'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme'

I think this is a straight-up war protest record.

I realize it has overt protest elements like "Canticle" and "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night."

But I think it's truly a protest record for all the other songs. Mostly because they're all about longer, something you didn't really find in a lot of folk rock.

Note: There's a difference between songs about love lost and songs about longing. Love lost refers to having something that's lost that, in theory, can be found again. Longing is the stomach-turning desire that can not be sated with anything other than the desired object.

"Scarborough Fair" is about longing. "Homeward Bound" is longing. "For Emily ..." is longing. "Puzzle" is longing.

No, they're not all about girls. Or necessarily about a girl, but maybe the idea of girls. In Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the drill sergeant in boot camp refers to "Mary Jane Rottencrotch" as a catch-all name for the girl that the soldiers were "finger banging" at home. It's this "Mary Jane" character that I imagine going through a soldier's brain as they're trying to sleep in the mud and rain in a Vietnam jungle.

Simon and Garfunkel are selling Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the idea that you may be dodging napalm and bullets now, but there's still a chance that you'll be held again, that you'll sleep in your childhood bedroom again and that you'll see a pretty girl again, imagine her naked and forget about her 10 minutes later.

They weren't selling protest or marches, just longing.