“Scarborough Fair Canticle” by Simon and Garfunkel

"Scarborough Fair/Canticle" finds Simon and Garfunkel reaching back to a traditional song and weaving their own writing into it, and it landed on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, their third studio album, in 1966. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel arranged it together and sing it together, and Bob Johnston produced.

The album came out of a patient stretch: after Columbia rushed out Sounds of Silence while the two were apart, they regrouped and spent nearly three months in the studio fussing over instrumentation and production. The care shows here, two voices braided into something hushed and haunting, and like "Homeward Bound" before it, the song became a top five hit in country after country.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.