Cecilia

As Covid continues on its grim path, finding subjects to blog about is becoming increasingly hard. I might be dredging the bottom of the barrel with this one, coming as it does on the back of an ear worm that lodged itself in my brain the other day. Unlike other ear worms, which can be really annoying and impossible to cast from one’s mind, this one got me thinking. I first encountered the song in the mid-seventies where my teenage self wasn’t really much of a music buff. One of the first LPs I owned was hardly the sort of thing the cool kids were listening to. Neither was it prog rock which was waiting for me just over the horizon, right about the time it became the sort of thing that cool kids were no longer listening to either. No, this was Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits album. The last track on that compilation was Cecilia, originally released in 1970 on the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, just before the New York folk-rock duo split up for the first but by no means the last time. At a little over two and a half minutes, it doesn’t take up much of your time to get acquainted with it though I suspect nearly everyone will know the song anyway. I suspect it might have become an ear worm in some of you after you read the title of the blog. If not, have a look at this You Tube video:

All very well and good but what is so significant about it that it gets a blog of its own? It’s the lyrics. They trouble me. Sung in the first person, is it safe to assume that these are the words of the songwriter Paul Simon? If so I applaud Simon’s forgiving nature. The song starts with the chorus:

Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily,

Woah Cecilia, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please to come home,

Come on home.

This has established that Simon is missing Cecilia and would really like her back, despite her destroying both his heart and confidence. We’ve all been there. Not necessarily with Cecilia of course although looking at the rest of the lyrics I suspect she’s broken a few hearts over the years. There’s only two verses, the first of which recalls the fateful afternoon where Cecilia gave a good shake to, amongst other things, Simon’s confidence. Here’s my thoughts:

Making love in the afternoon, with Cecilia up in my bedroom,

No problem with this bit. Cecilia is quite a catch it would appear. Why waste time waiting until bedtime to make love when the afternoon is free. And when it comes to the location for said rumpy pumpy, where better than your bedroom?

I got up to wash my face,

Erm, ok, just what type of carnal activity are Simon and Cecilia indulging in that he need to take a mid-coital break to give himself a face wash? But hey, it was the height of the hippy era, a time for experiment though not necessarily one for cleanliness it has to be said. I’ll let it pass as it pales into insignificance as to what comes next:

When I come back to bed someone’s taken my place.

What??? In the minute or so Simon is washing God knows what off his visage, some other bloke has snuck in to the room and he and Cecilia are at it like rabbits. We then get another rendition of the chorus which seems to suggest that despite the freshly broken heart and violently shaken confidence, Simon is so obsessed with Cecilia he is not only willing to forgive this indiscretion, he is desperate for her to ‘come on home’, which ignores the fact she never actually left. This is where I put myself in Simon’s shoes, well, maybe not his shoes as he is unlikely to have been wearing them at the time. I am now in Simon’s metaphorical shoes. I’m obviously having a really good afternoon with Cecilia, perhaps the best afternoon ever. At an appropriate point in the proceedings I nip to the bathroom for a quick freshen up and return to the bedroom. Not only is Cecilia now doing it with someone else, they are DOING IT IN MY BED. Not acceptable! Straight Red Card! Burn the bed sheets! Yes, my heart might be broken and my confidence shaken but I can’t imagine I’d be down on my knees begging any time soon.

However, it’s Simon’s song, not mine. The second and final verse suggests that his forgiving nature has paid dividends:

Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall on the floor and I’m laughing,

Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall on the floor and I’m laughing,

Woah woah woah woah….

So Cecilia is back, Simon is happy, if a little too manic for my liking, and I’m sure they both live happily ever after. I’m also sure that Simon checked the wardrobes for any ‘someones’ and washed his face prior to any afternoon shagging sessions with Cecilia in his, or for that matter, anyone else’s bedroom. Even someone as obsessed as him is likely to harbour suspicions.