Bridge Over Troubled Water

A gospel hymn written by an agnostic Jewish songwriter for a partner he was about to stop speaking to. Paul Simon built it from a Swan Silvertones line and handed it to Art Garfunkel, who sings it in a pure, unhurried tenor that stays almost prayerfully quiet through two full verses — just Larry Knechtel's piano, which Simon had asked to sound like a gospel player imitating Bach. The famous third verse ("sail on, silver girl") was written late and almost cut; instead it became the moment the song opens up, with Hal Blaine's drums crashing in and the strings rising until Garfunkel is pushing at the top of his range. It's an unusual promise for a pop song: not romance, not desire, just an offer to lie down and be walked across, to absorb someone else's weight without asking anything back. Released in January 1970, the month the duo effectively ended, it topped charts worldwide and became a funeral and eulogy staple, a civil-rights-era comfort record, an Aretha Franklin vehicle. Play it for someone going through the worst week of their life, or for yourself when you need to believe that kind of unconditional steadiness exists somewhere. It gives more than it asks — which is also, exactly, what it's about.