Top 10 Simon & Garfunkel Songs

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It’s hard to imagine an America without Simon & Garfunkel. For over half a century, their warm harmonies and socially conscious lyrics have helped to define us as a nation. They’ve compelled us to think about our identity, quietly made us love New York (and, by extension, urbanism in general), and reminded us that rock and roll is all about the size of your attitude, not the size of your amp.

They’re deeply ingrained in our popular culture: their music formed a major part of the soundtrack for the 1967 classic film The Graduate, they’ve appeared, together and separately, on Saturday Night Live many times, and they’ve demonstrated that even if you have personal and creative differences with someone, you can still get together every now and again to make beautiful music — literally. If you’ve never had the privilege of listening to the recording of their 1981 concert in New York’s Central Park, perhaps now is the time to start.

Simon & Garfunkel’s music is timeless, with acoustic melodies that stay with you and themes that inform your moods. While some critics may argue that as a duo, their sound never evolved at all and that one Simon & Garfunkel record blends seamlessly with the following, longtime fans prefer to recognize their music as the continual evolution of their craft, where the two kept working toward some admittedly unattainable Zen-like perfection. And for many fans, that’s exactly what Simon & Garfunkel’s music represents: a moment of Zen, music you can listen to repeatedly, regardless of current trends. It’s music that you can share with your kids, parents, and grandparents, and they all get it because it’s just good.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were together, barring reunions, only between 1964 and 1970, and in those years they released five major studio albums. They reunited periodically in later decades, including the landmark 1981 Central Park concert and tours in the 2000s. After years of estrangement, Simon and Garfunkel met again in 2024 and reconciled personally. With each original studio effort loaded with classics, paring down their music to a top ten list is no easy task; songs left off the list are significantly better than other groups’ best efforts. But it’s worth a shot. Here are our picks for the top ten Simon & Garfunkel songs.

# 10 – The Sound of Silence

Paul Simon originally wrote and recorded “The Sound of Silence” acoustically for 1964’s Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.. Producer Tom Wilson added electric instrumentation to the recording in 1965 without Simon or Garfunkel present, transforming it into the folk-rock single that reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1966. It was exceptionally well received for a song whose foundation remained so subdued. The lyrics speak to anyone who has become frustrated with people who react rather than think — a theme that has become increasingly relevant as the years have passed.

The building of intensity throughout the song is just so appealing. It begins in near stillness and gradually becomes more forceful as Simon’s words move from isolation toward a much larger vision of people failing to communicate. Remarkably, writer Paul Simon placed these intense lyrics over a melody that moves slowly along and builds in intensity simultaneously. It’s not an easy accomplishment, but it sounds effortless.

# 9 – Mrs. Robinson

It initially became well known as the song from The Graduate, but over time, “Mrs. Robinson” has taken its place among classic 1960s American rock songs. The full-length version was completed after the film and released on Bookends in 1968. The song casts a critical eye on appearances, secrecy, nostalgia, and the temptation to look backward, culminating in its famous reference to Joe DiMaggio.

More than its lyrical content, though, “Mrs. Robinson” is perhaps best loved for its timeless melody. The Lemonheads had a hit with their cover of the song in 1992, and while Evan Dando certainly did a great job with it, it’s just so hard to top the original Simon & Garfunkel recording.

# 8 – I Am a Rock

The guitar noodling that opens the track is excellent, yet it in no way foreshadows the strength of what’s to come: the insistence that no emotional connections are needed for a man to survive. We’ve all felt this way or tried to convince ourselves that we feel this way. The theme is 100% relatable but equally outstanding as the guitar work and the melody.

The insistent high chords following the chorus are irresistible, and Simon and Garfunkel’s harmonizing throughout the song is nearly flawless. The real sting comes at the end, when the narrator’s self-protective certainty leaves the listener wondering whether isolation has protected him at all.

# 7 – The Only Living Boy in New York

Recorded for Simon & Garfunkel’s final album, “The Only Living Boy in New York” is, like so many of the duo’s other songs, a Paul Simon song. He wrote it while Garfunkel was away in Mexico filming Catch-22, and the pangs of loneliness are evident from start to finish. It boasts a lovely melody, beautiful chords, and lyrics that are at once about him and about all of us, but the real draw comes around two-thirds of the way through. The guitar turns a riff and the voices flatten into long, layered harmonies before “Here I am,” and it’s all so gorgeous that it sounds more like a devotional hymn than a track on a pop album. Listen to it over and over because it never gets old.

# 6 – Keep the Customer Satisfied

Simon & Garfunkel may be known for their slower, thoughtful songs, but “Keep the Customer Satisfied” from their last album sounds upbeat. It’s a bouncing rhythm decorated with significant chords and harmonies so tight you’d swear it was The Everly Brothers singing them. The lyrics speak to the frustrations of touring and the on-the-road lifestyle, but they’re delivered in such a happy 4/4 that it’s hard to take them too seriously. Still, Simon & Garfunkel are just trying to make audiences happy. It seems to be working.

# 5 – Homeward Bound

Homesickness is one of those universal feelings; it’s a misery that we’ve all experienced, and it’s one that so many artists have tried to capture. No one captures it better than Paul Simon in this 1966 track from the duo’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album. The acoustic guitar work shifts from riff to chord to riff, and the lyrics describe the feeling of just wanting to go home with fantastic precision. The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” may be a more sing-along-able variation on the theme, but if we’re going for sheer emotional pull, it’s a round that Simon & Garfunkel win handily.

# 4 – Cecilia

In his post-Simon & Garfunkel solo career, Paul Simon would explore rhythms from around the world. His work with Art Garfunkel was, in many ways, more faithful to the duo’s American folk roots, but in 1970’s “Cecilia” we get a taste of Simon’s growing fascination with rhythm as the engine of a song. The song is a fan favorite for good reason: the drum-and-claps rhythm kicks the song off right, the lush harmonies come in before the happy strum of the guitars, and the hook is practically barbed. It keeps going for almost three minutes, and not one element lets up. The musical bridge is replaced with flutes and harmonies, and before it even fades out, you know you’ve heard something genuinely remarkable.

# 3 – Bridge Over Troubled Water

It’s the song that Simon & Garfunkel are perhaps best known for. Many artists have covered it, fans love it, it won Grammys for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1971, and it’s flat-out gorgeous. Even though Paul Simon wrote it, as he did most of the pair’s songs, the lead vocal is sung by Art Garfunkel. Simon believed Garfunkel’s voice was better suited to the song, and the resulting performance is haunting, melancholy, and uplifting all at the same time.

# 2 – The Boxer

In Simon & Garfunkel’s 1969 single “The Boxer”, we hear despair and heartbreak, loneliness and frustration, and hope. It’s the hope that packs a punch — please forgive the pun — and it’s the hope that most listeners point to as the song’s driving force.

That resilience made “The Boxer” especially powerful when Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels tapped Paul Simon to perform it on the show’s first broadcast after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Add the dramatic “lie-la-lie” chorus and Hal Blaine’s enormous percussion accents, and you’ve got a song that transcends generations.

# 1 – America

The shadow of the Beat Generation hung over much of the 1960s, and even though the romance of Kerouac’s On the Road had started to fade, the idea behind it was still clear: America is out there, but you have to go looking for it. Find it, and you find yourself. Paul Simon drew “America” from a road trip he took with Kathy Chitty, transforming those experiences into a story of two young people traveling across the country in search of something larger than themselves.

Maybe the looking defines us, or maybe there’s nothing to find, but when Garfunkel comes in with the harmonies, the point becomes moot; we stop wondering and start listening. “America” tops our list because it’s perhaps the most representative of Simon & Garfunkel’s music: wistful and optimistic, personal and universal, and most of all, uniquely American.