Some time early in 1970 I saved up my pocket money and splashed out on the biggest purchase of my young life – an LP.

It was probably around the time in February when Simon & Garfunkel went to No.1 and Bridge Over Troubled Water stayed there for what seemed like an entire school term.

I went out and bought the album and played it to death at my boarding school in Sussex, a big country house that has long since been closed down and converted into a country house hotel.

The record player was in the billiard room, where we would play on a full-size table (snooker was sniffily deemed to be too common) while listening to what seemed to nearly always be Sgt bloody Pepper, instilling a lifelong hatred of that record. Even its cover photo makes my blood boil.

Despite that, and seeming to know nearly every note of every song nearly half a century later – too much so – I don’t remember this one, hidden away on Side 2, at all.

It’s lovely: the sort of thing Paul Simon would go on to do on his solo albums soon after this. Some think the lonesome lyric, begging for a partner to get back in touch, is about the impending split with Art Garfunkel; it could equally be about a girl who’s broken his heart.

I like the ambiguity. And I like the song – even the kazoo bit.