Paul Simon: Bridge Over Troubled Water and Worlds

The Sound of Queens

Paul Frederic Simon was born on October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in the Kew Gardens Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York. His father, Louis Simon, was a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who made his living as a bass player and bandleader. His mother, Belle, was a schoolteacher. Music was everywhere in the Simon household — Louis played gigs at night and practiced during the day, and young Paul absorbed the rhythms of jazz, doo-wop, and the rock and roll that was just beginning to electrify American teenagers.

At thirteen, Simon met Art Garfunkel, a classmate at Parsons Junior High School. Both were Jewish kids from Queens, both loved music, and both had something to prove. They began performing together as Tom & Jerry, scoring a minor hit with “Hey, Schoolgirl” in 1957. They were sixteen years old.

Simon & Garfunkel

After college (Simon studied English at Queens College; Garfunkel studied mathematics at Columbia), the duo reunited as Simon & Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964), flopped. But when a producer overdubbed electric instruments onto their acoustic track “The Sound of Silence,” it became a number-one hit in 1965, and suddenly they were stars.

What followed was one of the most remarkable runs in popular music. Between 1966 and 1970, Simon & Garfunkel released four albums that defined an era: Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Bookends, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Simon’s lyrics were literary, allusive, and emotionally precise. Songs like “The Boxer,” “America,” “Mrs. Robinson,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” became part of the American songbook.

Their music captured the anxiety and idealism of the 1960s — the feeling of being young and lost and searching in a country that was tearing itself apart. “I am a rock, I am an island” was not just a metaphor; it was a statement of existential isolation that resonated with a generation. The Jewish tradition of questioning, of sitting with discomfort rather than reaching for easy answers, runs through Simon’s early work like a thread.

Solo Career and World Music

After Simon & Garfunkel’s acrimonious split in 1970, Simon embarked on a solo career that would prove even more adventurous. Albums like Paul Simon (1972) and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) showcased his evolving craft. But the real breakthrough came in 1986 with Graceland.

Recorded in Johannesburg with South African musicians — including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Ray Phiri, and the Boyoyo Boys — Graceland was a revolutionary fusion of American pop songwriting and South African township jive, mbaqanga, and isicathamiya. It sold fourteen million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

The album was also controversial. South Africa was under apartheid, and the United Nations had imposed a cultural boycott. Simon argued that collaborating with Black South African musicians was an act of solidarity, not complicity. Whatever the politics, the musical result was extraordinary — and it introduced South African music to a global audience.

Simon continued exploring world music on The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), recorded with Brazilian musicians, and Stranger to Stranger (2016), which incorporated electronic textures and Italian electronic music pioneer Michelangelo’s sound theories.

Jewish Identity

Simon has been characteristically understated about his Jewish identity, but it permeates his work. The searching quality of his lyrics, the moral seriousness, the restless curiosity about other cultures — all reflect the Jewish intellectual tradition he absorbed in Queens. “American Tune,” one of his greatest songs, is set to a Bach chorale melody that originated as a hymn — a Jewish songwriter appropriating Christian music to express the uncertainty of the American experience. It is a profoundly Jewish move.

His father’s immigrant story — a Hungarian Jew who made it in America through music — is the quintessential Jewish-American narrative. And Simon’s own career, bridging cultures and continents, reflects the Jewish experience of diaspora — of belonging everywhere and nowhere, of making home wherever the music takes you.

Paul Simon remains one of the most important songwriters in American history — a Jewish kid from Queens who heard the sound of silence and turned it into art.