‘The Boxer’ was written by Paul Simon in 1968 and was first recorded by Simon & Garfunkel. It was released as the follow-up single to their number one hit ‘Mrs. Robinson’, and reached #7 in the US charts. The original recording of the song is one of the duo's most highly produced, and took over 100 hours to record at multiple locations, including Nashville, St. Paul's Chapel in New York City, and Columbia studios. The chorus of the song is wordless, consisting of a repeated chant of "lie-la-lie". Simon stated that this was originally intended only as a placeholder, but became part of the finished song.