<\/p>\n
When Paul Simon<\/a><\/strong> first arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s, he was still an emerging American songwriter searching for inspiration. What he found was Martin Carthy<\/a><\/strong>, one of England\u2019s most respected folk musicians \u2014 and a traditional ballad called \u201cScarborough Fair\u201d that would soon become famous around the world.<\/p>\n Carthy says he taught the song to Simon in 1964, years before iconic folk duo Simon & Garfunkel<\/a><\/strong> turned it into their haunting hit \u201cScarborough Fair\/Canticle.\u201d But what started as a friendly exchange of songs became one of the longest misunderstandings in folk history.<\/p>\n A new interview with The Times<\/a> tells the story, “When Paul Simon passed through Britain in 1964, Carthy taught him ‘Scarborough Fair’ as well. It led to bad blood between the two for years, with Carthy believing the New York songwriter had stolen his arrangement for the Simon & Garfunkel classic ‘Scarborough Fair’ \/ ‘Canticle.’\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: The Bangles Turned This Simon & Garfunkel Folk Classic Into an \u201980s Rock Anthem<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n For decades, the British musician quietly carried that frustration, convinced that Simon had lifted his version of the song. But time \u2014 and a closer listen \u2014 changed everything.<\/p>\n \u201cHe actually wrote a song in tribute to ‘Scarborough Fair,’ he didn\u2019t steal my arrangement, and if I had bothered to listen to his version for 30 seconds, I would have realised,\u201d Carthy admitted. \u201cPaul is an entirely honourable person.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cScarborough Fair\u201d has its own long, winding story<\/a>. Simon learned the centuries-old ballad from Carthy while visiting London in 1965, and Carthy had first picked it up years earlier from a folk songbook by Ewan MacColl<\/strong> and Peggy Seeger<\/strong>. When Simon & Garfunkel reimagined it as \u201cScarborough Fair” \/ “Canticle\u201d \u2014 pairing it with anti-war lyrics from Simon\u2019s earlier \u201cThe Side of a Hill\u201d \u2014 it became one of their signature songs, later featured in The Graduate. The duo\u2019s version credited only themselves as writers, which initially upset Carthy, but the two men ultimately reconciled when Simon invited him to perform the song with him in London in 2000.<\/p>\n RELATED: Bob Dylan \u2018Disappointed a Lot of People,\u2019 Folk Legend Recalls of His Earliest Days<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Now, at 84, Carthy is once again in the spotlight. His new album, Transform Me Then into a Fish, revisits the very ballads that inspired both Simon and Bob Dylan<\/a><\/strong> decades ago \u2014 including \u201cScarborough Fair\u201d and \u201cLovely Joan.\u201d The project has earned him a Mercury Prize nomination<\/strong>, making him the oldest artist ever shortlisted for the award. It\u2019s a full-circle moment for one of Britain\u2019s most quietly influential musicians.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 12, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Paul Simon first arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s, he was still an emerging American songwriter searching for inspiration. What he found was Martin Carthy, one of England\u2019s most respected folk musicians \u2014 and a traditional ballad called \u201cScarborough Fair\u201d that would soon become famous around the world. Carthy says he taught the song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2086488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[367966,306367,392967,346950],"class_list":["post-2086487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-martin-carthy","tag-paul-simon","tag-scarborough-fair","tag-simon-garfunkel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Folk-Legend-Clears-the-Air-About-Paul-Simon-\u2018Stealing-His.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086489,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086487\/revisions\/2086489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2086488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}