Mrs. Robinson

Album

Man's Best Friend

Label

Columbia Records

Genre

Stage & Screen

Duration

0:00

Composer(s)

Paul Simon

Entered Chart

Apr 27, 1968

Peak Date

Jun 1, 1968

Released

Unknown

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Columbia 4-44511

B-Side

Old Friends/Bookends

This was written for the movie The Graduate, starring Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, a middle-aged woman who seduces the much younger Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft, who died in 2005, had a long and successful film career, but is best known for her part in this movie. Regarding the famous line, "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?": DiMaggio was a star baseball player for the New York Yankees who was briefly married to Marilyn Monroe. Simon was using him to represent heroes of the past. DiMaggio was a little miffed when he heard this, since he was still very much alive even though he retired from baseball in 1951, but he realized that he had become a new icon now with the baby boomer generation due to this song's success. Simon, who is a huge fan of The Yankees, explained in a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine: "The Joe DiMaggio line was written right away in the beginning. And I don't know why or where it came from. It seems so strange, like it didn't belong in that song and then, I don't know, it was so interesting to us that we just kept it. So it's one of the most well-known lines that I've ever written." Paul Simon was a much bigger fan of Mickey Mantle than Joe DiMaggio. On The Dick Cavett Show, Simon was asked by Mantle why he wasn't mentioned in the song instead of DiMaggio. Simon replied, "It's about syllables, Mick. It's about how many beats there are." When DiMaggio died in 1999, it was a very emotional event for many baseball fans who grew up watching him play. The part of this song that mentions him summed of the feelings of many people who felt there was no one left to look up to. Simon wrote an editorial about DiMaggio in The New York Times shortly after his death. Simon began writing this as "Mrs. Roosevelt," and had just the line, "Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt" when he changed it to "Mrs. Robinson" for The Graduate. Eleanor Roosevelt was a likely influence on the song. Some of the lyrics support this theory: We'd like to help you learn to help yourself Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes Going to the candidates debate Laugh about it, shout about it When you've got to choose Every way you look at it, you lose Roosevelt was a female rights and black rights activist, always helping everyone but herself during the Great Depression. A lot of the time she seemed to have been running the country as much as FDR. >> Report this ad When Mike Nichols was making The Graduate, he used three existing Simon & Garfunkel songs as placeholders: "The Sound of Silence," "Scarborough Fair / Canticle" and "April Come She Will." He was hoping that Paul Simon would write some original songs for the film, but touring and work on an upcoming album left him drained. Nichols decided to use these placeholder songs, but really wanted a new song to serve as the soundtrack. Art Garfunkel had heard Simon working on "Mrs. Roosevelt," and mentioned this to Nichols, who realized the title had the same number of syllables as "Mrs. Robinson." Desperate for a song, Nichols asked Simon to change it to "Mrs. Robinson" and write the rest of it. Simon decided to give it a shot. According to Art Garfunkel, this song may never have been recorded had it not been for The Graduate director Mike Nichols, who asked the duo for songs for his film. Garfunkel said that at the time, the tune was "A trifle song we were about to throw out," but when Nichols heard this early version, he heard something in it and asked Simon to adapt it for the film. "His intelligence allowed him to hang loose and make all these different, fabulous choices," Garfunkel said of Nichols, who died in 2014. Nichols directed Garfunkel in the 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge. (source of quote: Entertainment Weekly) This would have had a good chance to win an Oscar for Best Song From A Movie, but it was never nominated because Simon & Garfunkel never filled out the forms to get it considered, leaving "Talk To The Animals" from Doctor Dolittle as the winner. Simon explained, "It was the '60s, we just weren't paying attention." It took 35 years, but Simon finally was nominated for an Oscar in 2003 for his song "Father And Daughter," which was used in The Wild Thornberry's Movie. According to a "making of" feature on The Graduate DVD, Paul Simon did not originally write a full-length version of this song, only the verses that are heard in the movie. After the movie became a hit, he finished the lyrics and recorded the full version that is known today. This song won the 1968 Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The award was first given out in 1959, and in the '60s, songs like "Moon River" and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" won the award. "Mrs. Robinson" was the first Record of the Year with ties to rock music. Many top session musicians recorded with Simon & Garfunkel, including drummer Hal Blaine, who played on this and considers it one of his favorites. Speaking with Mail on Sunday's Event magazine, Garfunkel recalled: "We tightened the harmonies, and it became something very appealing. I remember walking into the studio, with Hal Blaine playing congas, Larry Knetchel playing bass, and Paul playing terrific, chugga-chugga rhythm guitar, all around one microphone. I tiptoed into the control room to check that we were recording, and started getting very excited, thinking, this has got it! It swings like a mutha." The American group The Lemonheads did a popular cover of this song in 1992 that went to #8 on the Modern Rock chart and introduced the song to many in Generation X (it also hit #19 on the UK Singles chart). The Lemonheads were asked to record the song for the 25th anniversary release of The Graduate, prompting frontman Evan Dando to comment, "Some people, probably wearing Italian shoes, said, 'Hmmm, we need to get The Graduate out to more of a flannel-wearing kind of audience." Dando would later say, "I'm more proud of my own songs than the version of 'Mrs. Robinson,' which frankly I can take or leave – mostly leave." He refused to perform the song except under duress when sufficiently cajoled by his record company. His disdainful attitude toward the song was a protection mechanism of sorts to keep credibility with his core audience, who loathed anything reeking of corporate influence. "For the longest time, I couldn't believe we did it, and a lot of our fans were disappointed that we put that out," he explained in a 2019 Songfacts interview. "They thought we were better than that, that we were kind of selling out." Dando adjusted his attitude when the Lemonheads cover was used in the 2013 Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street, earning him a nice royalty check. "I thought, If it's in a Scorsese movie, it's finally making good for me," he told Songfacts. "I'm OK with it." Frank Sinatra covered this on his 1969 album My Way. He changed the words, adding some of his own jive and making reference to the movie The Graduate. This features in the 2005 romantic comedy Rumor Has It, which has Jennifer Aniston wondering if grandma Shirley MacLaine is the inspiration behind the famous character from The Graduate. In the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, this plays as Forrest receives the Medal of Honor for his service in the Vietnam War. Albert Brooks used a soundalike version titled "Mrs. Henderson," performed by voice actors Steve Lively and Jess Harnell, for his 1996 comedy, Mother. Brooks plays John Henderson, a twice-divorced author who moves back into his childhood home to learn if his strained relationship with his mother is the reason for his bad luck with women. The long drive to her house is soundtracked by the tune, with new lyrics (written by Brooks and his screenwriting partner Monica McGowan Johnson) that reflect his plight: And here's to you, Mrs. Henderson Your grown son is moving back today Hey hey hey God help him please, Mrs. Henderson He looks to you to help him with his life He lost a wife… again Brooks called on his friend Carrie Fisher to help him secure permission to use the song. Fisher - whose mother, Debbie Reynolds, played Brooks' mother aka "Mrs. Henderson" in the movie - was married to Paul Simon from 1983 to 1984 and was his best shot of getting a green light. In the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday, Jack Black entertains Kate Winslet by humming movie scores while they peruse the selection at a video store. When he gets to The Graduate, he sings part of "Mrs. Robinson" as an unimpressed Dustin Hoffman overhears from a nearby aisle.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Whoa, whoa, whoa
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Whoa, whoa, whoa
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes
Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
It's a little secret, just the Robinson's affair
Most of all, you've got to hide it from the kids

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Whoa, whoa, whoa
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this, you lose

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Woo, woo, woo
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey