Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” was a story in itself. Lasting over five minutes, it slowly but steadily builds to a terrifying climax before falling back into a long, quiet finale that lands as soft as a feather.
The innovation required to record the song was extraordinary, it required 100 hours to record. Take the exuberant vocals in the interludes, for example. Sung in a recording studio? No. Try St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University, where the church’s tiled dome provided the acoustics. And an 8-track recorder (the state-of-the-art standard at the time) just wasn’t enough. So two Synchronized 8-track recorders were required to record all the necessary vocal tracks. It was the first 16-track recording ever made, although Simon later said that it was a “b—-” for the two recorders to work together.
Then there was that thunderous drum part under those vocals. Hal Blaine, the incomparable veteran session drummer, was responsible for them. Played in a recording studio? No, part II. But they didn’t use a church for the drums. They used an office, specifically in front of an elevator in the offices of Columbia Record. Blaine hit and producer Roy Halee added the reverb. And it worked. The part that didn’t work was when an elevator arrived and an elderly security guard came out and got the surprise of his life.
But probably the biggest innovation came from the lyrics. The song began with images that Simon had caught while he was reading the Bible in hotel rooms (“worker’s wages” and “seeking the poorest quarters” are derived from New Testament verses). Simon had crafted a fluid five-verse story about poverty and resilience, where the singer (like a boxer) is beaten but tenaciously clings on for more punishment even as he expresses a desire to give up and walk away. One could easily imagine that Simon had someone specific in mind (similar to how he used Joe DiMaggio’s name in “Mrs. Robinson”). Well, he had someone in mind, but it wasn’t someone from the boxing world.
He was himself.
From the beginning of their commercial success in 1966, the duo received praise from critics and fans alike. But it didn’t last. Popular music critics began to accuse them of not being true folk artists. The beating continued, though Simon felt the criticism was unfair. As he recalled in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1984, “I think the song was about me: Everybody beats me up and I tell you I’m leaving if you don’t stop.”
