Paul Simon Says Everyone Loves This One Line in “Mrs. Robinson”, Even Though It Doesn’t Make Any Sense

In 1968, Simon & Garfunkel had a No. 1 hit with “Mrs. Robinson”. On their Bookends album, the song is written by Paul Simon.  It is also part of the movie, The Graduate, starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman, about a young boy who becomes involved with a much older woman.

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“Mrs. Robinson” says, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? / A nation turns its lonely eyes to you /  What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson / Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away, hey hey hey.” It’s a lyric that Simon admits doesn’t make much sense.

 “The Joe DiMaggio line was written right away in the beginning,” Simon recalls. “And I don’t know why or where it came from. It seems so strange, like it didn’t belong in that song. And then, I don’t know, it was so interesting to us that we just kept it. So it’s one of the most well-known lines that I’ve ever written.”

How Paul Simon Wrote “Mrs. Robinson”

Simon originally had “Mrs. Roosevelt” as a title, perhaps as a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, a claim he has never confirmed. Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate, asked Simon for music for the movie.

“Mike Nichols was almost finished with the film,” Simon recalls on The Dick Cavett Show. “What would happen is, in order to fill up a scene, we would take a piece of music and put it there, just to hear what the music would sound like.” For one scene, Nichols told Simon he wanted “guitar music.”

“So, I was just riffing, playing that opening lick,” Simon recalls, adding that what he was playing wasn’t working.

Undeterred, Simon pulled out what he had of “Mrs. Robinson”. Later, Garfunkel remembers how Mrs. Robinson” became one of the most memorable parts of The Graduate.

“Paul had been working on what is now ‘Mrs. Robinson’, but there was no name in it,” Garfunkel shares. “We’d just fill in with any three-syllable name. And because of the character in the picture, we just began using the name ‘Mrs. Robinson’ to fit. One day, we were sitting around with Mike talking about ideas for another song. I said, ‘What about ‘Mrs. Robinson’?’ Mike shot to his feet. ‘You have a song called ‘Mrs. Robinson’, and you haven’t even shown it to me?’”

Frank Sinatra includes a version of “Mrs. Robinson” on his legendary My Way album. In 1992, The Lemonheads had a Top 10 hit with “Mrs. Robinson”.

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