Vinyl Nostalgia 
In medieval England, "Scarborough Fair" became a popular folk song sung by bards in town squares and marketplaces. The song's author is unknown, and there are many different versions of it. Paul Simon learned about the song during a concert tour of England, where he heard a version by the popular folk singer Martin Carthy. When Carthy heard Simon and Garfunkel’s performance, he accused Simon of stealing his arrangement, but the dispute was settled amicably.
– The version I played was definitely the one I remembered from Martin’s version, but he didn’t teach it to me. Really, it was just naivety on my part that we didn’t recognize it as his arrangement of a traditional song. I didn’t know that was how it was supposed to be. Later, Martin’s publisher contacted me, and we reached a fairly substantial financial settlement, which he was supposed to split with Martin. But I didn’t know that Martin didn’t get anything,” Paul Simon later said about the matter.
“Scarborough Fair” and “Canticle” are two songs sung simultaneously, forming this track. The first and last verses are from “Scarborough Fair,” but lines from “Canticle” alternate after the first line of the remaining verses, so “On the side of a hill in a deep forest green” and “Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested ground” come from “Canticle.”
The song was not released as a single until 1968, when it was featured in Dustin Hoffman’s film “The Graduate.” It appears on the film’s soundtrack.