When I was in my thirties, my mom told me that when I was in my early teens I used to play this song over and over to the point where she and my dad worried about me. I have no memory of that, but my early teens was a period where I felt a lot of loneliness and alienation, so I believe her. The narrator of the song has always struck me as someone who was badly hurt by people they cared about and responded by trying to build walls around their heart to avoid being hurt again... but that doesn't work very well.
John Donne wrote "No man is an island", and I'm sure Paul Simon was aware of that when he wrote this song.
When I was in my thirties, my mom told me that when I was in my early teens I used to play this song over and over to the point where she and my dad worried about me. I have no memory of that, but my early teens was a period where I felt a lot of loneliness and alienation, so I believe her. The narrator of the song has always struck me as someone who was badly hurt by people they cared about and responded by trying to build walls around their heart to avoid being hurt again... but that doesn't work very well.
John Donne wrote "No man is an island", and I'm sure Paul Simon was aware of that when he wrote this song.