My tape of Hearts and Bones is so old and well-played that it is losing much of its quality. The CD is still available, fortunately, for this most personal and introspective of Paul Simon's many masterpieces. It was such a joy to hear the instrumentation properly again, going with classics like "Allergies", "Hearts and Bones", "Maybe I Think too Much" and the surprisingly enduring "Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War", which in some ways holds the album together.I mean, mainly this is just a man dealing with the frustrations he dealt with and turning them into music, a path well traveled by singer-songwriters of Simon's era. But he is also intrigued by the symbolism of his particular trials, and how they stand for big issues faced by many others.Think of it - "Allergies" concerns health problems that matter, but can be outlasted with sheer endurance, and he finds the same thing in relationships; "Hearts and Bones" concerns the irreversibility of a relationship when children have entered the picture (and maybe when they haven't); "Maybe I Think Too Much" concerns the whole issue of pondering all the meanings of all the troubles, and whether it amounts to anything (Have you ever experienced a period of grace, when your brain just takes a seat behind your face?); and "Song About the Moon", as well as "Train in the Distance" are so overtly symbolic they could be from a Simon and Garfunkel album.And what could be bad about that?