Songfacts®:

• Seven Psalms is a seven-part continuous piece designed to be listened to in its entirety, not as individual songs. It's an immersive experience akin to a classical oratorio. Paul Simon reflects throughout the album on themes of faith, mortality, and acceptance, drawing inspiration from the biblical Book of Psalms.
  
  Here, Simon uses a braid as a metaphor for the way we nurture and embellish our love relationships.
  Braided hair, with its intricately woven strands, embodies the essence of enduring beauty. Just like a braid strengthens with each additional layer, love deepens and grows more complex with shared experiences and nurtured care.
• The songs on Seven Psalms often have some choice or doubt in them. On this song, Simon reflects on his own metaphor.
  
  Love is like a braid, some say
  And I, I don't disbelieve it
  Cowrie shells, fine combs made of jade
  To ornament and weave it
  
  Simon told Mojo magazine he's not saying love is like a braid. "There's this weighing going on - thinking about how you really feel about something, knowing that where you come down is not necessarily the right answer," he said. "Or is there a right answer? Any of these things – you try to say it in a song without being preachy. And without pretending that you know more than the listener, because you don't. To me, the most spiritual aspect of the whole record is the sound of the music."
• The bridge comes from a Hindu chant.
  
  Home, home
  Sun on my doorstep
  Shocks me to find
  I'm a child again entwined
  In your love, in your light
  In your cool summer shade
  
  Simon is fascinated by the larger questions that all religions address. "'Om Shakti Om' (a mantra for attaining bliss and enlightenment), those sounds, om and shak, are part of the sonic environment," he explained. "You get transported to the place where you find the answers to these questions."