Category: Art Garfunkel


Schoolday Coverfolk: National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 6-10

May 6th, 2008 — 11:23 pm

In my other life, I’m a middle school teacher; I spend most of my days surrounded by twelve year olds, trying to balance entertainment with mentorship, and curriculum with life lessons. Before that, I taught in a boarding high school, tutored gifted and talented kids in a tiny rural elementary school, ran a before-school program, and did public demonstrations at a science museum.

And before that, I was a dropout. And before that, I was a goofball, who needed a little good advice now and then, but couldn’t really sit still long enough in the classroom to make any teacher want to defend me.

But Mrs. Carter liked me, though I don’t know why. The way she looked at me – like I had something worth watching for – made up for the fact that I was always the understudy when we were picked for the school play, always the alternate for work with the poet in residence. I learned to rise to the occasion, and to focus on doing things well, instead of doing things best; I gained confidence in my abilities. And though after that year, I turned back into the goofball for a good long time, I never forgot Mrs. Carter. And I never forgot that look.

It’s a well-kept secret in educational circles that it isn’t just the good kids, or the smart kids who get voted “most likely to be a teacher”, who come back to school to sit on the other side of the desk (or in my case, to stand atop the desk and gesticulate wildly to make a point). We come from all the cliques, from the woodshop wannabes to the cheerleading squad, from the lit mag proto-hipsters to the band geeks. But I can’t think of any teacher I have ever spoken with who is not honored and thrilled and genuinely surprised when that rare student comes out of the woodwork to say “you mattered, and now I matter.”

A few years back, at a five year reunion, this kid came up to me, and thanked me. He said I was the one who changed his life; that now he was doing what I had taught him to do, and hardly a week went by where he didn’t think about what I had taught him.

And I looked at him, and smiled, and was secretly joyous. But all I could think about was that this kid was the goofball. The one who was always pushing the envelope. The one who messed around in film class, though he always came through with something pretty cool when the work was due. The one who spliced thirty second of a shower scene from a Penthouse video into his remade music video for Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher. And showed it on the day the Academic Dean came to observe me in my first year of teaching.

And then I remembered Mrs. Carter. And I thought about calling her up, and thanking her. But Mrs. Carter isn’t around anymore.

If Jeffrey Foucault was a teacher, he'd look like thisThere are surprisingly few songs about the teaching profession which portray it in a positive light (though there are a couple of other memorable songs out there about teachers as sex objects, such as Police classic Don’t Stand So Close To Me and Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher); of these, fewer still have been covered by folk artists. More common are songs about school as a part of adolescent or childhood experience — songs where the teachers are there, unmentioned, just hovering in the background. But as a teacher myself, I know that no classroom feels safe unless the teacher has set a tone that makes it safe. Even without mention, as long as curriculum and classroom exist, a teacher is always there.

Today, then, in celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week (USA), we bring you a set of quirky covers of teachersongs, and some schoolsongs which touch lightly and broadly on our experience of the classroom, that childhood stew of fear and freedom where our personalities were transformed.

Together, the songs make a perfect soundtrack to a google search for that one special teacher who reached out and changed your life. Write the letter, send the email, make the call: let them know they made a difference today. You don’t even have to say thanks — just letting them know that you remember them, and that you turned out okay, is a rare and precious reward.

See also: Kate and Anna McGarrigle cover Loudon Wainwright III’s Schooldays

793 comments » | Art Garfunkel, Bree Sharp, cry cry cry, David Wilcox, Fionn Regan, Jack Johnson, James Taylor, Luther Wright, Mark Erelli, Matt Nathanson, Paul Simon, Petty Booka

Covered in Folk: Simon and Garfunkel (Indigo Girls, Jonatha Brooke, Shawn Colvin, and more!)

January 23rd, 2008 — 11:52 am

Hope no one minds two Covered in Folk features in the same week; in my other life I’ve got student grades to process and a new term starting up Thursday, so I needed something quick. Upcoming features include the coversong repertoires of some stellar voices from across the folk spectrum; in the meantime, here’s a post I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks, ever since our feature on the solosongs of Paul Simon.

You need me to say something about Simon and Garfunkel? THE Simon and Garfunkel? Okay, how about this: every single person I know knows the lyrics to at least one Simon and Garfunkel song. Me? I can sing Cecilia in my sleep. In harmony.

Rolling Stone lists Simon and Garfunkel at #40 on their most influential artists ever; by “influential”, they’re talking about the effect of this American folk rock duo on the world of professional music, the stuff that garnered them a lifetime achievement award at the 2003 Grammy awards. But much more noteworthy is the fact that, three generations later, their songs have become part of the base set of popular tunes which pepper the sonic landscape for the developing ear in suburban American culture.

It’s not just that I know all the words to a song older than me. It’s that I learned them when I was fourteen, and I still remember them. Even in an earbud age, kids still come home from summer camp with the songs of James Taylor, the Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel in their ears, because this is the canon of the acoustic guitar, passed down from older teen counselor to song circle. Now that’s folk. It’s truths like that which give us hope for the next generation, and the next beyond that, too.

Today we present a carefully chosen, predominantly female-voiced set of Simon and Garfunkel covers, firmly grounded in the folk world but willing to veer towards alt-country (Johnny Cash), folk pop (The Indigo Girls), and indiefolk (The Purple Raiders, Emiliana Torinni) where the song warrants it. Nothing comprehensive, mind you. Just some great songs, performed and interpreted with love and guitars. And isn’t that the best kind of tribute?

  • Indigo Girls, Mrs. Robinson
    The tomboyish, politicized folk harmonies of the Indigo Girls charge every word with a gleeful yearning, create the perfect happy medium between the original song and that amazing cover by the Lemonheads.

  • The Purple Raiders, Mrs. Robinson
    …though this even more ragged demo might have more indiecred. I’d say more about alt-country upstarts The Purple Raiders, but their website is all in German.

  • Johnny Cash w/ Fiona Apple, Bridge over Troubled Water
    This one got lost among the Nine Inch Nails and U2 in the last cover-heavy years of Cash’s career. Some sappy synth-vocals in the background, but Johnny Cash‘s broken-voiced hope clears the maudlin bar.

  • Emiliana Torrini, Sound of Silence
    Folk rock at its psychadelic, Icelandic best. Once a stand-in for Bjork, Emiliana Torrini can turn a great song on its ear without straying too far from the original sound. She can also build a hell of a wall of sound.

  • Brobdingnagian Bards, Scarborough Faire (trad.)
    A tradsong popularized by Simon and Garfunkel, done over by faux buskers the Brobdingnagian Bards on the punnishly-titled A Faire to Remember. Our first nod to the filksong and re-creationist fairefolk movements here on Cover Lay Down.

  • Jonatha Brooke, Bleecker Street
    Musicians and music lovers of a certain age know we’re a bit too young to know Bleecker Street as it was in the heydey of the American folk revival. But we sure recognize a debt to our forefathers when we see it, and Jonatha Brooke pays hers back with interest. Absolutely stunning. From the incredible out-of-print folkscene tribute album Bleecker Street: Greenwich Village In The 60′s.

  • Shawn Colvin, The Only Living Boy in New York
    A repost from our first few weeks, but I couldn’t resist: Shawn Colvin‘s sweet, soaring, just-before-9-11 cover of this song is the archetype for the truly great Paul Simon cover. Feel the love, and own it, too.

  • Alison Brown w/ Indigo Girls, Homeward Bound
    Jazzfolk fusion bluegrass banjo wizard (and Compass Records founder) Alison Brown generally brings guest vocalists in for her coversongs; here, the sweet harmonies of the Indigo Girls bring us back full circle.

    As always, all artist links above go to artists’ preferred source for purchase; if you like what you hear, pick up the recorded works of these modern inheritors of the folk world by clicking on their names above.

    And here’s a little bonus section coverfolk from Paul Simon’s oft-forgotten partner — a man who has read one thousand twenty three books since June of 1968, and wanted to put a Bach chorale piece on Bridge Over Troubled Waters. There are others, but this Art Garfunkel stuff’s a little too lite for my ears.

  • 721 comments » | Alison Brown, Art Garfunkel, Brobdingnagian Bards, Emiliana Torrini, Indigo Girls, Johnny Cash, Jonatha Brooke, Shawn Colvin, Simon and Garfunkel, The Purple Raiders