By the time Simon & Garfunkel released their final album Bridge Over Troubled Water and parted ways in 1970, Paul Simon already had a debut solo album (The Paul Simon Songbook) underhis belt years earlier. Art Garfunkel would take a few more years to release his first album, Angel Clare, in 1973.
Garfunkel’s debut solo single would be about a woman that had broken another man’s heart.
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Jimmy Webb’s Beauty Queen Song
“All I Know” was originally written by Jimmy Webb, the songwriter behind several of Glen Campbell‘s hits, including “Wichita Lineman,” and work with the Supremes, Linda Rondstadt, Carly Simon, and many others. He wrote the ballad for a Welsh woman he was in love with, Miss World 1961 winner Rosemarie Frankland (1943-2000).
Enchanted by the beauty queen, Webb tried to woo her with the song, which he played for her one day in London at the Dorchester Hotel.
After Frankland heard Webb’s ballad, she called the song “silly,” which left him heartbroken. During his flight back to the U.S., Webb read that Simon & Garfunkel were breaking up and decided to pitch “All I Know” to Garfunkel, who released it as his debut single.
[RELATED: The First Song Paul Simon Wrote at 13 to Perform With Art Garfunkel]
Webb’s lyrics read from the perspective of someone whose world revolves around the person they’re infatuated with: “All my plans depend on you.”
I bruise you
You bruise me
We both bruise too easily
Too easily to let it show
I love you and that’s all I know
All my plans
Have fallen through
All my plans depend on you
Depend on you to help them grow
I love you and that’s all I know
When the singer’s gone
Let the song go on
But the ending always comes at last
Endings always come too fast
They come too fast
But they pass too slow
I love you and that’s all I know
The song became a hit for Garfunkel, topping the Billboard Adult Contemporary and peaking at No. 9 on the Hot 100. Angel Clare also went to No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“He wanted to get back into music,” recalled Webb in 2023 of first collaborating with Garfunkel in the early ’70s. “He was calling songwriters up to San Francisco to play songs for him. I sat at the piano and played just about everything I had—nothing interested him. After a couple of hours … I remembered a song written for a girl who had broken my heart.”
Webb continued, “The song had been spoiled for me as the romance soured but in a moment of desperation I pulled it out and Art loved it. ‘All I Know’ went on to be his first solo hit. … We have been close friends and collaborators ever since.”
On Angel Clare, Webb also contributed the closing “Another Lullaby” and continued working with Garfunkel, writing his entire 1977 album Watermark. He also penned the title track of Garfunkel’s 1981 release Scissors Cut, along with tracks “In Cars,” which also features backing vocals from Simon, and “That’s All I’ve Got to Say, featured in the 1982 film The Last Unicorn.
Webb also wrote the songs to The Animals’ Christmas, Garfunkel’s 1986 collaborative album with Amy Grant and “Skywriter” for Garfunkel’s 1993 compilation Up ‘Til Now.
“Art believes in precision,” said Webb of Garfunkel. “Lyrics always must be perfect. He delivers elocution and emotional intangibles like no one else. He absolutely will not sing out of pitch. His dedication to excellence has crushed many a lesser man.”
[RELATED: The Simon & Garfunkel Song That Still Makes Paul Simon Cringe]
Reunited with Paul Simon
Though Simon and Garfunkel were on an infinite hiatus from one another, they both reconnected on Angel Clare. Simon sings harmony with Garfunkel on the final verse and chorus of the second track “Down in the Willow Garden,” a cover of the murder ballad made famous by Charlie Monroe in 1947. The track also features the Grateful Dead‘s Jerry Garcia on lead guitar.
Simon would produce, play guitar and sing backing vocals on “My Little Town,” which was included on Garfunkel’s second album Breakaway in 1975 and Simon’s solo release Still Crazy After All These Years. On Garfunkel’s third album Watermark, Simon also sings lead and backing vocals and plays acoustic guitar, along with James Taylor on the cover of Sam Cooke‘s “(What a) Wonderful World.”
In 1981 the duo reunited again for their famous Concert in Central Park and again more than two decades later for their Old Friends Reunion Tour, 2003-2004 and another reunion tour, 2009 through 2010.
Photo: Paul Simon (right) and singer Art Garfunkel of the folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel in a Columbia Records publicity, circa 1966, 1967 in New York. (Columbia Records/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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