1980 · Behind the Songs
The city hums, and the night takes over.
“Late in the Evening” is Paul Simon’s love letter to New York after dark. From the 1980 album One-Trick Pony, the song opens with horns and street-parade percussion — the sound of the city itself warming up — before Simon’s guitar settles in to tell a story about music, memory, and the nights that shape a life.
It was a Top 10 hit, and it has become a live staple: in concert, Simon stretches it into a showcase for his band, the horns punching through the night air exactly the way the song’s first bars promise.
Of all Simon’s city songs, this is the most joyful — proof that for all his wandering, New York at night is still home.