Songoftheday - The movie's over, it's four o'clock, and we're in trouble deep...

Simon & Garfunkel - "Wake Up Little Susie"

from the album The Concert In Central Park (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (two weeks)

weeks in the top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day is the single released from the historic concert by legendary folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel in Central Park in New York City. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, friends since early childhood, first paired up as a recording act as "Tom & Jerry" and had a minor hit in 1957 with "Hey Schoolgirl". After recording their first folk album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. in 1964, with initial lackluster results, the pair split with Simon heading off to Europe.

Meanwhile a track off the album became one of the first examples of reviving a track that was so common in the 80's, as radio stations started playing a remixed version of "The Sound Of Silence" which added guitars and a rock backing to the initial acoustic song. It became their first #1 record, and with that Simon and Garfunkel returned to recording together in 1965, and continued to have success, racking up another #1 pop hit in the US with "Mrs. Robinson" from the movie The Graduate. However, after four albums, tensions between the two and Garfunkel's burgeoning acting career split them up again, after releasing their final #1, the "Long And Winding Road"-esque epic "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in 1970.

Simon would go on to have a truckload more hits, while Garfunkel's acting career continued, including a salacious turn in the film Carnal Knowledge. The detente between the pair cooled, and they reunited off-and-on in the mid-70s, including a top-10 collaboration "My Little Town".

To reinvigorate a decrepit and crime-ridden Central Park, commissioner Gordon Davis planned a reunion concert to benefit the park, and recruited the native New Yorkers to perform. Both of them were battling depression at the time, Simon over the cool reception of his One Trick Pony movie and album, and Garfunkel on the suicide of his girlfriend Laurie Bird. After hammering out new arrangements of both S&G and solo songs, with a bit of the old bickering between them, the concert was held on September 19, 1981 (only being publicized as a reunion of the pair only days before). The turnout was phenomenal, with an estimated 500,000 fans packing the park, as many people as had gone to Woodstock back in '69.

They performed twenty songs, including a remake of the classic Everly Brothers song "Wake Up Little Susie". Written by husband and wife songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, it was a #1 song in 1957. It was very scandalous for a white-bread pop song at the time, suggesting with a wink about young lovers waking up after, well, possibly...a movie.

The song came in the first half of the concert, and when the album of it was released in 1982, "Wake Up Little Susie" was released as a promotional single and reached the top-40, while the album made the top-10 and sold over two million copies.

The show was broadcast on the fledgling cable network HBO, where I saw it for the first time myself, mesmerized. The concert raised about 50,000 for the park, and with the added exposure, and independent donations, Central Park now is the jewel of the city, and a must-see for any tourist as well as local.

Simon & Garfunkel themselves would go on to tour together, but were unable to put aside their creative differences to collaborate on another studio album.

Up tomorrow: Colorado's Poet Laureate goes to China.