Even Carrie Fisher loved it, and it’s about the end of her marriage. “If you can get Paul Simon to write a song about you, do it, because he is so brilliant at it,” she said.
As a kid, I listened to Paul Simon’s “Hearts and Bones” over and over, pondering and failing to unravel that opening line, “one-and-one-half wandering Jews.” What does that even mean? I would come to find it sounded more mysterious than it was. Carrie Fisher was half-Jewish.
The musical choices are sublime. Marimba. Vibes. Hand drum. Six string bass. In the harmonies, you can hear hints of Graceland songs on the horizon.
The guitar work is liquid lightning, soft as summer rain. I could listen to it all day.
The music’s beauty makes it easy to forget it’s a breakup song, about the “arc of a love affair,” blending high imagery (“rainbows in the high desert air”) with everyday speech (“that’s not the way the world is, baby”) the way Paul Simon does better than anyone.
Half in the clouds, half on a bar stool.
It’s about trying to make sense of love’s ending. Of figuring out who is to blame, who’s been “damaged the most,” and if the consolation of seeing yourself as less responsible will make you feel any better. It won’t. It’s not entirely without bitterness, yet deeply tender, and it’s final line, “they won’t come undone” hints at hope and lasting friendship.
The poetry is among Simon’s finest. But it’s the sound of it that sends me endlessly back for another listen. That’s Simon’s unique and enduring gift: self-contained little musical universes that you never want to leave.
I don’t know if “Hearts and Bones” is actually my favorite song, but it’s usually my answer to the question.