French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who was attending the same party, mistakenly referred to Paul as "Al" and to Peggy as "Betty", inspiring Simon to write a song.

[2][3] Jon Pareles noted that the lyrics can be interpreted as describing a man experiencing a midlife crisis[4] ("Where's my wife and family?

[7] The song features a bass run performed by Bakithi Kumalo; the solo is palindromic, as the second half is the first played backwards.

The decision to reverse the recording was made by Simon's long-time engineer Roy Halee, who noted in a later interview that this type of experimentation was common in order to make the songs more interesting.

After much work on the track, Halee used tape delays feeding separately into the two audio channels, which made the vocals clear.

"[9] In the United States, "You Can Call Me Al" initially fared poorly, reaching number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1986.

[12] A replacement video directed by Gary Weis was conceived partly by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, in which Saturday Night Live alumnus Chevy Chase lip-synced Simon's vocals as Simon lip-synced to the backing vocals and brought in various instruments to mime playing when they respectively appear in the song.