I love the oddball things I learn by accident.

Recently my husband Jerry and I were looking for quotes about mothers and motherhood for a couple of different projects (he was working on a Mother's Day video, I was working on a quote collection for our website) and we ran across the story behind the Paul Simon song “Mother and Child Reunion.”

I didn't understand the title of the song when it was released in 1972, but there were a lot of songs written during that period that didn't make sense to me. Plenty of listeners tried to figure it out. Had a mother or child died and joined the other in the afterlife? Was a child who had been adopted about to meet his birth mother?

Here's the real story:

Paul Simon was eating in a Chinese restaurant in New York. A dish on the menu featured chicken and eggs, and was named “Mother and Child Reunion.” Apparently this is not an uncommon menu item for Chinese restaurants.

Simon liked the title so much he decided he had to use it in a song. But the song itself had nothing to do with chickens or eggs; it was about Simon's dog that had been run over and killed.

Click here to read the full story on Snopes.

To see the quotes I found, check out “Funny, Tender, Thought-Provoking Quotes about Mothers and Motherhood”

Jacquelyn Lynn
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