The Dangling Conversation

I've enjoyed songs of Simon & Garfunkel but there are three in particular I've loved through the years: The Sound of Silence, The Boxer and The Dangling Conversation.

It's The Dangling Conversation I'm listening to now...


The Dangling Conversation is a song written by Paul Simon, first released in September 1966 as a Simon and Garfunkel single “The Dangling Conversation”/“The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”. Apparently the song never made it onto the UK charts. Simon was surprised that it was not a bigger hit. It was released a month later as a recording on the Simon and Garfunkel album more popular Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.


The theme of The Dangling Conversation is a failed communication between lovers. It starts in a room washed by shadows from the sun slanting through the lace curtains and ends with the room “softly faded”. The lovers now read from different poet: Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, two of my favourite poets. Wonderful mention for anyone familiar with these two great poets.


Simon has compared this song to The Sound of Silence, but says The Dangling Conversation is more personal. Indeed, it is... 

Below, Simon & Garfunkel Through the Years - The Dangling Conversation (Live In Concert).  (Accessed April 27, 2020.)  Thank you very much, Simon & Garfunkel. 




(1)
It's a still life water color
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

(2)
And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we've lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

(3)
Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives



(c) April 2020. Tel. Autumn Reflections. All rights reserved.