| "Mrs. Robinson" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Simon & Garfunkel | ||||||||||
| from the album Bookends | ||||||||||
| Released | April 1968 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" single | |||||||||
| Recorded | 1968 | |||||||||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||||||||
| Length | 4:00 | |||||||||
| Label | Columbia | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Paul Simon | |||||||||
| Producer | Roy Halee, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel | |||||||||
| Simon & Garfunkel singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Mrs. Robinson" is a song written by Paul Simon and first performed by Simon & Garfunkel. When released as a single in 1968, it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US, for their second chart-topping hit after "The Sound of Silence". An early version of the song appeared in the motion picture The Graduate (1967) and its subsequent soundtrack, while the complete song debuted on their album Bookends (1968).[1] The song earned the duo a Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1969. Top session drummer Hal Blaine played on the record, and considers it one of his favorites.[2]
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In the film The Graduate, listless recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock has an affair with an older married woman, Mrs. Robinson. The song as it appears in the film is different from the familiar hit single version, as only the chorus of the song appears late in the film and with slightly different lyrics: "Stand up tall, Mrs. Robinson, God in heaven smiles on those who pray." It was only later on that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel re-recorded the song by employing additional lyrics to form the hit single.
According to a Variety article by Peter Bart in the May 15, 2005 issue,[3] director Mike Nichols had become obsessed with Simon & Garfunkel's music while shooting the film. Larry Turman, his producer, made a deal for Simon to write three new songs for the movie. By the time they were nearly finished editing the film, Simon had only written one new song. Nichols begged him for more but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he didn't have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; "It's not for the movie... it's a song about times past — about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff." Nichols advised Simon, "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt." (During an appearance on Dick Cavett's show, Simon told the story of how the song was originally called "Mrs. Roosevelt," to which Cavett quipped: "That would have changed the plot of the movie.")
The film Rumor Has It... is based on the assumption that The Graduate is based on real events which become uncovered. The song "Mrs. Robinson" is featured in this film as well. Much of the last 20 minutes of Wayne's World 2 parodies the final sequence of The Graduate, and the version of "Mrs. Robinson" from the film is heard multiple times in a similar scene in which Wayne rushes to get to a wedding. One line from the film version is also heard near the end of the film American Pie when Stifler's mother seduces the young character Finch. The song also is used in the films Forrest Gump, My Mom's New Boyfriend, The Holiday and The Other Sister.
In early January 2010, after news of Iris Robinson (wife of Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson) having an extramarital affair with the (40 years younger) adult child of a family friend became public, a group was set up on Facebook attempting to get the song "Mrs. Robinson" to No.1 in the Official UK Singles Chart for that week via download sales. It received coverage in The Telegraph and other British media.[4][5] It also received coverage in gay-related publications because of the anti-gay stand of Peter Robinson.[6]
The 2011 Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Astronaut" has the young-looking Eleventh Doctor introduce his middle-aged female friend River Song in 1969 to President Nixon as "Mrs. Robinson," a nod towards a hinted-at romantic relationship between the two in the Doctor's future and in River's past (due to time-travel paradoxes). [7] River's line "Hello, Benjamin" spoken in the Doctor Who episode "Let's Kill Hitler" is a quote from a line spoken by Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate.[8]
References in the last verse to Joe DiMaggio are perhaps the most discussed. Paul Simon, a fan of Mickey Mantle, was asked during an intermission on The Dick Cavett Show why Mantle wasn’t mentioned in the song instead of DiMaggio. Simon replied, "It's about syllables, Dick. It's about how many beats there are."[9] For himself, DiMaggio initially complained that he had not gone anywhere, but soon dropped his complaints after a cordial meeting with Paul Simon when he explained what the lines meant. In a New York Times op-ed in March 1999,[10] shortly after DiMaggio's death, Simon discussed this meeting and explained that the line was meant as a sincere tribute to DiMaggio's unpretentious heroic stature, in a time when popular culture magnifies and distorts how we perceive our heroes. He further reflected: "In these days of Presidential transgressions and apologies and prime-time interviews about private sexual matters, we grieve for Joe DiMaggio and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence." Simon subsequently performed "Mrs. Robinson" at Yankee Stadium in DiMaggio's honor in April of the same year.
| Chart (1968)[11] | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Kent Music Report | 8 |
| Dutch Singles Chart | 5 |
| German Singles Chart | 39 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 5 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart | 8 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 13 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 6 |
| UK Singles Chart[12] | 4 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| Preceded by "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & the Drells |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single June 1, 1968 – June 15, 1968 |
Succeeded by "This Guy's in Love with You" by Herb Alpert |
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