It's New to Me: Hearts and Bones by Paul Simon (1983)

Illustration from the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Bulletin, 15 May 1931

"Hearts and Bones? Isn't that Paul Simon's 'LOL 80s' record?" Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought of Hearts and Bones until I actually took the time to listen to it - released in '83, after the smooth jazz of Still Crazy After All These Years and the One-Trick Pony disaster, and saddled with a very "early '80s" production, it doesn't seem to come with much to recommend it. But it's actually a very compelling and listenable album - some of the material comes from the aborted reunion project with Art Garfunkel, and several of the songs relate in some way to Simon's relationship with Carrie Fisher. It has a very personal feel to it, and the songs are as varied and interesting as anything Simon had done since There Goes Rhymin' Simon.

Unfortunately, Hearts and Bones starts with its weakest composition - the overblown and irritating "Allergies", which was also the big single from the album for some reason. The song is dominated by cheesy drum pads and bad faux-Santana guitar from Dean Parks (whose contributions on other album tracks are actually quite good). Once you get past "Allergies", though, the album goes from one strong track to the next, with the wistful title track and two different songs titled "Think Too Much" (which foreshadow the African influences of 1986's Graceland) being highlights. The doo-wop sections of the adorable "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War" are inspired, as is the Phillip-Glass-composed outro of the album's final track, a tribute to John Lennon called "The Late Great Johnny Ace".

Not all of Simon's experiments work - The lyrically beautiful "Train in the Distance" is yoked to a too-busy arrangement that dilutes the song's poignancy. Luckily, the best (and only essential) bonus track on the reissue of Hearts and Bones is an acoustic demo of "Train in the Distance" that breaks my heart every time - the final line, "The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains," is one of my all-time favorites, and it's indicative of the strong lyrical component to Hearts and Bones. Funnily enough, though, the song I enjoy the most on Hearts and Bones is its most lyrically slight, its goofiest, and arguably its most "LOL '80s" track, "Cars Are Cars". The song is just a lot of fun and has a buoyant energy to it - the way the chorus builds and builds at the end of the song is happiness-making stuff.

"Cars Are Cars" by Paul Simon