page_title: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme / Composition
caption_attribution_description: Simon &amp; Garfunkel arrive at Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands in 1966.
context_page_description: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is the third studio album by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel. Produced by Bob Johnston, the album was released on October 24, 1966 in the United States by Columbia Records. Following the success of their debut single "The Sound of Silence", Simon & Garfunkel regrouped after a time apart while Columbia issued their second album, a rushed collection titled Sounds of Silence. For their third album, the duo spent almost three months in the studio, for the first time extending a perfectionist nature both in terms of instrumentation and production.
  The album largely consists of acoustic pieces that were mostly written during Paul Simon's period in England the previous year, including some numbers recycled from his debut solo record, The Paul Simon Songbook. The album includes the Garfunkel-led piece "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her", as well as "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night", a combination of news reports of the day, and the Christmas carol "Silent Night".
  Many critics have considered it a breakthrough in recording for the duo, and one of their best efforts.
context_section_description: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is largely characterized by sharp contrasts from song to song. Simon found it difficult to write new songs; biographer Peter Ames Carlin notes that the sequence of promotion, including concerts and interviews, made Simon feel out of his element. "He needed things to be familiar", he wrote. In addition, sudden fame had affected both his relationships and him personally. Much of the album is composed of recycled songs written by Simon during his period in England in 1965. Three songs on the album—"Patterns", "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall", and "A Simple Desultory Phillippic"—also appear on Simon's first solo effort, The Paul Simon Songbook ("Canticle", the second half of opening ballad "Scarborough Fair", is also culled from another song on the record, "The Side of a Hill").
  "Scarborough Fair", the title track, a traditional ballad, combines "fingerpicked guitar accompaniment, delicate chimes, harpsichord embellishments, and the vocal blend". "Patterns" posits that the average life is no less predetermined than that of a rat in a maze. String snaps are used prominently in "Patterns", as well as a "syncopated bass and frenetic bongo part". Much of the original guitar line remains the same from its earlier incarnation. "Cloudy" revolves around "a hitchhiker's meanderings in northern California". It employs a "breezy, almost jazzy musical style". "Homeward Bound" carries a sense of melancholia, which biographer Marc Eliot attributed to an "echo of longing" that had resurfaced during the recording process over the failed relationship with Kathy Chitty. "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" is a "satirical appropriation of an electric, organ-heavy psychedelic rock style," in which the singer complains of various woes in his life, which can be "readily eased" by purchasing the titular device. "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" is a brief vignette "made up of variations on a two-bar ostinato figure," in which the protagonist goes about a carefree morning.
  "The Dangling Conversation" concerns a dying relationship, but Garfunkel disliked the song, feeling it pretentious. In contrast to its earlier appearance on The Paul Simon Songbook, "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall" appears here as a "folk combo that produces a bright, almost bluegrass sound". "A Simple Desultory Philippic" is a "satirical rant about the singer's confrontations with a wide variety of pop-culture personalities and phenomena". In the song, Simon vocally imitates Bob Dylan, as well as his harmonica interjections. "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" has sometimes been thought to be named after poet Emily Dickinson. Simon later explained that "For Emily" is not about an imaginary girl Emily, but about a belief, while the song "Overs" (from the album Bookends) is about the loss of that belief. While other songs, such as "The Sound of Silence", had taken months for Simon to complete writing, others, such as "For Emily", were written in a single night. "A Poem on the Underground Wall" largely revolves around a man creating graffiti on a sign in a subway station, with Simon also bringing into play "a variety of visceral and religious images".
  "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" is a sound collage consisting of the duo singing "Silent Night" in two-part harmony over an arpeggiated piano part while a news report plays. "The result rather bluntly makes an ironic commentary on various social ills by juxtaposing them with tenderly expressed Christmas sentiments." The simulated newscast was voiced by Charlie O'Donnell, then a radio disc jockey.
caption: Simon & Garfunkel at Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands in 1966
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