingly Simon & Garfunkel's original 1970 single failed to chart there.

The Swedish Pop group Ace Of Base recorded a song called "Cecilia" on their 1998 album Flowers that was based on the character in this song.

Simon & Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy In New York

Simon & Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy In New York Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Released: 1970

The Only Living Boy In New York Lyrics

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know your part'll go fine
Fly down to Mexico
Do-n-do-d-do-n-do and here I am,
The Only Living Boy In New York

I get the news I need on the weather report
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile
Do-n-doh-d-doh-n-doh and here I am
The only living boy in New York

Half of the time we're gone
But we don't know where,
And we don't know where

Half of the time we're gone
But we don't know where,
And we don't know where

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know you've been eager to fly now
Hey let your honesty shine, shine, shine now
Do-n-do-d-do-n-do
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York,
The only living boy in New York

Writer/s: SIMON, PAUL
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Only Living Boy In New York

Paul Simon wrote this song about his partner Art Garfunkel going to Mexico to act in a movie called Catch-22. Art was missing a lot of recording dates while trying to kick off his acting career, and Paul was hinting at a breakup. The duo did indeed split up after the album was released.

Regarding the lyrics, "Tom get your plane right on time. I know that your eager to fly now," before the folk duo became famous, they were known as Tom and Jerry. Tom was Art's stage name, so this line symbolizes their increasing need for musical and personal freedom.

In a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine, Simon said: "I liked the 'aaahhhs,' the voices singing 'aaah.' That was the best I think that we ever did it. It was quite a lot of voices we put on, maybe twelve or fifteen voices. We sang it in the echo-chamber."

Simon & Garfunkel split up after this album was released. Paul recorded as a solo artist, and Art pursued an acting career.

This was used in the 2004 movie Garden State. Zach Braff, who wrote and directed the movie, thought the song worked perfectly to convey the loneliness of a character. Simon & Garfunkel rarely license the song, but they let Braff use it for a greatly reduced fee after seeing the scene. (thanks, Denise - Santa Clarita, CA)

The session musician Joe Osborn played an 8-string bass on this track, which the album's producer Roy Halee said was the featured musical element of the song. Years later, when Osborn tried to relearn his part to demonstrate it, he realized it was very difficult to reproduce live, as Halee spliced together various takes for the recording.

Simon & Garfunkel - El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

Simon & Garfunkel - El Condor Pasa (If I Could) Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Released: 1970

El Condor Pasa (If I Could) Lyrics

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

Away, I'd rather sail away
Like a swan that's here and gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddest sound

I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

Writer/s: JORGE MILCHBERG, DANIEL ALOMIA ROBLES, PAUL SIMON, DANIEL ROBLES
Publisher: CARLIN AMERICA INC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

This song started out as an Andean folk melody that Paul Simon came across in 1969 when he played a week-long engagement at a theater in Paris along with the South American group Los Incas, who played an instrumental version of the song called "Paso Del Condor." Said Simon: "I used to hang around every night to hear them play that. I loved it and I would play it all the time, and then I thought, Let's put words to it."

The Peruvian songwriter Daniel Robles recorded this song in 1913, and copyrighted it in the United States in 1933 during his travels in America. When Simon recorded it with his added lyrics, he thought it was a traditional song, as that's what Los Incas told him. When Robles' son filed a lawsuit, Simon had to give Robles a composer credit on the song, with his estate getting those royalties.

In discussing the song, Simon always talks about it as being based on a traditional Peruvian song, and we've never heard him mention Robles. This wasn't the first time Simon got tangled over songwriting credits on traditional melodies: Simon & Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair / Canticle was based on a folk song, but his arrangement came from a singer named Martin Carthy. Simon was always clear on his influences, but legal misunderstandings were a problem in these cases.

Los Incas, who were the group that introduced Simon to the song, provided the instrumentation when they recorded it in Paris with Simon. Their leader, Jorge Milchberg, played a charango, which is an Andean string instrument made from the shell of an armadillo. Simon played acoustic guitar, and other members of Los Incas played flutes and percussion. When Simon brought the track to America, he added his lyrics. This was one of the easier songs to record for the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, since the backing track was already mixed together - it was just a matter of adding the vocals.

The title translates to English as "The Condor Passes." The lyrics Robles wrote to the song in 1913 are about returning home to his native Peru.

Los Incas leader Jorge Milchberg got a composer credit on this song along with Simon and Robles. Milchberg later became the head of the group Urubamba and remained friends with Simon, who toured with them and produced their first American album. (thanks, Kristy - La Porte City, IA)

The Wainwright Sisters covered this for their 2015 Songs in the Dark album. Lucy Wainwright Roche explained to The Sun: "I chose 'El Condor Pasa' because it was one of the first songs I ever learned to play on it guitar and it has a childlike quality to it, but it also has a darkness and sadness that fit in well with the album."