The Boxer

Boxers are often an unheralded breed. They take in a lot of blows in their lives even as many hardly come out as successful. Their stories are quite familiar although they are not always told in their entirety. Suffice to say that practically every prizefighter comes from a poor family.

I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises

Then a seemingly good fortune would come their way. People looking to develop raw talent would offer wealth and fame to anyone wiling to box for a living. Of couse, not everything is laid out in complete honesty; rather, they are sprinkled with lies that are rarely heard and understood.

All lies and jest,
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

So an ignorant and would-be boxer would be taken away from his family, lured by the prospect of a better and luxurious future. Despite his young age, he would be asked to stay in the company of total strangers. Alone and scared, he is asked to learn and live the hard and unrelenting rules of the game and sadly, even the ruthlessness of life itself.

When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station, runnin’ scared,
Laying low seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Why would a young boy, innocent as he is, consider entering the dangerous world of boxing? It’s because our world hardly has the jobs and the opportunities meant for those deprived of learning owing to their impoverishment.

Asking only workman’s wages, I come lookin’ for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

In time, the reluctant boxer becomes a full-pledged fighter, able and ready to step onto the ring anytime of the year. Yes, even during the harshness of winter time for as long as a challenge has been issued. Still, despite his willingness, a boxer remains largely hesitant because his heart yearns to go home.

And I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
Goin’ home
Where the New York City winters aren’t bleedin’ me
Leadin’ me
Goin’ home

Then in one ill-fated fight, the boxer would find himself standing before an opponent much better and a lot fiercer than he is. The inflicted pain becomes too much to take and the boxer retreats to a corner. He can no longer carry on even as his tormentor appears ready to give him the fatal blow.

Thus ends the sad tale of a poor and unknown boxer. Yet, hardly anyone remembers him because the world only wants to record stories of tumultous triumphs and not of deafening defeats.

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down or cut him
‘Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving”, but the fighter still remains

The story of a boxer is also the story of everyone struggling in life. Listen to the message of “The Boxer” as sung by Simon & Garfunkel. Just click here:

“The Boxer” is a classic song by the duo Simon & Garfunkel released initially as a single in March 1969 and as a follow-up to the highly-successful “Mrs. Robinson”. Nine months later, the song was included in the duo’s Bridge Over Troubled Water album.

Paul Simon wrote “The Boxer” who said that its story is partially autoiographical since he had written it at a tiime when lots of criticisms were being thrown against him. Prior to this, there were unfounded claims that the song were partly about Bob Dylan who used to be an amateur boxer.

The song placed seventh in Billboard’s Hot 100 apart from a landing a spot in the top 10 music charts of nine different countries, including, Canada, Austria, The Netherlands, and South Africa. Adding popularity to the song is the line “lie-la-lie” which was actually a placeholder, but ultimately became part of the song because people came to like it.

Curiously, the original version of “The Boxer” contained the following lines which delved more deeply into the life of a boxer as he struggled with continuous training:

Now the years are rolling by me—
They are rockin’ evenly.
I am older than I once was,
And younger than I’ll be.
That’s not unusual;
No, it isn’t strange:
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same;
After changes we are more or less the same

For unclear reasons, this verse was removed when the song was included in the Bridge Over Troubled Water album. The lines are likewise unheard these days if you try to listen to selected versions of “The Boxer”. The Live 1969 album of Simon & Garfunkel, however, has the song version which carried the said lines.