Alexandersmap

    Tag: Simon & Garfunkel

    • Slow Down

      Slow down, you move too fast
      You got to make the morning last
      Just kicking down the cobblestones
      Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy
      — Simon & Garfunkel, The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)

      I had a college philosophy professor who used to mock this song in class, for all is not groovy in the world and we must be aware of that fact. But I keep coming back to the lyrics, slow down, you move too fast, and recognize the truth in them. Time is flying past, and we must slow down and have a look before it’s gone forever. Tempus fugit indeed.

      Awareness is the goal, not grooviness. It’s cool to be groovy, it’s vital to be aware. For our vitality is wrapped up in being here in this moment, making the most of it before it’s gone. This is us, we are here (but not for long). Groove on that for a while.

      Looking around, I see I have way too much on my plate. But before you preach to me about taking my own advice, recognize what I have seen: that this is a temporary condition of a productive life, and this phase will pass soon enough. Amor fati. Make the moment last, such that it is, but be sure to slow down too. That would be groovy.

    • There But For The Grace Of You Go I

      “And as I watch the drops of rain
      Weave their weary paths and die
      I know that I am like the rain
      There but for the grace of you go I”
      – Simon & Garfunkel, Kathy’s Song

      These lyrics were highlighted for me by a young lady I met when I was 19 and figuring things out.  I’ve never forgotten them, though I haven’t spoke to her in years.  She married a friend of mine.  I don’t recall being invited to their wedding.  So it goes.  The lyrics remain with me, even if the person that brought them to me is a distant memory.  But isn’t that the way with so many moments in our lives?  People punctuate the moment, and then they’re on to other things, or maybe you are.  Life is a series of such moments built on one another.  I have the entire soundtrack of Simon & Garfunkel’s greatest hits permanently engrained in my brain from a constant cycle of flipping the cassette tape back when people bought cassette tapes.  Sure, everyone knows Mrs. Robinson and Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Sounds of Silence.  All classics.  but deep into the night when everyone else was sleeping I carried on with The Boxer, America and Kathy’s Song.  Years later, they remain my highlights in the Simon & Garfunkel catalog.

      Kathy’s Song was the one that seized my attention and truthfully hasn’t let go, beginning with the lyrics:

      “And a song I was writing is left undone
      I don’t know why I spend my time
      Writing songs I can’t believe
      With words that tear and strain to rhyme”

      Damn it Paul, I know how you feel.  We all work on things we can’t believe, that tear us apart inside.  I’m with you now…  and he doubles down with with the next verse:

      “And so you see I have come to doubt
      All that I once held as true
      I stand alone without beliefs
      The only truth I know is you”

      Followed by “And as I watch the drops of rain” and the rest, ending in perfection with There but for the grace of you go I... And I’ve been trying to write a line as beautiful as that ever since.  I was a teenager when the song was brought to my attention by an old soul in a young body passing through my life.  People come and go in our lives, but sometimes as they pass through they plant a little seed that takes root in our soul.