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Aretha's Version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

3,385 views · Published 31 December 2012 · 3:45 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: Emory University · 2012 · Education

Poet Kevin Young, Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing, talks about Aretha Franklin's soulful version (1971) of Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (1969). He describes the hymn-like aspect of the song and its use of language in describing a primal landscape of rivers, bridges, crossings and connections.

Paul Simon will deliver the 2013 Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory University, September 22-24, 2013 (new dates). The Ellmann Lectures consist of a series of public lectures that are ticketed but free and open to the public. (For ticket info, see http://www.emory.edu/ellmann) Simon's lectures will concern, in part, an overview of the historical antecedents of the music made between 1966 and 1970.

Young is Curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University. His recent books include "Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels," winner of an American Book Award, and "The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness," winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and named a New York Times Notable Book.

http://www.emory.edu/ellmann/

Aretha's Version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

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