The first album that we recorded for Columbia called "Wednesday Morning, 3 am"
Has a picture on the cover of Paul and myself in the uh subway system,
In New York here,
Standing at the uh 5th Ave. station next to an iron post.
If you know the album then you're familiar with the picture.
What you're not familiar with is the trouble...
That we went through in order to get that final picture,
Because the original shots that were taken for the uh cover
Were taken off... off the uh picture that you see,
Standing against the subway wall on the platform
Underneath the subway sign and...
We took about 500 pictures
Until we were satisfied with the perfect James Dean shot
And packed up the cameras and guitars
And as we left the station I took a glance at the subway wall
In front of which we had taken all the pictures for the first time that day
And noticed that written there - rather legibly, in the baroque style
Common to New York subway wall writers -
Was uh... was the "old familiar suggestion".

And rather beautifully illustrated as well.
So...

Well we had a conference with Columbia records to decide what to do about this problem
And uh of course we immediately told Columbia that this was exactly what we wanted on the cover of the LP.
"- Forget it."
I'm, um, mentioning this because we have taken a song - it's now two years later -
Paul has written a song fairly recently in London
Dealing with the uh theme of people who write on subway walls
But treating the theme in a rather strange and serious way.
The song is called "A Poem on the Underground Wall".

A Poem on the Underground Wall (Live in New York, 1967)
Simon & Garfunkel

The last train is nearly due
The underground is closing soon
And in the dark deserted station
Restless in anticipation
A man waits in the shadows

His restless eyes leap and scratch
At all that they can touch or catch
And hidden deep within his pocket
Safe within its silent socket
He holds a colored crayon

Now from the tunnel's stony womb
The carriage rides to meet the groom
And opens wide and welcome doors
But he hesitates
Then withdraws deeper in the shadows

And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand

Now from his pocket quick he flashes
The crayon on the wall he slashes
Deep upon the advertising
A single worded poem comprised
Of four letters

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night