Release in October 1966, the duo’s third album gave them proper studio time for the first time and delivered Scarborough Fair, Homeward Bound and a stark social collage that still lands six decades later.
by Paul Cashmere
Simon & Garfunkel’s third studio album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, reaches its 60th anniversary this week. Released on 10 October 1966 by Columbia Records, the record marked the moment the New York duo stopped chasing the rush of a hit single and began shaping their own sound with care, control and a clear sense of purpose.
After the unexpected success of the reissued “The Sound of Silence”, Columbia had hurriedly assembled the Sounds of Silence album to capitalise on the moment. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was different. The pair were given almost four months in the studio. They used an eight-track recorder for the first time, overdubbed vocals for better separation and insisted on greater creative control. Paul Simon later estimated the budget at around $30,000, a substantial figure for the era.
Much of the material came from songs Simon had written during his time in England the previous year. Three tracks, “Patterns”, “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall” and “A Simple Desultory Philippic”, had already appeared on his 1965 solo album The Paul Simon Songbook. “Homeward Bound”, already a hit single, was carried over from earlier sessions, as was “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall”. The album’s title comes from the traditional English ballad that opens the record.
“Scarborough Fair/Canticle” remains the album’s signature piece. Simon and Art Garfunkel arranged the centuries-old folk song with fingerpicked guitar, delicate chimes and harpsichord, then interwove it with “Canticle”, a reworking of another Songbook track, “The Side of a Hill”. Garfunkel later described the mixing sessions for the song as the point at which the duo began to function as producers alongside engineer Roy Halee.
The record moves through sharp contrasts. “Patterns” uses string snaps, syncopated bass and frenetic bongos to suggest lives as predetermined as a rat in a maze. “Cloudy” floats on a breezy, almost jazzy feel. “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine” satirises consumer culture with an organ-heavy psychedelic edge. “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” offers a brief, carefree vignette built on a two-bar ostinato. “The Dangling Conversation” examines a relationship in quiet decline. “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her” is a tender declaration of belief in true love, written in a single night. “A Poem on the Underground Wall” paints a vivid picture of a man scrawling graffiti in a subway station.
The closing track, “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night”, remains one of the most striking moments in the pair’s catalogue. The duo sing the Christmas carol in two-part harmony over an arpeggiated piano while a simulated radio news report, voiced by disc jockey Charlie O’Donnell, details the Vietnam War, civil rights unrest and the death of comedian Lenny Bruce. The juxtaposition is blunt and still effective.
Produced by Bob Johnston and recorded mainly in June, July and August 1966, the album peaked at number four on the US Billboard 200 and number 14 in Australia. It has been certified triple platinum in the United States. In 1999 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone later ranked it among the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The original LP cover, photographed by Bob Cato, shows the pair in a flower garden. The back sleeve carried an essay by critic Ralph J. Gleason. Credit disputes later emerged around “Cloudy”, co-written with Bruce Woodley, and “Scarborough Fair”, which Martin Carthy had introduced to Simon in England. Carthy’s publishing company secured royalties, though the fine print of an earlier contract meant he received none of the money.
Sixty years on, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme stands as the album on which Simon & Garfunkel found their footing as recording artists rather than a singles act. The intelligence, variety and craftsmanship that critics noted at the time have kept the record in circulation across generations of listeners who still find its themes of alienation, longing and social observation uncomfortably relevant.
Tracklisting
Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Patterns
Cloudy
Homeward Bound
The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
The Dangling Conversation
Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall
A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)
For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
A Poem on the Underground Wall
7 O’Clock News/Silent Night
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