I get the news I need on the weather report

The Tom in “Tom, get your plane right on time” is Art Garfunkel. Before they were Simon & Garfunkel they were Tom & Jerry, two kids from Queens, and Paul Simon reached back for the old name when his partner flew off to Mexico to act in Catch-22 — leaving Simon alone in New York, writing the songs that would become Bridge over Troubled Water. “The Only Living Boy in New York” is the one he wrote about being left behind: half goodbye letter, half blessing.

There was every reason for bitterness — Simon had been cast in the film too, and his part was cut — but none of it made the tape. The song saves its most generous moment for the two of them together: those enormous wordless “aaah”s rising behind the later verses are Simon and Garfunkel singing side by side in an echo chamber, multi-tracked around eight times into a choir of two. A song about absence, carried by the very voice that was absent.

Put it on, wait for the voices to open up behind “half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where,” and see if it doesn’t get you every time.