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From album
Bookends
Simon & Garfunkel · 1968
Details
Duración2:07
ÁlbumBookends
Año1968
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The story behind
This piece, *Voices of Old People*, departs from what we usually consider a traditional song. Rather, it functions as a sound collage, a compilation of voices captured by Art Garfunkel. He himself took on the task of recording elderly people in various settings, such as nursing homes, throughout New Rochelle and Los Angeles. The result is a listening experience that evokes the experience of aging and the passage of time, sometimes touching on melancholy and other times on humor. It is a moving recording, especially when considering that those voices captured in 1968 might no longer be present just a few years later.
The track was included on the album *Bookends*, released in April 1968 by Columbia Records. This work, produced by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Roy Halee, was conceived as a concept album that traverses the stages of life, from youth to old age. While the first part of the record explores these life phases, the second brings together previously known singles and material discarded for a film soundtrack. Simon's lyrics on this album address themes such as youth, disillusionment, relationships, old age, and mortality, and *Voices of Old People* fits perfectly into this exploration of life and its cycles.