I can almost hear Paul singing a song from the perspective of an older, possibly wiser person reflecting on his radical youth, peppered with some of these other lyrics.
Something always made me suspect it was something gay, whatever was going on. Although why you’d want to do that down by the school yard, I don’t quite get. Especially if were talking the early 70s, where you’d not only be arrested for indecent behavior for doing sexual stuff in public, but something gay in a school yard? You’re begging to be hassled by the police at that point…
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant, so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Lots of people seem to think it was a gay thing. Paul Simon says he doesn’t evn know. I like the theories I’m seeing. Myself, I always thought it was a drug deal.
Something illegal that he was being taken away for, but was enough to get him and the radical priest on the cover of Newsweek. So not an ordinary drug deal, unless the cause that brought the priest in was the jailing of juveniles in adult prisons. Gay stuff, maybe, but I think that was legal in NY by then. Some planned act of political violence enough to bring Phillip Berrigan into it?
My friend and I once had an entire discourse about this, and finally decided between ourselves that it was a gay sex kind of situation. Then a third friend joined us and said “It has to be drugs–if the two of you weren’t so high right now, you’d have figured that out.”
So those are definitely the two most popular answers.
They were playing “Fifty Ways To Love Your Lever.”
The lines about the illegal act are sung in past tense–what the Mama saw, Papa said, we was (sic) on the cover of Newsweek. The chorus shifts to present and future tense–I’m on my way, I’m takin’ my time, goodbye to Rosie, see you me and Julio down by the schoolyard. Not someone saw me and Julio.
So, I don’t know that there is any connection between the illegal activity and the planned meeting at the schoolyard. Paul did something radical, got busted and released, and now he’s kicking back and laughing with his buddies. For all we know, all they’re going to do down at the schoolyard will be to shoot baskets.