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Art Garfunkel "Watermark" (1977)
Crying In MY Sleep/Marionette/Shine It On Me/Watermark/Saturday
Suit/All My Love's Laughter//(What A) Wonderful World/Mr Shuck 'n' Jive/Paper
Chase/She Moved Through The Fair/Someone Else (1958)/Wooden Planes
There's a 'watermark' that runs through most of this
album, but it's not the singer's mark or even the producer's (ex Traffic member
and Dylan producer Barry Beckett) but the writer's, at times leaving Garfunkel
sounding like a guest on his own solo album and no longer the visionary of his
first two records. For the first time since Simon and Garfunkel broke up, Art
is working with a single vision across an entire record (give or take a
substituted hit single) and how you view the success of 'Watermark' depends
much more on what you think of Jimmy Webb than it does what you think of Art
Garfunkel. There are perhaps more similarities between Jimmy and Paul than you
might suppose: both came to fame young but struggled to stay there, both
started their careers as 'hit factory' songwriters and by 1977 both were
somewhat overlooked, dismissed as yesterday's news. However both also share a
similarly timeless feel in their music and topics, with simple yet epic songs
about love and life and their songs largely have an inner 'toughness' that
makes them stand out against Arty's often overly-pretty collection of cover
songs. Sadly what they don't share is a similar sense of daring, originality or
variety, with 'Watermark' ending up a slightly soggy album that travels in more
or less the same direction all the way through, in contrast to the S and G
albums which were never the same from track to track. Had Arty been lured into
the spider's Webb at the start of his career he would surely have been a
success anyway ('All I Know', his first hit solo single, is a fine Jimmy Webb
composition) - unfortunately, after working with Paul Simon, even a writer as
talented as Webb was going to come off second best. 'Watermark' ends up all too
often being a case of putting too many musical eggs inside one basket and Arty
- who usually has one of the most expressive voices in the business - uses the
same mood on most of the record (the only two songs Jimmy didn't write - 'What
A Wonderful World', which was substituted for another Webb song 'Fingerpaints'
on the higher profile re-issue and folk standard 'She Moved Through The Fair'
are notably the two that really stand out). The real difference is that you can
imagine Jimmy Webb songs being covered by other people as equally well as Arty sings
them here whereas every Simon and Garfunkel cover that doesn't feature Art on
there somewhere seems wrong and faintly absurd.
Which is not to say that this is an awful album or
anything like that. At least Arty's picks of Webb songs to sing are unusual,
even if none were written directly for this album or his voice. Almost half of
'Watermark' can sit amongst Arty's best work, especially when there's a real
sense of emotion and passion in the room breaking out of Watermark's slight
sense of detachment. 'Crying In My Sleep' delivers exactly what Art needs in a
song - the sense that he's trying hard not to reveal his emotions but that
they're so strong he can't help himself. It's full of the moments that make up
all of his best loved works: the final push on 'Bright Eyes' when shock turns
into grief, the finale to 'For Emily Wherever I May Find Her' where awe turns
into a feeling so strong it can't be contained any longer and especially the
last verse of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' when Art hints that he isn't just a
stable rock in a changing world but overflowing with emotional currents and is
easily the most fitting of the Jimmy Webb songs on the album. The title track
too is an entertaining experiment in which Art sings passionate words across
the most straightforward and almost cold delivery of his career, a real song
full of hidden meanings. 'She Moved Through The Fair' is even better, slowing
the old standard down from a jolly jaunt about chasing your first love into a
scary nightmarish crawl through hidden passages where any wrong move can result
in heartbreak, pregnancy or tragedy, the opposite of this song's usual teenage
freedom trademarks. And then there's 'What A Wonderful World', released a month
after the album and a surprise hit single, that offers what's naturally a
rather gloomy and eye-wateringly melancholic album a warm note of love and hope
at its core. Four great songs isn't actually that bad a ratio for Art Garfunkel
solo albums, but it has to be said that most of the rest of 'Watermark' is so
wishy-washy it escapes your notice. And when you have a singer as powerful as
Arty delivering songs by a writer as good (if not great) as Jimmy Webb this set
really should have delivered something a bit more.
In a way it sounds like a record made on holiday,
but a difficult holiday - which in many ways it was. 'Watermark' took 13 months
to make and Arty recorded in seven different locations, travelling out to
anywhere he thought might have the right vibes (though most of it was made in
the rather different locations of Ireland and Alabama). Even the cover art
looks like a holiday shot - it was taken by Arty's girlfriend, the actress
Laurie Bird, a couple of years before her suicide (a theme which dominates
Art's next two albums) and together with the sad and mournful songs seems
almost like a warning of some kind. The sea, after all, isn't that far away to
Arty and rises up threatening and grey, even though Arty has his face to 'us'
and seems oblivious to the wave about to crash over his head. That's a pretty
good representation of the overall feeling for this album, actually with most
of the songs here picking up on the theme that things are right on the cusp of
growing out of control. 'Crying In My Sleep' 'Marionette' 'Shine It On Me' 'She
Moved Through The Fair' 'Paper Chase' and 'Someone Else' are all about recent
breakups in relationships that were meant to last forever, whether the
narrator's, his partner's or in 'Marionette' the girl he clearly fancies
rotten. In all of these songs the narrator has tried to be a grown-up, faced up
to the loss in his life with icy calm and detachment and listened to his head
when it tells him that the pairings were clearly never meant to be; however at
the same time this record's narrator's can't ignore the fact that he's been
wounded deeply to the core. This causes him to do many intense things across
this record: to burst out in tears and confess all to a telephone operator
('Crying In My Sleep'), become tainted by 'fading varnish' after a lifetime of
bright colours ('Marionette'), finally break the habit of a lifetime and
confess all in a love poem after the timing for admitting he's in love has
passed ('Shine It On Me'), 'Paper Chase' sees Arty running in a last ditch
attempt to woo someone whose been hanging out with every boy available (and a
few that aren't), 'She Moved Through The Fair' bids goodbye to virginity and
freedom with an impressively creepy arrangement given that it's about the
wedding night bliss of two true loves and 'Someone Else' is a row after hearing
about a partner's infidelity, albeit a clearly well practised and sober one.
You wouldn't necessarily know about all this emotional turmoil from just
hearing the album (as opposed to reading the lyrics sheet) though: 'Watermark'
is a slightly schizophrenic record that longs to let go in a burst of passion
but finds itself trapped by the need to stay firmly within the middle of the
road. How better a record it might have been if Arty had given into his
passions and sang from his heart, rather than from the more inhibited side of
his personality (though that said Webb's own recordings of some of these songs
are much the same - Arty clearly picks up on his new friend's ability to
second-guess and hint rather than come out and say things which is what makes
him still one of Webb's more suitable interpreters - it's just a shame that the
inner fire that Arty does so well gets extinguished on this album perhaps more
than any other).
There's another theme that floats through this
record and it's one of nostalgia - funnily enough old partner Paul Simon's most
contemporary record 'Still Crazy After All These Years' shows signs of this
too. On both records the idea is that anyone of a similar age has by now accrued
an awful lot of baggage, but there's still the hope that meeting the right
person out there will help them unpack. Though Arty doesn't meet any old lovers
on the street last night, he reminisces often about school ('Don't know what a
slide rule is for!'), playground games ('Paper Chase', a more erudite version
of 'Kiss Chase'), teenage days dressing up to go out on the pull ('Saturday
Suit', a very different and innocent song compared to the sheer torture of the
older and wiser 'Crying In My Sleep'), boyhood friendships involving wooden toy
planes, a previous life in the war ('Mr Shuck 'n' Jive') and distant memories
and impressions of past loves that exists even when they look so different now
they're older ('Watermark' itself). Together with the 'other' theme of a
relationship hitting a rock in the road (or a tidal wave in a previously still
ocean), 'Watermark' is an album that spends a lot of time looking backwards.
The future is a scary place full of unknowns while the past can be viewed
through rose-tinted glasses because we know what the outcomes were (even when
they were sad ones, at least they seemed certain).
In context, I think know where this album is coming
from for Arty (remember he still picked the songs, even if Webb wrote most of
them), although as usual the private Garfunkel never mentioned anything such in
interviews. He'd been a bachelor for most of his life, staying single
throughout the Simon and Garfunkel years when he could have had anybody he
chose. When he finally took the plunge with Linda Marie Grossman in 1972 both
sides agreed early on that it was a bad idea and they were divorced by 1975,
making 'Watermark' the first album since their split. Almost as soon as that
relationship was over, though, came Laurie Bird who was arguably the love (or
at least one of them) of Arty's life but she was fragile and sensitive, the
exact opposite of the fiery relationship Garfunkel had with Linda Marie. She
was desperate to marry, to have some concrete proof that Arty loved her and
only her - after being burned so recently Arty couldn't bring himself to do it
and thought the couple had plenty of time together. Sadly he was wrong.
'Watermark' always used to strike me as an oddly unromantic album for someone
who'd just found his soulmate a couple of years before (a different matter when
you sing other people's songs perhaps, but you'd expect some love songs in here
somewhere) and who was open enough about his relationship to feature her name
on the back of the album. Actually, playing it again in so many times in quick
succession it strikes me more that it's an incredibly passionate and romantic
album but that neither side feels up to admitting it for a whole variety of
reasons and so the people who exist in these song-worlds hide it as best they
can. Someone else stolen your girl? Write them a calm note saying what a shame
that is while begging them to read between the lines and come back.
Relationship ruined? Sob your heart out - not to the girl in question but to a
phone operator of all people and then backtrack like mad that it was only a bad
dream, honest ('That's all hat's wrong with me!') Obsessed with images of past
loves running through your head? Leave them like that and keep them as a happy
memory rather than acting on them. Like water, the love in this album which
could have been so strong simply passes through the characters' hands, even
though at one stage it felt as strong and powerful as that rising wave on the
album cover.
It's worth pausing at this point to note how fitting
it is that it's the schizophrenic 'Watermark' that comes in two shades, with
altered track listings considering whether you own the first 'doomed' pressing
of October 1977 or the 'improved' chart entry of January 1978 (which is the one
copied for all subsequent re-issues). The difference is the substitution of the
Webb track 'Fingerpaints' for the Paul Simon reunion hit 'What A Wonderful
World', a song whose warm glow doesn't really suit this album of muted
melancholy but is a highlight all the same. CBS out this version out in a panic
when the first edition missed the charts; though the second edition still sold
less than 'Angel Clare' or 'Breakaway' it still sold better thanks to the
inclusion of the later single (and 'Watermark' ended up selling roughly as many
copies when both sets of sales are added together). For those who own the
'first' copy of the album 'Fingerpaints' sounds like every other Jimmy Webb
song on this album so you're not missing much, full of descriptions of
childhood painting games and innocence. In this song the boy who fancies a girl
draws a picture of her to take home and cherish in big daubs of paint and no
one thinks anything of it - although keeping it into adulthood and weeping over
what might have been seems a trifle less 'normal'. The contrasting happy
memories of 'Wonderful World' are much better, if less fitting.
Overall, then, 'Watermark' is a little bit
wishy-washy and heavy going for those who, like me, consider Jimmy Webb a
lesser talent than some of the other songwriters Art's covered down the years.
There are too many tracks here that don't resonate at all (I still can't tell
you how 'Mr Shuck 'n' Jive goes...) and even the ones that do are cut out of
such similar cloth that it feels like there's no growth or danger on this album
the way there is with the other three albums made in the 1970s. Many reviewers
considered 'watermark' too 'safe' which isn't strictly true - it's a brave move
to record almost a whole album of songs by the same composer and for most of
them to deal with unrequited or extinguished love rather than cute love
ballads. However the strong moments on 'Watermark' - almost always the lyrics,
especially the trademark 'twist' of emotion running high - redeem much of the
record if you're paying close attention and though I would have liked to hear
Arty soar the way we know he can offer us the hint of a hidden smile of ecstasy
and a tear of hurt better than almost any other singer of his generation. Like
a watermark that's always there and isn't really gone, there's a part of this
album that stays with you long after the record has stopped playing (especially
the nostalgic thrill of 'Wonderful World' and the spooky vibrations of 'She
Moved Through The Fair', the two songs here Webb didn't write). I just wish
there was more of it and that the power that's clearly here on 'Watermark' had
been more of a raging storm than a paddling pool.
The album starts with 'Crying In My Sleep', by far
the most emotional of Jimmy Webb's songs. Arty's been trying to cope with life
on his own and, you know, he's coping honest: he's been walking round the yard,
going out for coffee and watching TV. But every so often he sees something that
reminds him of his beloved and his whole world comes tumbling down: the
'leading lady' on TV looks just that bit like she did, Art tries to read a book
she wrote which he just happens to have kept (not for any special reason, it's
just a good book) and suddenly he's not
coping so well. He's even taken up smoking to forget her, desperate to be
addicted to something else for a change. Things get worse when he wakes up from
a nightmare and reaches out for her arms, temporarily forgetting that she's not
there anymore, which makes the nightmare worse. In his panic Art knocks his
phone over and finds himself comforting the operator, panicked by his cries of
pain, suddenly switching from intense emotional pain into cool dude, I'm fine
persona. By now we and he both know that he's lying to himself, that a bad
dream isn't 'all that's wrong with me' - his whole world's fallen apart but
he's still crying to carry on as usual. How typical of Webb's detached style,
then, that his most emotional set of lyrics come from a sense of detachment and
pretending things are ok. The fact that there is emotion in there somewhere,
though, makes this a far more suitable song for Garfunkel than all of the
others here and he's at his expressive best here with one of his all-time
greatest vocals, going from surly to sweet in the blink of an eye. A gorgeous
song with more originality and heart than most of Webb's catalogue, this is one
of the clear highlights of the album, made all the more poignant by Arty's
girlfriend Laurie Bird playing the part of the telephone operator two years
before the singer loses her for real, when he'll do a similar act of denial
over how badly it affected him.
'Marionette' is an odd little song, a
heartbreakingly sad song performed as a bright and happy Spanish flamenco
that's set in Brandenburg, Germany. No, me neither. This time the narrator
laments not for himself but for a girl whose been used like a puppet, left outside
in the rain like some cake (did we mention Jimmy Webb's most famous song was
'MacArthur Park'?), her painted smile cracking and her bright colours finding
as she's 'left on the shelf'. It's clearly a song of domestic abuse and neglect
but one that's been put into softer, gentler metaphors for public consumption.
The metaphor is a good one though: the girl is clearly being used as a puppet,
made to her partner's bidding at all times and her cracked smile is a worthy
image for the real feelings she's trying to cover up. The hint as well, at
least to my ears, is that the narrator is the person who originally 'painted'
the marionette (ie her first love) and he's horrified that she chose someone
abusive over him when he'd have treated her like a Queen (some fans have
wondered if he is in fact the abuser himself, with some typical Webb detachment
going on, but in that case someone else had been along and left his marionette
out in the rain, which would be a bit odd). What's odd is that this song
simultaneously sounds like a carnival, full of joy and laughter and dancing.
Are we meant to take this song as being from the man's point of view? Are we
supposed to be in on the joke and pretending that everything's fine? If so,
then that's perhaps a stretch too far - there's nothing in this song that
wouldn't be all the more powerful for being slower and more heartfelt, but then
Webb isn't really that sort of heartfelt passionate writer. Also, what's with
the closing lines 'paint yourself blue and make yourself as young as I once was
myself' - is the narrator urging the marionette to make herself prettier to get
noticed rather than doing the sensible thing and helping her out of her
difficult situation? The end result is a mixed blessing; Arty again sings the
song as if he's totally mis-read the lyrics and that nothing's wrong and it's
so convincing you almost believe it too. A few extra hints at what's going on
beneath the strings and the paint might have helped make the point clearer
though, at least to thick listeners like me who took a few playings of this
song to work out what it was all about.
'Shine It On Me' features the prettiest melody out
of all the Webb songs, a sleepy lush piano ballad on which Arty soars like a
bird (or Kee-haw The Seagull maybe?) However considering that this is a rare
example of a directly-engaging song of emotion from Webb, it's a curiously
unmoving experience. Even after a painful breakup Webb admits 'you were the
best person I ever knew' and tries to leave the love of his life with a message
to send her on her way, only to realise that time is growing too short to say
everything he wants to say. There's a great couplet too where the narrator
realises that the girl he's in love with is a vision of his own making rather
than whose really there and that 'looking in the mirror...I got confused and
thought your eyes were mine'. Fine so far, but Webb never gets on to pass on
what's in his mind, instead taking a detour and asking his lover to 'protect
your sanity - and then shine it on me', which is more something you get told by
your psychiatrist than your significant other. Was their relationship together
really this weird? Isn't the whole point of a break-up song the fact that one
or other or both of you don't want to shine your 'sanity' on each other
anymore? David Crosby and Leah Kunkel (wife of session drummer Russell) guest
and both are always a credit to any album but both are mixed far too low while
Arty's vocal is poor by his high standards on automatic pilot rather than
digging out the pure hard emotion the track demands. Garfunkel less emotional
than Webb? This really isn't a good idea, which is a shame given the promising
opening which may well be the loveliest thirty seconds on the record.
'Watermark' is one of the more interesting Webb
songs, re-arranged by Garfunkel and Beckett from a more straightforward love
song into one of those slightly ominous Medival fairy tales he loves so much
(think 'Scarborough Fair' crossed with this album's 'She Moved Through The
Fair'). This sense of hidden doors and half-forgotten memories buried deep
inside suits a lyric that's about a love from a long time ago that may or may
not have been as powerful as the narrator is remembering (did he build it up in
his memory-banks to be more than it was?) It's so long ago he doesn't really
remember her anymore - not her body or her face, just her presence and essence,
a 'watermark' passing across his memory. Always one for a metaphor, Webb
compares her to 'a song half heard through a closed door' and 'an old book when
you can't read the writing anymore' and yet your memory still recalls
everything you need to know. It might be worth pointing out about now Jimmy
Webb's, erm, complicated love life. Patricia Sullivan was a 12-year-old actress
and model when she first met Jimmy after both were asked to pose for the cover
of Teen magazine when Webb was a 21-year-old heart-throb pin-up. The two
instantly connected and married seven years later - though not till after
they'd had a baby together (conceived when Patsy was seventeen). For long
periods the pair tried to keep apart to try to save the scandal impacting both
their careers - this might explain the tug of war between expression and
detachment that goes on in most Webb songs. But especially this one: it's not
that the girl in 'Watermark' dates from so long ago, but that the narrator has
been trying to forget her for some reason, trying to tell himself that he
shouldn't be remembering her face when she's so young - and yet she means so
much to him he can't forget her 'watermark' however hard he tries. Note the
line 'Her innocent visage as my child lover', an image pressed forever on the
narrator's eyelids whenever he closes his eyes and is alone, a line which on
the original is spat out with some venom and bitterness (though Arty sings it
straight here). Suddenly by the end of the song she's no longer so young but
decaying before his eyes, caught in her prime only on an 'ancient canvas' as he
waits even longer for her to be his. There's a sense of guilt and threat and of
an innocent virgin being led to her doom on 'Watermark' which makes it feel
more like a track from the more haunted 'Angel Clare' (named, don't forget, for
a character in Thomas Hardy's work about doomed heroine Tess O'The
Durbuvilles'). But at the same time, it's spoken from the view of a man who
only wants to love and respect the girl he fears he'll never be allowed to have
- there's no attempt to lead her astray on the Road to Mandalay here; she feels
it too. With so many societal 'rules' in place, though, remembering her
'Watermark' is as close as he's going to get. Listen out for the end of the
song, when the song stops being dreamlike and hazy (a production effect made
using echo by the sound of it, in true S and G fashion) and becomes 'real' for a
few agonising notes, waddling back from thought into the harsh light of real
life. One of Webb's most impressive compositions, the track is helped a great
deal by Arty's soft and non-judgemental touch as the singer also feels like he
doesn't quite belong to 'this' world. By contrast Webb's 'other' famous
interpreter Richard Harris recorded a truly horrible version of this song,
which is over-dramatic and over-egged. Frustratingly, it was a much bigger hit
even though it's not what the song's about at all! (Says me anyway!)
'Saturday Suit' is a more 'traditional' Webb song,
i.e. one where not a lot happens. The narrator and his partner have had a busy
week and want to escape, dreaming of getting dressed up and walking into a cafe
for a few blissful hours. Compared to the strict deadlines of the rest of the
week the couple can take their time ('This day has no number, this day has no
name'), the twist at the end of the song being that the pair enjoyed it so much
they're doing it again even though it's Monday morning! There's not much of a
song to get a hold on here really, with only producer Beckett's Fender Rhodes
piano catching the ear - even Arty sounds as if he's sleepwalking just that
little bit too much through this sleepy song. It would have been better still
if he'd featured his usual band of guest stars on this track too instead of
simply using (what sounds like anyway) a choir of Garfunkels all singing more
or less the same part. Oh well, like the Saturday itself it's over relatively
quickly and painlessly before the meatier days of the week arrive again...
Side one ends with power-pop ballad 'All My Love's
Laughter'. It's a warning song from the narrator to whatever lover comes next
after he does - yes she's beautiful and acts meek and mild but she's really a
devil child. However Webb can never bring himself to be emotional enough to
tell us why except by confusing metaphors: she stands 'in the shade', she basks
in the light and 'you'll never know till it's night' and she'll cover up how
lost she really feels with trinkets, satins and laces. Everyone else thinks
she's sweet when they meet her, so why does the narrator have such a problem
with her? The last verse is the closest we have to a clue, that she's 'winning
- and yet you never will!' But what exactly has she won? She hasn't done
anything that upsetting and her character isn't that different to the one she was pretending to have, making
this a song more about the narrator's insecurities about not letting her be
himself but image of what she's like more than anything else. It doesn't help
that the music on this track is so forgettable, conveying neither the sweetness
and light 'act' the girl is putting on or the toughness of what lies
underneath, simply drifting its way from first note to last. Arty is always at
his best when he's got an emotion to convey, but on this track he sounds
confused so sings in 'neutral' despite this song's scope for hurt or regret or
anger. Not one of the album's better songs or performances.
What a wonderful moment it is though when 'What A
Wonderful World' bursts through the speakers. A slower and cuter version than
Sam Cooke's 1950s original, it's a fitting choice for Arty to choose to work
with two old friends, Paul Simon and James Taylor. Unlike 'My Little Town'
which was designed as a meeting on equal terms, this is very much Arty's show
and he gets to orchestrate his pals the way he's always wanted to: James get
the bottom, Garfunkel gets the middle and at last the public get to hear Paul's
gorgeous falsetto, something he used to use on demos for where Arty's voice
would go ('Bridge' is the only released one so far, on the Paul Simon 1964-1993
box set) but never till now on record. Arty thought this was his partner's
greatest gift and nagged him lots of times to use it; now, as the de facto
producer (well technically it was Phil Ramone for this one track, but Arty was
in charge) Arty gets his wish and proves to have been right all along. He also
puts the chorus first, which gives the song a much happier, hopeful vibe than
most cover versions that start with the long list of 'don't know much abouts'. This lovely song's cosy nostalgia is perfect
for the reunion of old friends and it's great to hear three musicians who were
pin-ups for the college/educated circuit joking that they can't remember any of
their education, but they sho' know a lot about love. Surely no one would have
been able to resist the narrator's pleas that they messed up their education
because they were in 'love' and 'what a wonderful world this would be' if they
could just maybe love them back? There are at least thirty 'wonderful's in this
track (I lost count somewhere near the end), but unlike most of this album that
repetition is, umm, quite wonderful - this is a gloriously sunny, funny, warm
and heartfelt track that works as both three old friends messing around on an
old standard and as an impressive cover in its own right. A #17 US hit, it did
better than Paul, Arty or for that matter James' solo singles had done since
1975 ('My Little Town' being the last big hit for Simon and Garfunkel), though
strangely only in America - this wasn't even a single in most of Europe, which
might be why it always seems to get missed out of compilations.
'Mr Shuck 'n' Jive' finds us back in the solemn
Jimmy Webb universe again. A song not about love but about an old war hero
facing his hardest battle as he struggles to fight illness and old age. In the
1970s World War Veterans were a dying breed (much like WW2 Vets are today), it
starts off as a moody prophet of doom and steps away for a bizarre scat-singing
middle that ruins the whole effect (some people say this features David Crosby
again, but frankly it's not that good though he may be on the rest of the song
- it's most likely Miles Davis' pianist and vocal arranger Bob Dorough). We're
clearly meant to think of his past and happiness and the contrast between the
dancing genius of his teens and the still figure waiting to die, but the
movement between the two parts makes this incredibly clunky and if you're not
paying attention it either seems like the old man has got up from his death-bed
to dance a quick shuffle or that the narrator is wringing his hands over the
fact that he's nearly pegged it. Actually it's a deep and heartfelt song that's
built around sincere affection and the narrator's pain over his hero's quiet
death when everyone should be singing his praises feels heartfelt. Oddly Arty's
delivery doesn't, even though this sort of awe and hope mingled with dread is
what he does so well (this is 'Bright Eyes' but with a human instead of a
rabbit). With a bit more work 'Mr Shuck 'n' Jive' could have danced all night,
but as it's left on the record it sounds more like someone tripping over and
isn't the graceful bow out the war veteran sounds like he deserved. The one
part of the song that works well is the brief saxophone break, which was the
last recording ever made featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Paul Desmond, who
passed away five months before the album's (first) release and knew he was
dying from lung cancer at just 52 when he recorded it (his big quote: 'People
are worried about my lungs - they should see what I've done to my liver!')
Other people who know more about jazz than me say it's one of his finest
moments - it certainly has exactly the haunting, fragile quality the rest of
the song demands, when it's not trying to break-dance that is.
'Paper Chase' sounds like it should have been the
single from the album: up tempo, noisy and catchy, though without any of the
depth or grace of Garfunkel at his best. Arty doesn't even sound much like
himself on this track, singing deeply on the verses (and a lot more like Webb
than on the other tracks) before finally reverting back to normal on the
lengthy middle eight. The guitars are good though, with a real drive and punch
that you'd expect from the Muscle Shoals section (Arty must have got their
address from Paul when they met up!) At one two and a half minutes this song
doesn't give you much pause for breath to think about the holes in the plot but
here they are anyway for your convenience: Jimmy seems to have got two
playground games muddled up here (well, it was a long time ago). The paper
chase of the title is a game where one person is the 'hare' hunted by 'hounds'
and though he has a head start and can run anywhere he likes, he has to leave a
trail of paper wherever he turns a corner. In other words, a) you have to great
faith in who you choose as your hare so that he won't just mess you around and
dump a whole bucket of paper on the floor round the first bend and claim it was
an 'accident' and b) it's basically a very complicated way of littering while
doing a lot of running, which isn't a multi-skill set many people will ever
need in their lives again. However given that it's girls who keep running away
from the narrator it seems more likely that Jimmy is talking about 'Kiss
Chase', where boys get to chase girls or girls get to chase boys until everyone
is caught. Or so I'm told. I always seemed to miss that game sadly somehow, I
can't think why. Anyway, perhaps it's both games because the hint is that we've
moved on a few years here. The narrator's girl is always one step ahead of him
but leaving just enough 'evidence' of what she's been up to arouse his suspicion,
while the hints are that the 'paper trail' she leaves is a divorce settlement,
not that she's told him to his face yet. The unspoken theme of this song
though: how did love get so nasty and adult when it used to be such a game and
such fun? Is it really the same feeling the narrator used to have for his
playground crushes all those years ago? However because the song is so upbeat
and vibrant and speedy you don't really have time to think about these things -
this song sounds more about the adrenalin rush of the chase rather than the
worry about what happens when you've caught your prey and what happens in life
next.
You could argue that the opposite trick is used on
the standard 'She Moved Through The Fair', which is normally such a sweet and
uplifting song but sounds so dark and ominous here. Some gorgeous Irish
instruments played by The Chieftans (flutes, tin whistles and Uillean pipes)
sets the tone for this Celtic song, but unusually Arty's arrival turns this
sweet song into sour. The tempo, usually so quick and lively, is funeral-slow
and makes us think about every word and read new hidden thoughts into them all.
The young girl, whose so pleased about her wedding day soon and the fact her
boy gets on so well with her parents, dashes away from him not in some multi-coloured
excitement but with a sort of film noir doom. In this version of the song
everything that used to sound so safe and cozy now sounds scary, so that if
this was a soap opera you would just know that something awful was about to
happen to either him or her right at the point when the song slows down and
starts hopping uncomfortably from minor chord to minor chord. Every note on
this track pulls, while Arty's gorgeous vocal drips with cunning and intrigue,
dressed in a ghostly pale echo that makes him sound like one or other's ghost
come back to haunt the scene of his happiest days. Arty's always been good with
folk songs - he has just that sort of rich and pure voice you need for songs
like this - but turning something that should fit him so well and then using
the opposite technique is a stroke of genius. The production, strong for so
much of the album, is at its strongest here too with several subtle touches that
embellish the song so well: listen out for what sounds like a croaking frog at
around 1:30. Or the ghostly second of children's laughter that disappears a
split second before you've quite worked out what it is at 1:48. Or the ghostly harmonies
at 2:15. Or a harp trying to merrily play before being squashed by what sounds
like a hammer horror synthesiser's lowest note three seconds later. Nothing in
this world is doing what we've come to expect and it makes us look at a song we've
heard endlessly in a totally new light. That, dear readers, is how you do a
cover song!
Any song was going to be anti-climactic after that
and 'Someone Else', a dirge of a Webb ballad, doesn't even try to compete.
Worryingly slow and maudlin, a drunken sounding Art gets morose as he realises
that the girl of his dreams is with someone else. Over four short verses and
two short minutes we hear that the narrator has 'known it all the time' but
can't be cross with his successor because he did the same thing to the bloke
before and the same will happen to him in the end. By the end of this
realisation, he's a lot happier - he's worried about this day for so long and
it's finally here and after singing that the girl has found 'someone else' for
three verses, he switches things around in the last one by claiming he too can
find 'someone else'. Arty sounds uncomfortable here - vengeance doesn't suit a
voice that pure and golden - and the echo that was so right for the last track
now sounds so wrong for this one. Even 'Watermark's generally excellent
arrangements for horns don't work that well here, with a deep rumbling part
that doesn't really add much. It was meant for someone else this record,
because it doesn't suit Arty or the album's themes and feel very well this
song. The subtitle '(1958)' intrigues me though: that would make Jimmy Webb 12
at the time of writing, which seems an early age for being replaced by someone
else. Maybe that second game of kiss chase didn't go the way he wanted...
Finally, 'Wooden Planes' gives way to the emotion
that's been building up for most of the album, but in a surreal angular
outburst of colour rather than the direct way most other songwriters would use.
It's another tale of nostalgia and memory, without a twist in the tale this
time as the narrator simply remembers laughing with his brother as they both
ran behind a wooden plane pretending they were in the sky. There's no sign of
what happened afterwards - maybe they both become pilots? - but after pulling
away in the last verse we hear that the narrator is on his deathbed, like Mr
Shuck 'n' Jive', remembering that moment of freedom decades before as the best
time of his life. Forget all the adult stuff that came later - this was what
living was all about and he never found it again. 'If the story of my life ever
makes you sad...' the narrator ends, then think of him this way, happy and
free. Given how controlled the rest of the album has been, it's a shame that
Arty didn't join in with the backing and go all-out in his grand finale.
Instead he's the glue keeping 'Wooden Planes' from flying away, full of poise
and dignity as the world (his body?) goes mad around him and he finds himself
drifting as free as his old model. As lovely as this song is, though, there's
something about it that keeps it from being the tearjerker it's being set up to
be and the ending is particularly disappointing as Arty and 'Watermark'
disappears not in a cloud of rocket fuel or white light but an ahh-ing choir
who sound like they've wandered in from the local Monastry (they could at least
have been in the same key as the song!)
That rather sums up 'Watermark', an album that had
the potential to be great and even gets there for a few moments with a good
four of the best Art Garfunkel songs of the 1970s all on one record, but a few
too many curious ideas or misplaced lyrics or average performances get in the
way. Arty won't work with one composer exclusively again until again teaming up
with Jimmy for 'The Animals' Christmas' in 1986 (which makes this record seem
like a masterpiece!) and that's probably a good thing - though these songs are
all very different, they do feel the same, with a similar 'Watermark' watermark
that runs through them all and Jimmy's similar way of expressing himself means
Art largely expresses himself the same way. Garfunkel is such an expressive
singer it seems a shame to hear him limiting his range to the voice he uses for
most of the Webb recordings here and his attempt to boost a friend's career by
recording nearly a whole album of his songs slightly backfired on him, at least
until the second version of the album hit the shops. There is enough going on
in 'Watermark' to suggest that a few occasional Webb-Garfunkel match-ups would
have been a nice bonus for an album though, even if none of the ones here quite
match Webb's biggest masterpiece 'All I Know'. However it's the power of 'She
Moved Through The Fair' and 'Wonderful World' that suggest the direction this
album might have been better going in: creepy hallucinogenic fairy tales or
warm-blooded takes on love and nostalgia. If the next albums are about 'Fate
For Breakfast' and 'Doubt For Desert' ('Scissors Cut' 1981), then this one is
more of a languid lunch.
Other Garfunkling articles from this site you might be interested in:
'Wednesday Morning 3AM' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-42-simon-and.html
'Sounds Of Silence' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/simon-and-garfunkel-sounds-of-silence.html
'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-7-simon-and-garfunkel-parsley.html
'Bookends' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/news-views-and-music-issue-78-simon-and.html
'Bridge
Over Troubled Water' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/simon-and-garfunkel-bridge-over.html'
Angel Clare' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/art-garfunkel-angel-clare-1973-album.html
‘Breakaway’ (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-68-art-garfunkel-breakaway-1975.html
'Fate For Breakfast' (1979) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/art-garfunkel-fate-for-breakfast-1979.html
'The Animals' Christmas' (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/art-garfunkel-animals-christmas-1986.html
‘Everything Waits To Be Noticed’ (2003) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/art-garfunkel-with-maia-sharp-and-buddy.html
