Simon and Gar: Why so amazing?

[sappylilartpunk]

I've had an increasingly emotional response to music lately. I always have, but it seems to be getting stronger the older I get. Sometimes it's a song that I adore, but that I can't listen to because the longing for the places and the moments that I associate with it are so strong. And sometimes a song I never knowingly had an association to suddenly catches me off guard with its brilliance. Lately, the latter happens no more frequently than with Simon and Garfunkel. Some of their songs are so beautiful and haunting and poignant, and they sneak up on me when I least expect it.

I've listened to this song a thousand times. But this week, early in the morning, driving to work under a gray and tired sky, this song nearly made me cry.

"The night sets softly 
With the hush of falling leaves 
Casting shivering shadows 
On the houses through the trees 
And the light from a street lamp 
Paints a pattern on my wall 
Like the pieces of a puzzle 
Or a child's uneven scrawl

Up a narrow flight of stairs 
In a narrow little room 
As I lie upon my bed 
In the early evening gloom 
Impaled on my wall 
My eyes can dimly see 
The pattern of my life 
And the puzzle that is me

From the moment of my birth 
To the instant of my death 
There are patterns I must follow 
Just as I must breathe each breath 
Like a rat in a maze 
The path before my lies 
And the pattern never alters 
Until the rat dies

And the pattern still remains 
On the wall where darkness fell 
And it's fitting that it should 
For in darkness I must dwell 
Like the color of my skin 
Or the day that I grow old 
My life is made of patterns 
That can scarcely be controlled"

"Patterns" - Simon and Garfunkel

http://youtu.be/qGTxDHcXIpw