Paul and Art and their astute analysis of certain aspects of the human condition.

For the longest time, Simon and Garfunkel's songs only came into mind during days of nostalgia. -When I'd remember how I used to sit in the back of our black 1979 Toyota Cressida with my hands getting warmed as I pressed them on the un-tinted windows and I looked out into Commonwealth Avenue.

Back then Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's music was more of a soundtrack or score to whatever sort of life the four-year old me was living. While I didn't actively listen to any of the songs, I did know that they had beautiful, calming and somewhat maudlin melodies (which could explain why I didn't really attempt to listen  to them MORE. In some ways their songs made my chest hurt.  Yes. This, coming from a kid who enjoyed Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me" with much gusto.). And as they were my father's favorite, I didn't really have much of a choice since the songs were always in the background even if I didn't know what the words meant back then.

But fairly recently, thanks to the magic of the Internet (and thus the availability of song lyrics), my curiosity, AND especially to my insatiable boredom, I managed to look up the following song which to me, displays the duo's understanding of the human experience and their ability to recreate it lyrically.

In this instance they speak of the gradual decline of a relationship and how sometimes, despite feeling like you match in so many aspects, you just eventually grow apart*. It's hard to explain, oh that it were a simple as the fact that his/her hand didn't fit yours anymore, then you'd know when to stop and start moving on. Instead, the two people in the song, like some of us, carry on the farce that everything's okay and choose to ignore that they're so far away from each other already.

And although the characters are lovers, reality doesn't limit the withering of a connection to those who are bonded romantically. Friendships can dwindle. Even family members, in some ways, break away from each other despite blood relations.

I think I'm digressing and probably reading it all wrong again. I just want you to read the words and maybe listen to the song but don't hurt me because it's melancholy. 

The Dangling Conversation
by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel


It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.


And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the dangled conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.


Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.

  

The Dangling Conversation