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Close Harmony |
As we were driving home from the concert Saturday night, Bill asked me: "A trivia question -- what were the Everly Brothers' first names?" Well, Don and Phil of course. I had grown up with "All I Have to do is Dream" making an impression on my pre-teen innocence, where I lived in an over-protected world. Dream, I still do. Harmony sounds in my memory. Gentle, silken, innocent harmony.  The Everly Brothers' style influenced Simon and Garfunkel: who can hear the harmony in "The Sounds of Silence" without listening? At the concert, vocalists AJ Swearingen and Jonathan Beedle represented Simon and Garfunkel well as they conjured the '60's sounds in concert with the San Antonio Symphony. It was a brilliant musical production, as reviewed: "The concert was relaxing, sweet and joyful, bringing back memories of a duo who sometimes had their artistic differences, but who enjoyed a period of musical grace nearly 50 years ago when everything was in harmony." (San Antonio Express-News)
When everything was in harmony. Close harmony. Is close harmony a musical term, an ancient art, or a modern medicine? Do you remember standing close to someone and feeling a harmonic movement between one another? When we listened to the reverent and peaceful sounds of silence between one another? A time when the world was gentle, silken, and innocent?
Bill and I tried to recall current music in the style of close harmony. Dream I still do. Perhaps today I will do my part as the lyrics in the song say, to bring harmony to someone in my world: "Take my arms that I might reach you."
--by Jan |
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When You're Weary ...
Nostalgia is a funny thing. Listening to the songs of Simon and Garfunkel, I was lifted by the harmonies into memories of youthful optimism, energy, and joy. I too, along with the reviewer, was almost swept away by thoughts of that "period ... nearly fifty years ago when everything was in harmony."
But then I thought of the lyrics, and how bleak some of them are:
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island. ("I am a Rock")
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost. ("The Dangling Conversation")
And then I remembered, really remembered what the 1960s were like. Simon and Garfunkel released their first album in 1964, the year after civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered and four little girls were killed at the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Both The Sound of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme were released in 1966. By then, the Watts Riots in Los Angeles had claimed 34 lives and caused over $40 million in property damage, and the U.S. sent combat troops to Vietnam, which prompted massive anti-war protests. Bookends was released in 1968, the year that both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, the year of the violence surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Sadly, everything was not in harmony. While Simon and Garfunkel were never truly among the protest singers of the era, many of their songs lament the brokenness of human relationships, while expressing a deep longing for community and solidarity. Part of the appeal of Simon and Garfunkel was the way the close harmonies of their songs suggested an alternative to the discord and strife of so much human life.
When you're weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I'm on your side. When times get rough
And friends just can't be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down. ("Bridge over Troubled Water")
--by Bill |
