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I first heard the song "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard" in the 1970s - and I always wondered about the story behind it. The jaunty acoustic guitar riff is obviously celebrating something - and the lyrics seem to be alluding to a real-life event.

"In a couple of days they come and take me away
but the press let the story leak.
And when the radical priest come to get me released

We's all on the cover of Newsweek."

The song was written in 1971, when some activist priests actually were joining the protests against the Vietnam war - and student demonstrators were regularly clashing with the police. "The schoolyard" might even be a playful reference to a college campus, and the song definitely takes an outsider's stance. (Its first lyric describes "mama pajama" rolling out of bed before running to the police, and as papa "began to shout," the chorus adds that "it was against the law" - but almost as a nonchalant afterthought.)

"It's against the law, it was against the law,
What the mama saw, it was against the law."

But some research revealed that that explanation was too simple.

Paul Simon was just 30 years old when he wrote the song - but he'd already been performing with Art Garfunkel for over 16 years. After 7 years of success on a major record label, they'd broken up, and Simon released the song to launch his new solo career. It proved to be a hit, according to Wikipedia, rising all the way to #22 on the U.S. charts (and #15 in England). But did the song have a secret message?

I'd always wondered if the song was describing a violent fight - which might be an everyday occurrence for "Me and Julio," but would still prompt "papa" to say that "if I get that boy I'm gonna stick him in the house of detention." Another theory has it that "me and Julio" were involved in some kind of drug deal. Or was Julio a pimp, hiring out "the queen of Corona?" Truman Capote even suggested that "me and Julio" were doing something homosexual.

Finally in 1972, a reporter for Rolling Stone cornered Paul Simon and asked him "What is it that the mama saw? The whole world wants to know."

"Something sexual is what I imagine," Paul Simon acknowleged, "but when I say 'something', I never bothered to figure out what it was. Didn't make any difference to me."

Ultimately the song may have been a free-flowing word association - and the unsolved mystery makes it that much more interesting. According to Rolling Stone, even asking Paul Simon ultimately wouldn't solve the riddle. What illegal action were me and Julio doing down by the schoolyard?

"I have no idea what it is."

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
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