There were a lot of highs and lows for the 50th Anniversary special of Saturday Night Live; billed as SNL 50, and airing on Sunday, February 16. From Eddie Murphy to Bill Murray to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Andy Samberg and Chevy Case, there were way too many self-referential callbacks and surprise drop-ins to take in. At certain points, SNL 50 felt like a collection of celebrity Easter eggs, and the game was to try to notice each famous person the quickest. But, despite all the flash and deep cuts, the cold-open of the show was smart, sweet, and perhaps, the best moment of the evening.
Instead of opening with a sketch or a timely inside joke, SNL 50 kicked things off with Paul Simon dueting with Sabrina Carpenter, singing the classic song "Homeward Bound," written by Simon, and famously recorded by Simon & Garfunkle and originally released in 1966. But, as Simon mentioned just before performing, he played the song on SNL back in 1976 with the late George Harrison. At the time, Harrison and Simon also performed the famous Beatles song, written by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun."
While Carpenter quipped that she wasn't even born in 1976 (which is true, she was born in 1999), her part of the duet was emotional, and real, with a touch of the folk essence that makes the song so affecting. Simon, for his part, proved that despite being 83 years old, he still knows how to put his entire heart into one of the greatest songs ever written. This version of "Homeward Bound" will go down as one of the greatest of all time.
While SNL is of course known for laughs, the live music is a crucial part of its legacy. This is why on Saturday, the day before SNL 50, there was an entire live concert—SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert—which celebrated all the great musical acts of the show. Still, the performance on the smaller, more intimate SNL stage felt rawer and more real than anything in the larger, more formal concert the night before.
Obviously, Simon represents the beginning of a certain era of live music on SNL, and Carpenter represents the present. Is it easy to make people emotional with nostalgia like this? Sure. But, there was something nice, honest, and simple about this opening. And in a way, it encapsulates everything that is great about one of the longest-running live shows of all time. You can fake quite a bit on television, but you can't fake a heartfelt performance like that.
SNL 50 and SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert stream on Peacock.
Related: 25 Years Later, ‘SNL’ Vet Reveals How One Classic Jay-Z Sketch Went Off the Rails
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/MDCpA0P
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