Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (Vinyl LP)

By the fall of 1966, when Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was released, the nation was in the throes of societal and political upheaval, and Paul Simon vividly, if facetiously, encapsulated that turbulent historical moment on the album’s rollicking sociopolitical send-up, “A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission).” Through the course of the song, Simon name-checked a tumbling litany of names in the headlines, from Martin Luther King Jr. and Gen. Maxwell Taylor to the Beatles and Lenny Bruce, while slipping in a wry reference to the mellowing-out benefits to be derived from smoking a “pint of tea a day.” But just as redolent of the times as its subject matter were the sounds of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, from the baroque acoustic guitar figure and celestial Garfunkel vocal that introduced “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” which opened the album, to their a cappella reading of “Silent Night,” which closed it. If you were a discerning adolescent or young adult in 1966, you not only owned this album, you wore it out – every word, note, and nuance became permanently lodged in your cranium, as listening to it again will readily demonstrate.

1. Scarborough Fair/Canticle
2. Patterns
3. Cloudy
4. Homeward Bound
5. The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
6. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
7. The Dangling Conversation
8. Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall
9. A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission)
10. For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
11. A Poem on the Underground Wall
12. 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night