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Thirty dollars pays your rent
On Bleecker Street Simon & Garfunkel – Bleecker Street
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This would be ~$223 today, which says a lot about inflation! Try getting an apartment for under $1000/month today.

“Thirty dollars pays your rent” may also be a reference to Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

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Like a shroud it covers Bleecker Street Simon & Garfunkel – Bleecker Street
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Bleecker Street is a famous street in the Greenwich Village of Manhattan, New York. It has been featured in several films, songs, and other cultural phenomena.

It prominently features Cafe Wha?, which was the starting point for countless prominent musicians and comedians, including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor.

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4 years

Given the Christian influence on the rest of the song, the use of the word “shroud” invokes the Shroud of Turin, which (allegedly) covered the face of the dead Jesus Christ.

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Bookends Bookends
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Bookends is the fourth studio album by Simon & Garfunkel, released on April 3, 1968 by Columbia Records. It was produced by Paul Simon, Roy Halee and Art Garfunkel.

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April, come she will Simon & Garfunkel – April Come She Will
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Listen for an echo of this song in “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her,” from Simon & Garfunkel’s subsequent album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme.

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Elina
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1 year

This beginning is reminiscent of the opening to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, “When that April with her sweet showers…” and The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot’s “April is the cruelest month.” Given that this album makes a lot of references to English classic/folk literature, it’s possible that opening with April is a reference.

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Aston
6 years

April is when you meet a certain person or have made a good relationship with them

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I saw the sun go down
Outside of Arkansas
And I saw the sun come up
Somewhere in Illinois
And in the darkness
I taught myself to hate Sunset Rubdown – Us Ones In Between
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It seems that Spencer Krug is traveling Eastward across the country on a road trip. He left at night when the sun went down in Arkansas and was still driving in the morning when he arrived in Illinois. The lonesome trip left his brain to ruminate, stirring up some genuinely upsetting feelings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6tJUlx51sw

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5 years
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Sounds of Silence Sounds of Silence
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Sounds of Silence is the second album by Simon & Garfunkel, released on January 17, 1966. The most famous song from this album is the title track, which itself was a slight remix of the song that appeared two years earlier in the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.

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When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy Simon & Garfunkel – The Boxer
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In his 1984 Playboy interview, Simon revealed that he wrote this song when critics were writing harsh things about his music – he was the boxer:

“I think the song was about me: everybody’s beating me up, and I’m telling you now I’m going to go away if you don’t stop. By that time we had encountered our first criticism. For the first few years, it was just pure praise. It took two or three years for people to realize that we weren’t strange creatures that emerged from England but just two guys from Queens who used to sing rock'n'roll. And maybe we weren’t real folkies at all! Maybe we weren’t even hippies!”

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*ticking clocks*
*clocks ringing*

[Instrumental Intro] Pink Floyd – Time
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“Time” starts with layers of clock noises that were originally recorded as a quadrophonic test by Pink Floyd’s engineer Alan Parsons.

I had recorded them previously in a watchmaker’s shop for a quadraphonic sound demonstration record, I went in with a mobile and recorded each one separately, ticking then chiming.

—Alan Parsons

The clock noises are followed by a 2-minute passage with a drum solo from Nick Mason

The drums used on the “Time” track are roto-toms. I think we did some experiments with some other drums called boo-bans, which are very small, tuned drums, but the roto-toms actually gave the best effect.

—Nick Mason

The clocks ticking at the beginning suggest that time is going by as it always does, but then there’s this strange two-minute drum solo. The band is just killing time with the slow, heavy drum part.

But then the song starts really quickly, and when Gilmour starts singing, he breaks into it with little buildup. Just like the person he’s describing in the song, he realizes they’ve “wasted time” with the drum solo and belts out a quick verse trying to make up for the time.

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A0d139c574ee620011e41bae9fc1dfaa

109

11 months

Starting from 00:25, the clock sounds are actually played by Roger using the low frets of the bass.

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