When I hear "carry your cup in your hand" I think of a man in the position of a bewildered tourist watching the scenery fly by while he cluthces onto the mundane, unable to participate fully in the reveries because of his masochistic tendency to self-edit (as suggested in verse 1). The homeless man as narrator angle never occurred to me because the lyrics are completely coherent without it.
Also, it makes no sense to suggest that someone would have to be elderly dying in order to reflect on the decisions he has made in life. If this were so, how could Simon have had this insight 40+ years ago, and still be touring today?
When I hear "carry your cup in your hand" I think of a man in the position of a bewildered tourist watching the scenery fly by while he cluthces onto the mundane, unable to participate fully in the reveries because of his masochistic tendency to self-edit (as suggested in verse 1). The homeless man as narrator angle never occurred to me because the lyrics are completely coherent without it.
Also, it makes no sense to suggest that someone would have to be elderly dying in order to reflect on the decisions he has made in life. If this were so, how could Simon have had this insight 40+ years ago, and still be touring today?
Well, Simon wrote another song on the same album (Old Friends) where he says "how terribly strange to be seventy".
Well, Simon wrote another song on the same album (Old Friends) where he says "how terribly strange to be seventy".