Monday 28 May 2018

The Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel




Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains

Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

I think The Sound of Silence is both timeless and iconic.

Paul Simon wrote the song when he was only 21.  It is said that the reference to darkness is about his habit of playing the guitar in a darkened bathroom because he liked the acoustics.  But I don't know – I always thought it referred to being blue/depressed.

To hear the glorious harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel just head on over to this YouTube clip.

2 comments:

  1. That sound has a lot of meaning for me. Back in the middle 1970's I was extremely depressed. I would get my two small children off to school (Summer and Jesse, Jr.), do whatever housework I had to do and then get a box of tissues and sit in the living room listening to the whole album 'Bridge Over Troubled Water.' I would cry and just sit there in the darkend living room for the rest of the day and then pull myself together in time for the kids to come home. I lived with a dark depression for most of the 41 years of my first marriage. The freedom and joy I discovered and the power of making changes and my own decisions is still new and fresh to me and I don't think I will ever take it for granted. Now I can hear these songs and simply enjoy them.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I share this song with my American Literature classes and the responses are so varied - for some this represents their life and others don't like it at all. It is one of the iconic favorites of my teenage years (back in the late '60s-70s.)

    ReplyDelete

Your comments are most welcome. I have currently disabled anonymous comments due to unwanted spam. Cheers