February 18, 2022 —– Chart #131
Hello Music Friends,
It’s another Friday and time for Chart of the Week. Today we go to 1968 and one of the great singer songwriter duos of our generation. “Mrs. Robinson” is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel from their fourth studio album, Bookends (1968). The song was released as a single on April 5, 1968, by Columbia Records. Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, it is famous for its association with the 1967 film The Graduate. The song was written by Paul Simon, who pitched it to director Mike Nichols alongside Art Garfunkel after Nichols rejected two other songs intended for the film. The Graduate’s soundtrack album uses two short versions of “Mrs. Robinson”; a full version was later included on Bookends. The song was additionally released on the Mrs. Robinson EP in 1968, which also included three other songs from the film: “April Come She Will”, “Scarborough Fair/Canticle”, and “The Sound of Silence”.
“Mrs. Robinson” became the duo’s second chart-topper, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as peaking within the top 10 of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain, among other countries. In 1969, it became the first rock song to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The song contains a famous reference to baseball star Joe DiMaggio. The song has been covered by a number of artists, including Frank Sinatra, the Lemonheads, and Bon Jovi. In 2004, it finished at No. 6 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.
Simon’s inclusion of the phrase “coo-coo-ca-choo” is a homage to a lyric in the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus”. References in the last verse to Joe DiMaggio are perhaps the most discussed. Simon, a fan of Mickey Mantle, was asked during an intermission on The Dick Cavett Show why Mantle was not mentioned in the song instead of DiMaggio. Simon replied, “It’s about syllables, Dick. It’s about how many beats there are.” Simon happened to meet DiMaggio at a New York City restaurant in the 1970s, and the two immediately discussed the song. DiMaggio said “What I don’t understand, is why you ask where I’ve gone. I just did a Mr. Coffee commercial, I’m a spokesman for the Bowery Savings Bank and I haven’t gone anywhere!” Simon replied “that I didn’t mean the lines literally, that I thought of him as an American hero and that genuine heroes were in short supply. He accepted the explanation and thanked me. We shook hands and said good night”. In a New York Times op-ed in March 1999, shortly after DiMaggio’s death, Simon discussed this meeting and explained that the line was meant as a sincere tribute to DiMaggio’s unpretentious and modest heroic stature, in a time when popular culture magnifies and distorts how we perceive our heroes. He further reflected: “In these days of Presidential transgressions and apologies and prime-time interviews about private sexual matters, we grieve for Joe DiMaggio and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence”. Simon subsequently performed “Mrs. Robinson” at Yankee Stadium in DiMaggio’s honor shortly after his death in 1999.
Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel performing live in Central Park: https://youtu.be/5JVPdb6Urhw
Art performing at Yankee Stadium on DiMaggio Day in 1999: https://youtu.be/07b-WtWT2BA
Keep Rockin my friends,
Stan