a simple twist of fate

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i love stories about how small, seemingly inconsequential decisions ended up changing everything.

american popular music is rife with such stories--like, for instance, the low-level functionary who decided "the pendletones" was a dumb name for a band that was doing surf music, crossed it out on their first pressing and wrote in "the beach boys" instead.

or the lamentable story of boz scaggs--who, when he finally hit paydirt with "lowdown" in the late 70's and got two movie soundtrack offers, opted for the high-end production with the big stars rather than the cheesy, low-budget disco flick, and then watched with dismay as his prospects for fortune died along with the flop that was looking for mr. goodbar, while saturday night fever went on to make millions for everybody involved.

but my favorite "what might've been" story by far is the one about two high-school friends who, in their early twenties, transcended their "tom and jerry" past to produce a first album of extraordinary maturity.  a minimalist masterpiece, it was released by columbia to minimal fanfare, received minimal promotion and airplay, and died before anybody ever heard it.

it wasn't their fault they'd released an acoustic folk album just as the world was leaving acoustic folk behind--their timing sucked, that was all.

whatever.  chastened and disillusioned by their failure, the pair split up and went their separate ways, and that's the way this story should've ended.

except there was this producer who decided one of the tracks of said failed album was kinda catchy and just needed a lil' sprucing up.  so he grabbed some session musicians and overdubbed some electric guitars and drums onto it, and, without any consultation with the original artists, released the mashed-up result as a single.

i've often wondered what the author's reaction was when he first heard the unauthorized electrified version of his sacred, existential howl--and then his reaction when said unauthorized electrified version went straight to number one and made him an international superstar.

does the end justify the means?  i'd love to ask both paul simon and art garfunkel that question.

but since i can't [and since it came up on shuffle tonight and thus inspired this post] i offer up for your delectation the original version you've probably never heard.




when i was in high school i used to play this over and over and twirl the balance knob on my stereo back and forth from left channel to right to hear first one voice and then the other, and then blend the two together--because in this, the original acoustic version, art garfunkel's voice occupied the left channel and paul simon's the right, so you could fully experience their harmonic magic [this subtlety got lost in the remake, when the original got crammed onto one track in order to make room for the new guitars and drums and shit on the other].

for good measure, i'm also gonna include the title track of this lost album.  bask in its glory--or, if you wanna more fully appreciate what these two kids accomplished, do what i used to do and listen to the left channel through the first verse, then the right through the second, and then blend the two together.

i know that's harder to do now that balance knobs don't exist anymore, but trust me--it's worth the effort.