who wrote the lyrics to bridge over troubled water
Bridge over Troubled Water (song) "Bridge over Troubled Water" was composed by Paul Simon very quickly, so much so that he asked himself, "Where did that come from? It doesn't seem like me." [7] 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."[8] According to gospel producer and historian Anthony Heilbut, Simon later acknowledged his musical debt to Jeter in person, and additionally handed Jeter a check as compensation.[9] Simon wrote the song initially on guitar but decided to transpose it to the piano, to both better reflect the gospel influence and to suit Garfunkel's voice.[3]
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads In The Collected Poems of John Masefield the opening line was changed to the text now more commonly anthologised: "I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky". The first lines of the second and third stanzas retained the form "I must down to the seas again [...]".[2]