The Cross Is In The Ballpark

Since reviewing the movie "Obvious Child",  I've been obsessing over Paul Simon's song of the same name.  The drum part of the song has fascinated me since the song was released, but I'd never really listened to the lyrics until recently.  For the most part, it's clearly about a father, followed by his son, reminiscing about the past and meditating on the process of aging.  But some of the specific lyrics are a bit cryptic.  For instance, it's not clear exactly what the singer is talking about when he says, "a lie's a lie's a lie but I say why/why deny the obvious child".  What lie are we talking about exactly?  And is the line supposed to be understood as "why deny the obvious, child" as though he's talking to someone?  Or is it more like "why deny the child, it's obvious"?  Even more confounding is the line "The cross is in the ballpark".  Every other line seems to make sense at least vaguely, but this one comes out of left field (so to speak).  Simon is on record as saying that he originally had the image of the Pope addressing his followers in a ballpark, but then decided it meant that the "crosses we bear" are "in the ballpark" of us being able to deal with them.

I think he's full of it.  After an exhaustive study of the lyrics, which involved me staring at the ceiling late at night in lieu of sleeping, I've concluded that the song is about coming to terms with male pattern baldness, which I suspect was an issue in Simon's life at the time he wrote it.  Basically, the "cross... in the ballpark" is the thin strip of hair across the scalp that divides your bald patch from your forehead.  If you look at this baldness chart, you'll see that receding hair does take on the appearance of a baseball field at an intermediary stage (the bald patch is the diamond and the forehead is the outfield).  Once you accept this interpretation, it clearer what lies he is (or others are) considering, in trying to hide hair-loss.  Why try to hide what's clear to everybody?

If you're interested in looking more closely at this, I've done a line-by-line interpretation of the lyrics and posted it on the Q&A website Quora.