Bookends [Import]

Simon & Garfunkel | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 16, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Sony Bmg
• ASIN: B00005ML9E
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  Sheet music
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,876 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Bookends Theme

2. Save the Life of My Child

3. America

4. Overs

5. Voices of Old People

6. Old Friends

7. Bookends Theme

8. Fakin' It

9. Punky's Dilemma

10. Mrs. Robinson [From the Motion Picture "The Graduate]

11. A Hazy Shade of Winter

12. At the Zoo

13. You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies [*]

14. Old Friends [#][*][Demo Version]

Editorial Reviews

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Preserve your memories-- they're all that's left you, November 9, 2010

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bookends (Audio CD)

This import CD has two bonus tracks. "You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies" was the flip side of S&G's "Fakin' It" 45. Also here is Paul Simon's demo of "Old Friends."


BOOKENDS (released in 1968) is the greatest of all Simon & Garfunkel albums, and one of the best records made in the 1960s.

When I originally wrote this review on Christmas night 2006, I'd been nostalgically pondering a Christmas 42 years distant-- I was 14 then. 1968 was an awful year to live through for anyone, especially a kid. The Vietnam War, the assassinations of public figures, and seeing part of my city burn the previous summer during riots-- it was a lot to handle.

The song "Save The Life Of My Child" from BOOKENDS was in my head all throughout 1968. I identified with that frightened boy standing on the ledge, while a crowd below urged him to jump. His final thought as "he flew away" was "...I got no hiding place." That was exactly how I felt in those days.

What a powerful and unforgettable way to begin an album. The moods of BOOKENDS reflect so well the troubled times of the late '60s, with its anti-war sentiments (Punky's Dilemma), and its tales of love and love lost (America, Overs). The first side of the record ends with the sad longing and fears of Old Friends, who sit on a park bench and reminisce together. But this bittersweet song has a deeper message. These old men were survivors-- if they were supposed to be elderly in 1968, then they made it through the Depression, and two world wars, and if they were the youth of 1968 projected into the future, well they too made it through trials by fire.

And so have I made it through! I'm in my 50s now and headed for that park bench one day. The fears and sadness of 1968 are long past, but a final memory remains:

As I lay in bed early that Christmas Eve, the colored glow of tree lights seeped into my room. Off in the distance were disembodied television voices of Apollo astronauts circling the moon-- they read passages from the book of Genesis, and wished well the "people of the good Earth." It was a peaceful and hopeful ending to a terrible year.

Very few albums truly encapsulate a moment in time. Even fewer connect deeply with listeners in ways they may not realize until decades into the future. Simon & Garfunkel's BOOKENDS is one of those rare examples. It is paradoxically timeless and a reflection of its time.