{"id":147781,"date":"2025-05-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=147781"},"modified":"2025-05-28T10:37:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T17:37:46","slug":"how-to-play-simon-and-garfunkels-bossa-nova-inspired-ballad-so-long-frank-lloyd-wright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/how-to-play-simon-and-garfunkels-bossa-nova-inspired-ballad-so-long-frank-lloyd-wright\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Play Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s Bossa Nova\u2013Inspired Ballad \u201cSo Long, Frank Lloyd Wright\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Simon
Simon and Garfunkel, 1966. Photo: Joost Evers\/ANEFO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the great deep cuts from Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s 1970 masterpiece, Bridge Over Troubled Water<\/a>,<\/em> \u201cSo Long, Frank Lloyd Wright\u201d taps into the sultry rhythms and jazz harmonies of bossa nova, with a lovely nylon-string guitar part by Paul Simon. When I interviewed Simon for this magazine in 1993, he noted that he must have started listening to Brazilian composer Ant\u00f4nio Carlos Jobim around the time he wrote the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the lyrics, the suggestion that Simon write a song about Frank Lloyd Wright came from Art Garfunkel, who had studied architecture at Columbia. But the lyrics seem to have as much to do with Garfunkel himself\u2014or the duo as they\u2019d \u201charmonize till dawn\u201d\u2014as with the famed architect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guitar part, transcribed here by Adam Perlmutter, is challenging yet satisfying to learn, full of unusual changes and rich voicings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like \u201cEl Condor Pasa\u201d and \u201cThe Boxer,\u201d Simon recorded \u201cSo Long, Frank Lloyd Wright\u201d in standard tuning lowered a half step. He starts with E fingerings (which sound in the key of Eb), but then partway through, the song modulates up a half step for the flute solo, last verse, and outro. On the album track, Simon made that key change by adding a capo at the first fret. In concert, however, as on the Simon and Garfunkel release Live at Carnegie Hall 1969<\/a>, <\/em>Simon played the whole song uncapoed (and not in a lowered tuning either, so it\u2019s a half step higher than the album track), navigating from the key of E into F using closed-position fingerings. To make the song more accessible and performable, this transcription shows how to play it without the mid-song capo change, so it\u2019s a hybrid of the studio and live versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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