After the unmistakable "The Sound Of Silence" made Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel a well-known tandem, "Mrs. Robinson" propelled them to superstardom. Simon even said that he felt he had entered the upper echelon of artist at the time. It's of interesting note, then, that Bookends is an album almost morbidly concerned with growing old and dying. Their music was starting to include more instruments, like the orchestra on "Old Friends", and the weird droning tones of "Save The Life Of My Child". It's cool that while they're music sounded more lively then ever, their subject matter was darker and kind of bleak in retrospect. The aforementioned "Old Friends" is the centerpiece of the album, being a retrospection on life and the venture into the so-called "golden years". This was certainly Simon & Garfunkel working focused and passionately, perhaps more so than they had up until that point in their careers. Needless to say, Bookends is an excellent record because of that.
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