'I Am a Rock / I Am an Island' - Capturing the Threads of Alienation and Communication Gap in the Songs of Simon and Garfunkel
‘I am a rock
I am an island’
-A Study of the Recurring Themes of Alienation and Communication Gap in the Songs of Simon and Garfunkel
(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE STATESMAN FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 2006)
“You’re a stranger now unto me / Lost in The Dangling Conversation /And the superficial sighs, / The borders of our lives.”
Somehow, these lines seem to the best representative of what this paper will try to capture-the thread of alienation in the works of Simon and Garfunkel. One wonders if it all starts with Paul Simon’s Jewish origins. Belonging to an ethnic minority, a community covertly and at times even overtly undesired in the Christian worlds of America and England, between which he shuffled, it can be well deduced that it was this feeling of not belonging that creeps into his songs. As for Arthur (also a Jew), long before S&G, when they performed as Tom and Jerry he had a single called ‘Dream Alone’ with just two lines in the whole song, the poignant refrain:
“Dream alone… / Cry, o cry, cry alone”
However, an interpretation of art is not confined to the artist’s personal history only. Indeed, two very important words in the above-mentioned verse are ‘superficial’ and ‘borders’ and it is this superficiality that is time and again reflected in the songs, transcending from a personal level to the social and then to the spiritual, the levels often merging.
The Personal Level
To begin with, there are some intensely personal songs, about tangible relations gone sour or if not sour then definitely at the verge of a collapse.
The Dangling Conversation itself paints a tragic picture of two lovers at a point of inertia, where they sit beside each other, unable to make intelligible conversation, like
“(It’s) a still life water color / Of a now late afternoon…”
This image of the late afternoon further reinforces the sense of a dying mental connection between the protagonists. Simon goes on to mention two poets- Emily Dickinson and Robert
I am an island’
-A Study of the Recurring Themes of Alienation and Communication Gap in the Songs of Simon and Garfunkel
(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE STATESMAN FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 2006)
“You’re a stranger now unto me / Lost in The Dangling Conversation /And the superficial sighs, / The borders of our lives.”
Somehow, these lines seem to the best representative of what this paper will try to capture-the thread of alienation in the works of Simon and Garfunkel. One wonders if it all starts with Paul Simon’s Jewish origins. Belonging to an ethnic minority, a community covertly and at times even overtly undesired in the Christian worlds of America and England, between which he shuffled, it can be well deduced that it was this feeling of not belonging that creeps into his songs. As for Arthur (also a Jew), long before S&G, when they performed as Tom and Jerry he had a single called ‘Dream Alone’ with just two lines in the whole song, the poignant refrain:
“Dream alone… / Cry, o cry, cry alone”
However, an interpretation of art is not confined to the artist’s personal history only. Indeed, two very important words in the above-mentioned verse are ‘superficial’ and ‘borders’ and it is this superficiality that is time and again reflected in the songs, transcending from a personal level to the social and then to the spiritual, the levels often merging.
The Personal Level
To begin with, there are some intensely personal songs, about tangible relations gone sour or if not sour then definitely at the verge of a collapse.
The Dangling Conversation itself paints a tragic picture of two lovers at a point of inertia, where they sit beside each other, unable to make intelligible conversation, like
“(It’s) a still life water color / Of a now late afternoon…”
This image of the late afternoon further reinforces the sense of a dying mental connection between the protagonists. Simon goes on to mention two poets- Emily Dickinson and Robert