Song by Song: "The Dangling Conversation" Quiz

Answer: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

"Hearts And Bones" and "Graceland" are both Paul Simon albums. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was Simon & Garfunkel's fifth studio album, but the song "The Dangling Conversation" can be found on their second studio album, "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme," which was released in October of 1966. The album peaked at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200.

Answer: The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine

"Bridge Over Troubled Water" was not on the same album as the other choices. The "Dangling Conversation" was released as a single in September of 1966 with "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" on the B-Side. Deeper but less catchy than many of the other songs on the album, "The Dangling Conversation" never charted in the U.K., and it did not reach the top ten in the U.S.

It peaked at number 25 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and at number 27 on the Canada 100.

Answer: A lover from whom he has grown distant

The song is about a couple who has grown distant from one another. They no longer communicate about their relationship, but instead engage in surface conversations on unrelated subjects.

According to "Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon" by Peter Ames Carlin, "Both Paul and Artie called it their favorite song." The song, however, did not meet with the same success as other selections from the album. In a 1972 interview with Jon Landau of "Rolling Stone," Paul Simon said, "I started to think, 'Now I'm making hits,' so now I got amazed when 'The Dangling Conversation' wasn't a big hit. Why it wasn't a big hit is hard to know. It probably wasn't as good a song. It was too heavy." In an interview with Norman Jopling from "Record Mirror," Paul Simon noted, "It was above the kids."

Answer: A still-life watercolor

"It's a still life watercolor
Of a now-late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room."

A still-life is a painting or drawing of an arrangement of objects, such as fruit, flowers, bowls, or glassware. This imagery reinforces how stagnant the couple's relationship has become. They no longer have a living, breathing, growing relationship, but are like fixed objects in a still-life watercolor painting that does not evolve.

Answer: shells upon the shore

This verse continues:

"You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives."

The magnitude of the silences that fall between them as they leave their conversations dangling is highlighted by the contrasting sound of the ocean's roar. Paul Simon combines simile ("like shells upon the shore"), metaphor ("the borders of our lives") and auditory imagery ("you can hear the ocean roar") to create the scene and allow the listener to visualize the distance between these two people.

Answer: Robert Frost

"And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we've lost."

These lines paint a striking picture of a couple who sits and reads together and yet are somehow isolated from one another. They have grown as separate as their tastes in poetry. They let the time pass as they read, failing to address the distance between them, or to talk about the closeness they once shared, and so the bookmarkers actually measure what they've lost - the relationship they once had, and the time they've let slip by without connection.

Emily Dickinson is known for poems such as "Because I could not stop for death" and "Hope is the thing with feathers."

Answer: chiasmus

A simile is a comparison using like or as, in this case - "Like a poem poorly written." Alliteration is the repetition of beginning consonant sounds, as in "poem poorly." There is also rhyme in these lines - the words "time" and "rhyme."

These lines do not use chiasmus. Chiasmus is the term used to describe a reversal in the structure of a phrase for artistic effect. For example, John F. Kennedy used chiasmus when he said, "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."

These lines again highlight that the couple is not connecting and they no longer fit together. Rather they are "off" from one another, like a poem that doesn't flow or rhyme properly.

Answer: theater

These lines are sarcastic. The couple is not actually speaking of things that matter, but of things that don't. These "dangling conversations" are a distraction from the elephant in the room. Asking "Is the theater really dead?" is a way to avoid discussing the more significant issue, which is that their relationship is dying. Instead of analyzing what has gone wrong between them, they ask, in a purely impersonal and academic fashion, "Can analysis be worthwhile?"

Answer: shadow

The narrator has become so distant from his lover that it is as if she has faded away until only her shadow remains. A couple that was once close have become strangers who merely inhabit the same space.

After these lines, the song returns one final time to the chorus:

"Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives."

Answer: Joan Baez

The song is included on the "Greatest Hits and Others" Joan Baez compilation album that was released in 2006. Joan Baez has recorded over thirty albums in her long career.

Paul Simon told "Rolling Stone" that "The Dangling Conversation" took more time to record than many Simon and Garfunkel songs because it was "with strings."