The Best and the Worst

I might've said it before in this blog, but I can't remember, so I'll say it again. It is my opinion that Simon & Garfunkel's version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is one of the most perfect songs ever. Artie sounds more like an angel than he ever had or ever would. When he goes for that last "Bridge" and hits that high note......[one hand on the forehead, the other on the heart], it just gets me. He just makes the weight of the lyrics believable, what one person would pledge to another.
Except for that "sail on silver girl" line. But maybe Clive Davis made them put that in.
The song is so good, nobody else should ever sing it. Nobody. It wouldn't be as good. And I'm sure some awful versions have been attempted (high school choirs, anyone??)
Well, maybe Rufus Wainwright could do it justice.
And my son. He's too young now, but I'm sure that some day he could pack the same emotional wallop.

On the other end of the spectrum, I heard one of the latest in an ongoing serious of awful modern Adult Contemporary songs at work the other day. I forget the singer's name, which is probably a godsend, but the song is called "Live." As in "live your life." The song was awful because it's one of those "my life is really really dull and I have nothing to say about it, but I'm going to keep on living" songs. She wakes up in the morning and there's a pizza box on the floor. She has to go work, where her boss is a jerk. Geez, too bad she didn't have to go to school to learn the golden rule, or gaze at the moon in the month of June.
Maybe it's Jerry Seinfeld's fault - for being successful in a medium where nothing supposedly happens. All this banality is suddenly supposed to be interested. Well, it ain't. I want to find the chump who sang the song a few tracks prior to "Live" - the guy who sang "I wish the real world would get off my back" - and bump his head against this Jennifer's, and make them read a damn book and come up with something more imaginative to say than just how hard it is to do nothing in a boring world.