"Maybe and maybe and maybe some more." I don't believe that you can really be sure if the songpoet isn't at all sure. It turns out, though, that the songpoet is sure about some things, and that gives us a handle on this complex track.
To begin, religious faith can be consoling. To a Christian or Muslim, death is the entry to heaven, which is certainly consoling if you lose a relative or friend. But our songpoet, or the character created by our songpoet (maybe and maybe...), does not believe, and therefore is not consoled.
It is not the fairytale forest in which disbelief is expressed. It's the view that acts of kindness are beneficial, "like breadcrumbs in a fairytale forest," (simile, here). Our character or our songpoet leans closer to the fire, but is still cold. This is an echo of a primitive time when fire meant heat. Maybe. Or it's a purely psychological chill, triggered by disbelief and the fire is in a well-appointed mansion. Maybe. Both work.
Then we learn that the earth was born in a storm, and that "'the universe loves a drama,' you know." (Line credited to an unnamed "E. B." Simon is married to Edie Brickell.)
Prehistory yields to contemporary life with head-spinning speed when the broker calls. (As noted at www.CrackingTheSimonCode.org/lyrics/i3.html the music is unchanged between prehistory and the broker's call.) This introduction of the broker is necessary to set up the broker's second appearance, where his mission is realized.
Returning to the original music ("Acts of kindness, ...") we see what Simon does believe: he believes in children, love and familial happiness. Let's fast forward to the return of the "born in a storm" music and then rewind to the guardian angel.
For a long time I was confused by the "heart is part of the mist" line. Then I slid into my car seat to run an errand. The mountain I live on (well, big hill - 540 feet above the valley floor) was fogged in. You couldn't see. I drove half a mile to the end of my road, said "to hell with it" and returned home. On the way home, a big head-slapping "How obvious!" came to me.
Substitute "fog" for mist (sorry about messing up Simon's poetry - this is only for explanation). "Maybe the heart is part of the fog." It's part of that which prevents you from seeing clearly. Maybe the confusion is all that there is or that could ever exist. Maybe this is about religious faith. Maybe the author is an agnostic, wrestling with the question of God's existence. It is this wrestling that has him asking his guardian angel to stop taunting him. Maybe. (From "Everything About It Is a Love Song," "Sit down, shut up, think about God, ...").
So there's the broker on the line. He blew it. "Maybe some virus or brokerage joke" (there's that word "maybe" again) "And he hopes that my faith isn't shaken." Our songpoet has challenged himself to look at these topics from all angles. Here he points out that faith applies to far more than religious concerns. You can have faith in your acountant, broker, carpenter... I have faith in my Linux computer (last booted two months ago).
Faith in religion can be consoling. Uncertainty in religion can be troubling. Having faith in secular things, whether that is a loving family or a broker, is also a good thing. The title, "I Don't Believe" points straight at the subject matter. Belief is another thing that happens somewhere in the mind.
For me, I still don't believe that I've figured out the final line. Won't someone help out? "To pantomime prayers with the hands of a clock." What?
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JASE
said ...
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To pantomime prayers with the hands of a clock - I believe this to be a reference to the "sign of the cross" in Catholicism.
The hands move mechanically...like a clock.
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