"Bridge Over Troubled Water" is the title song of Simon & Garfunkel's final album together, released January 26, 1970, though it also appears on the live album "Simon & Garfunkel, Live 1969." It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 28, 1970, and stayed at the top of the chart for six weeks. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" also topped the adult contemporary chart in the U.S. for six weeks.

This song's recording process exposed many of the underlying tensions that eventually led to the breakup of the duo after the album's completion. Most notably, Paul Simon has repeatedly expressed regret that he insisted that Art Garfunkel sing this song as a solo, as it focused attention on Garfunkel and relegated Simon to a backing position. Art Garfunkel initially did not want to sing lead vocal, feeling it was not right for him. "He felt I should have done it," Paul Simon revealed to Rolling Stonein 1972.

Garfunkel said that the moment when he performed it in Madison Square Garden in 1972 was "almost biblical".

In recent performances on the "Old Friends" tour, Simon and Garfunkel have taken turns singing alternate verses of the vocal.

Rolling Stonenamed it number 47 on The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Simon wrote the song in the summer of 1969 while Garfunkel was filming Catch-22in Europe.

The duo have stated in interviews that, contrary to popular belief, the song was not inspired by either Connel Bridge or the bridge over the Atlantic at Seil. It was, in fact, the bridge over the Black Lynn burn in Oban near Tesco supermarket that gave them the inspiration to pen the song.

The song originally had two verses and different lyrics. Simon specifically wrote it for Garfunkel and knew it would be a piano song. The chorus lyrics were partly inspired by Claude Jeter's line "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me," which Jeter sang with his group, the Swan Silvertones, in the 1958 song "Mary Don't You Weep".

Garfunkel reportedly liked Simon's falsetto on the demo and suggested that Simon sing. He and producer Roy Halee also thought the song needed three verses and a 'bigger' sound towards the end. Simon agreed and penned the final verse, though he felt it was less than fully cohesive with the earlier verses.

Garfunkel's first two attempts to record the vocal failed. The first two verses were finally recorded in New York with the final verse recorded first, in Los Angeles. Part of the song was first heard in public on November 30, 1969, when it was included in the soundtrack of a one-hour TV special by the duo aired by CBS; the music appeared in the background of a clip with John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Larry Knechtel spent four days working on the piano arrangement. Garfunkel came up with the intermediate piano chords between the verses while working with Knechtel.

As the song ends, drums, strings and piano build in a crescendo to an extraordinary climax. The last note, on a violin, is a long, drawn out E-flat that lasts ten seconds.

The single won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in the Grammy Awards of 1971, with its album also winning several awards in the same year.

A gospel-inspired cover version by Aretha Franklin, taken from her album Aretha Live at Fillmore West, reached number one on the U.S. R&B chart and number six on the pop chart.. and later won the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in the 1972 awards.

Elvis Presley recorded it in Nashville on 5 June 1970 and it was released on the 1970 album "That's The Way It Is." He included it in his set list for his next engagement in Las Vegas which included the filming of the 1970 documentary "Elvis - That's The Way It Is" and was included in the original theatrical release (included version is from 11 August Dinner Show). During this summer season in Vegas Paul Simon attended one of the shows and after seeing Elvis perform the song he was reported to have said "That's it, we might as well all give up now." Presley continued to use this throughout his live performances including his final live appearance in Indianapolis on 26 June 1977. Another live performance was seen in the Golden Globe winning documentary "Elvis on Tour" filmed at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina on 14 April 1972.

On the studio version Robert Matthew Watson wrote in his book "Heartbreak Hotel": "Presley's outstanding singing is not disguised. This is a fabulous version, burning with sincerity and power, and finding depths not revealed by the composers."

In addition to Franklin's gospel version, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos also covered the song for the country music market. A departure from Owens' usual Bakersfield Sound, his version reached the top 10 of the BillboardHot Country Singles chart in March 1971. Another 1971 cover was by Shirley Bassey on her album Something Else.

David Foster, Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige performed the song on January 31, 2010 during the 52nd Grammy Awards ceremony, in the context of raising awareness for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. This version debuted at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was also performed by Michael W. Smith, Clay Aiken, Morten Harket, Josh Groban, and Brian McKnight.

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