Simon and Garfunkel – April Come She Will

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt Begin/End/Finish/Start…This song is about the beginning and the end of love affairs.

I watched the Graduate in the mid-eighties and I sat there transfixed watching this classic film. How the music kept the movie going and this song hit me for some reason. I spent weeks (pre internet) tracking down the soundtrack of the film. I went to different record stores but with no luck but finally found it at the Great Escape, a second hand record store.

It was one of the first movies that I recognized how much music can make a movie. It was a great film regardless but without the music the movie would not have been the same.

April Come She Will was composed by Paul Simon. Running just 1:51, it is the shortest track on the album Sounds of Silence released in 1966. It was also on the Graduate soundtrack.

The song was the B side to the Scarborough Fair single.

From Songfacts

This song is also featured in the soundtrack to the film The Graduate. Meant to evoke the capriciousness of a young girl while relating it to how the seasons change, the lyrics were inspired by a nursery rhyme recited by an English girl with whom Simon had an affair. It stands to reason, then, that this would go along with the plot of The Graduate.

Listen for an echo of this song in “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her,” from S&G’s subsequent album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme.

This song isn’t the only one with a classical lyric inspiration on that album; “Richard Cory” is also based on the poem of the same name by American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson.

April Come She Will

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night

July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I remember
A love once new has now grown old

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

29 thoughts on “Simon and Garfunkel – April Come She Will”

    1. Oh ok…I didn’t know that. Funny with the movie The Graduate…this is the song that stuck with me the most when I watched it.

      It could be one of the first movies to use contemporary rock/pop music to shape the movie…those old fifties movies used rock music more as a selling point…I may be missing a movie but it’s good nonetheless.

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  6. I was going to run this one by you first but it was too late. It was the beginning and ending of a love affair… I’ll make sure I’m literal next time…

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  9. One of their best. I love the guitar in the original (not sure it quite works digitally, but then a lot of older stuff doesn’t.) I keep meaning to get The Graduate on DVD but haven’t yet. Am trying to catch up with some DVDs at the moment.

    Hope you’re okay, sorry I’ve not been around. My colouring blog is now open again, but only til the Spring, but the other… not sure what to do about that.

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    1. The song stuck with me more than the others. I love the others but this one made me hunt for the soundtrack.

      We are doing fine and I still owe you an email. I’m glad you opened back up. I should close this one for a while and get caught up on other things.

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  10. I saw them in concert at the University of Oklahoma in 68. Two men, one guitar mesmerized the crowd for two hours. That was about the time that The Graduate movie premiered. Their music is made for a cold rainy day, smoke, and some good scotch. I believe I may have most of their albums stored away in my memory bins.

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    1. Phil, you were at the right place at the right time to see these acts in their prime. I agree with your assessment completely of Simon and Garfunkel
      Paul wrote some moving songs at that time…like Sound of Silence and America.

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  13. I swear, Max, I think you are the most popular music blogger I know! Every single one of your posts gets a lot of comments, more than nearly any other blog I’ve come across. I think it’s the personal aspect of your posts, as well as the fact you always engage with those who comment. Plus, you frequently comment on post of the many blogs you follow, something not many other bloggers do.

    Now, back to the song and movie: I love Simon & Garfunkel’s music, and ‘The Graduate’ is one of my top 10 all-time favorite films. It’s absolutely brilliant, and I never tire of watching it.

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    1. I do make my posts personal…that would not fly on a professional level but I do have fun meeting people and finding out what they have to say. We all have something in common…I like learning…new and old music…and pop culture in general.

      Like you…you actually saw CCR! That puts you over someone who met a president to me. You were in the middle of a generation I wish I could have been in.

      It’s in my top 10 also. I almost used the soundtrack in the draft. The ending on that bus is one of the best endings I’ve ever seen. Would you say it was one of the first movies to use music to as part of the movie? Not counting those 50s rock movies?

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      1. Wow, Max, you make me feel almost like royalty because I saw CCR perform at the height of their career!

        ‘The Graduate’ was certainly one of the earliest films to use popular music as a soundtrack that didn’t involve the artists actually starring in the film, like the Beatles did in ‘A Hard Days Night’ and ‘Help!’.

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