Hearts and Bones by Paul Simon

Hearts and Bones, Paul Simon's sixth solo studio album, reached stores on Warner Bros. on November 4, 1983, and it very nearly wasn't a solo record at all. Fresh off the 1981 Concert in Central Park and the world tour that followed, Simon tried out new songs on the road and brought Art Garfunkel into the studio with a new Simon & Garfunkel album in mind. Then the material cut too close. The album, the title track above all, turned on his relationship with the actress Carrie Fisher, and Simon judged it too private for the duo; he wiped Garfunkel's vocals and finished it alone, leaving his old partner sorely annoyed and shutting the door on any further duo album.

Roy Halee produced, and the record was to be called Think Too Much until Warner chief Mo Ostin talked him out of it. What's left is Simon at his most exposed, picking over a romance with a jeweler's eye, three years before Graceland.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.