Art Garfunkel says he would rather sing an American tune than croon about an older woman named Mrs. Robinson.
“’Mrs. Robinson’ is a bar and grill song for me. It’s very helpful for the show, it gives rhythm and kick to the show. I like the others more,” the 62-year-old singer said at a news conference Tuesday, just hours before performing with the Boston Pops.
“I do love to do ‘American Tune,”’ he said, referring to the song written by Paul Simon to music by Bach. “It’s a lot about where are we going with this country that we love, that we feel so nervous about. So, it gets you thinking,” he said, before singing a few bars before a roomful of reporters.
“It’s a Bach choral, so I have a particular fondness for that because for me J.S. Bach was the greatest of them all,” said Garfunkel, who wore a baseball cap with Fenway Park and Boston Red Sox stitched across the top.
Simon and Garfunkel’s 2003 concert tour was their first in two decades.
This year’s tour will begin June 10 in Albany, N.Y., and will include stops in Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and “the next group of cities we didn’t get to” last year, Garfunkel said.
“What I love is it was very sweet to work with Paul. It just worked out like a dream. It was a lot of rightness and mutual respect. Where we left off in the final shows, in Atlanta, we had taken the show to another level of knowing it and refining it. So, it’s a perfect way to finish on fertile ground. I hope to pick up where we left off,” Garfunkel said.