Over the hills and everywhere

[venta]

On Fridays this year, we ask...

What's in the Box?

The Box in question is the glovebox of my car, home to my extremely motley tape collection. By the time I owned a car with a tape player tapes were on the way out and most of my music was in CD format. However, charity shops were practically giving tapes away, which meant that I bought rapaciously and eclectically. A half-remembered 80s band who once released a single I'd liked a little ? A band I'd vaguely heard of ? An unknown group with good cover art ? Bring them on.

Of course, the net result is that I've ended up with a tape collection which any music-lover would be slightly ashamed of. There was a relatively narrow window (late 70s to later 80s) when tapes were big news, and my horde represents that. However, in amongst the terrible pop I've found some gems and I reckon its time to come clean about my guilty musical secrets.

In The Box this week we have:

Simon & Garfunkel - Wednesday Morning 3am

The Box would like to apologise for is recent silence. I wasn't well enough to rummage last week, and the previous week was up a hill in Cumbria.

Walking along Bleecker Street in New York a few years ago, I was cheerfully warbling to myself: "I met a boy on Bleecker Street, who stole my heart". I was quite surprised recently to discover that Helen Love wasn't the only person to write a song about Bleecker Street. Simon & Garfunkel did it earlier, and very probably more famously.

Simon & Garfunkel are one of those bands like the Beatles where you think you only know one song, then listen to an album and discover that nearly every track is an old friend. I bought Wednesday Morning 3am, and was surprised to find any number of tracks I knew on it, including two that were regulars at junior school assembly. It also has a cover of Times They Are A-Changin', a song which is incredibly famous but which I'd managed never actually to hear.

In terms of the Simon & Garfunkel 'big hits', I think only Sound of Silence would really count, and I find it an oddly lumpy album, lurching about between different styles of content in a fog of inconsistency. It does, however, have a couple of songs I'm really pleased to know, and this is one of them:

Simon & Garfunkel - Bleecker Street

[Poll #1165690]

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

My reaction to that was "but there isn't a track called 'Wednesday Morning 3am'" - which just shows how utterly memorable it isn't. Even now, I can't remember how it goes.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

They later reworked it as the funkier 'Somewhere They Can't Find Me'. It was still pretty forgettable.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the two 'I robbed a liquor store' songs. I wondered why that was.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's that one. I remember now. It's not bad, but as huskyteer rightly says, it's not a patch on Bleecker Street.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I, err, quite like Wednesday Morning 3am.

And I know how it goes :)