Art Garfunkel opened up in an interview with The Telegraph, talking about the demise of Simon & Garfunkel in extensive detail. The folk singer seems to address Simon directly in the interview, despite the fact that he’s talking to a reporter.
“How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul? What’s going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?”
He seems to have a bittersweet feeling about the whole experience. When asked if the two will ever reunite, Garfunkel said, “Will I do another tour with Paul? Well, that’s quite do-able. When we get together, with his guitar, it’s a delight to both of our ears. A little bubble comes over us and it seems effortless. We blend. So, as far as this half is concerned, I would say, ‘Why not, while we’re still alive?’ But I’ve been in that same place for decades. This is where I was in 1971.”
The two met in high school, where they would do impressions of the Everly Brothers. In the interview, Garfunkel says that he felt sorry for Simon, who is a notoriously short individual, “and that compensation gesture has created a monster.”
He even tells a story where George Harrison compares Simon to Paul McCartney, saying “George came up to me at a party once and said ‘my Paul is to me what your Paul is to you.’ He meant that psychologically they had the same effect on us. The Pauls sidelined us. I think George felt suppressed by Paul and I think that’s what he saw with me and my Paul. Here’s the truth: McCartney was a helluva music man who gave the band its energy, but he also ran away with a lot of the glory.”
Sure, the duo had their frustrations, but Garfunkel was ready to jump back into it while Simon wanted to go off on his own route. It’s a tough break-up, one that Garfunkel still feels resentment about to this day, some 40+ years later.
The full interview is available at The Telegraph.