Paul Simon & George Harrison - Homeward Bound

Saturday Night Live (20 November 1976)

"Homeward Bound" is an American folk song written by Paul Simon, performed by Simon and Garfunkel, produced by Bob Johnston and recorded on December 14, 1965. It describes Simon's longing to return home to his then girlfriend, Kathy Chitty, who was in London. It is uncertain exactly where the song was written: in an interview with Paul Zollo for SongTalk Magazine, Art Garfunkel says that Simon wrote the song in a railway station "around Manchester" while in an earlier interview for Playboy Magazine Simon stated that the railway station was in Liverpool. It is likely, however, that it was written at Widnes railway station during a long wait for a train, when traveling back from Widnes, where he had been playing.


Lyrics:

I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket for my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Every day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.