How do you say goodbye to a lifelong friend?

If you are Paul Simon, you compose some of the greatest music of your career and record it right alongside him.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel did not start their careers as accomplished musicians. They started as friends. Growing up blocks away from each other in Queens, the boys bonded in their preteen years over a shared love of music, making up for what they lacked in skill with relentless enthusiasm. Their earliest records ring with the bright sound of youthful optimism as they began to forge a creative partnership that would eventually become Simon & Garfunkel. Despite this promising beginning boasting the potential for a long and fruitful partnership, the duo parted ways after the conclusion of their fifth and final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The album stands as a testament to the friendship-that-was—anger, love, hope, and all.

The music of this record rings with soulful camaraderie, but the experience of recording the album was far from friendly. While Paul Simon moved deeper into his music, Art Garfunkel had his sights set on Hollywood. Just a few years prior, the duo had found success composing the soundtrack for the now-iconic film The Graduate. The film’s director, Mike Nichols, offered both musicians parts in his upcoming film adaption of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Simon eventually dropped from the film in order to focus on what would become the duo’s final album while Garfunkel fully embraced this opportunity at the expense of the musical collaboration. Tensions were high during the recording of this album, as both felt stung by what they perceived as the other’s lack of support for their new pursuits. Much of the strain on the production was the result of time spent apart as Paul Simon wrote and recorded much of the album while Art Garfunkel was away filming. This specific tension is explicitly captured in the somber tune of “The Only Living Boy in New York.” While both continued to find great success in their respective endeavors, the bedrock of friendship that started them on their creative journey crumbled.

This revelation may give modern listeners pause; even the tracks that most explicitly reference the breakup of the duo, which was by no means cordial behind the scenes, hold no vitriol. In our age of diss tracks, where one of the surest ways for a musician to find fast fame is often at the expense of another, it’s hard to envision a musical landscape that could produce such tender sentimentality that honors and celebrates the good-that-once-was in a now-broken relationship. Perhaps whatever insight led to Paul Simon’s continued success also gave him an intuitive understanding of the lasting legacy music can forge. This is evident in the way fans talk about the music of Simon & Garfunkel today; they revel in the honesty and pathos of the music that continues to reverberate through generations of listeners. They do not speak of the duo in terms of turmoil and creative differences. They speak of them as friends.