First To Admit it, 'Last One to Know

Are there song lyrics that just seem to speak about you in particular?

I’ve found quite a few but this Paul Simon song seems to hit closer to the mark that most any other.

If something goes wrong
I’m the first to admit it
The first to admit it
But the last one to know
If something goes right
Well, its likely to lose me
Its apt to confuse me
Because its such an unusual sight
Oh I can't get used to something so right
Something so right

Mostly it’s that line ‘first to admit it, last one to know’. That’s me, that is.


He wrote that song about me. And then he goes on to say:

They’ve got a wall in china
Its a thousand miles long
To keep out the foreigners
They made it strong
And I’ve got a wall around me
That you can’t even see
It took a little time
To get next to me

God, Paul knows me so well. Except he doesn’t, does he? He doesn’t know me at all.

I bet there’s lot’s of people out there who think this song speaks to them personally. It’s 'carnival fortune-teller 101' - find those truths that seem highly personal to the client but which most of us, deep-down, really share.

I know all this… I know…

Still, that’s me he’s singing about.

What songs get you this way?

Two Simon and Garfunkel Lyrics Interpreted

Some of you know this already. Some of you think it's all wrong.

I used to be confused by Simon and Garfunkel's song 'So Long Frank Lloyd Wright' on that 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' album of so long ago.

Frank Lloyd Wright was arguably the world's most famous 20th Century Architect (my son John threw his soother into the FLW exhibit in the Victoria and Albert Museum twelve years ago - 'always the critic).

But Paul Simon wrote, "So long Frank Lloyd Wright, all of the nights we'd harmonised til dawn, I never laughed so long, so long, so long..." It's a nice lyric.

But the timeline doesn't work terribly well. FLW died in 1959 and it seemed unlikely that the very young Paul would have jammed with him.

Well... I am here to tell you that he didn't.

Art Garfunkel had considered becoming an architect and thus earned the nickname 'Frank Lloyd Wright' from his musical partner.

So the song is actually about the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel. Paul is saying goodbye to Art in it.

Now it makes some sense.

As a sort of a bonus-track of Paul Simon song-interpretation, it is helpful to note that St. Cecilia is the Patron saint of musicians.

Bear this in mind when listening to the Simon and Garfunkel song 'Cecilia'.

It throws a little light, I think.