Anticipation released 51 years ago, might seem whimsical but it's on of Simon’s finest work. She wrote it while waiting to go on a date with Cat Stevens. "That's only one of three times that that's ever happened to me. That I just sat down and wrote the whole song in just one 15 minute stretch. The result is lovely.
You can hear Stevens' musical influence in "Anticipation," but their romance didn't last, and perhaps Simon knew it, writing in the third and final verse: "And tomorrow we might not be together, I'm no prophet, Lord, I don't know nature's way." The song got another lease of life when it was used in a ketchup ad, and finally seemed to come into its own.
Time gave those lyrics a deeper meaning, less about impatiently wondering about what's happening in the here and now, and more about the preciousness of love as we get older. Simon admitted in a 2010 interview that playing the song live made her cry, explaining: It reportedly made her think that not only was the hourglass tipped over on its other side, but there was more sand at the bottom of the hourglass than the top.
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