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August 27, 2020  Music / Premium


THE SOUND OF SILENCE: THE MEANING OF SIMON AND GARFUNKEL’S MASTERPIECE

Posted by Edoardo Crasta

1964. Lights out. A confession in the dark, a longtime faithful friend.
Meanwhile, a jet of water flows from a tap deliberately left open. A waste that
we forgive, because starting from these ingredients the young Paul Simon wrote
The Sound of Silence, a song that more than half a century later will still be
sadly valid today. He, locked in the bathroom with pen and paper, cannot imagine
that in 2020s we would still talk about his dialogue with the most intimate part
of himself, opened by one of the most beautiful opening words ever written.

The song, which originally was named The Sounds of Silence, was initially
recorded as an acoustic piece and included on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the
first album Simon records with Art Garfunkel for Columbia Records. It could have
also been the last, because it turned out to be a daunting flop. The duo splits:
Simon leaves for London to seek his fortune as a soloist, while Garfunkel
resumes his university studies. Then the unexpected happens: Tom Wilson, the
producer of the record company, discovers that the radios are playing the song
with an unexpected frequency in some parts of the United States. Without letting
the duo know, Wilson reinvents it with the addition of drums and electric
guitar, transforming it into a folk rock piece that will soon climb the charts.
Simon and Garfunkel reunite and the rest is history.

It is curious, however, how over time the acoustic version has remained the best
known and most touching, reaching its highest point in the 1981 free concert in
Central Park, when the two musicians, divided for years, returned together to
astonish a crowd of 500,000 people.

Simon is fond of oxymorons; Garfunkel himself explains it, and he knows him
well. This rhetorical figure, always loved by poets, consists in the
juxtaposition of two or more words that normally deny each other. But it can
happen, at times, that this contrast exposes a perfectly sensible expression, an
image that is difficult to evoke otherwise. “The sound of silence” is one of
them, and it’s safe to bet that someone who suffers from tinnitus would be ready
to confirm it. Joking aside, however one understands it, silence has a voice: it
can be a sweet whisper, like when one embraces a long-sought solitude; or he can
cry out, if being alone is a curse from which one cannot break free. Instead,
the silence that Paul Simon thought on that February day years ago is far more
terrible and inhumane. And it speaks this way:

> 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



From the very first verses, what is the main theme of the track is addressed:
incommunicability. Simon does not talk to a friend, but in the darkness of the
room where he is writing. In fact, the vision he refers to seems like one of
those dreams that you cannot tell anyone but yourself. A dream that is fixed in
the mind and that awakening does not make you forget. Then the verse continues:

> 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

The landscape Simon begins to describe is reminiscent of Dickens’ novels. There
are no trees, meadows or rivers. It’s a cramped, claustrophobic world made of
concrete and artificial lights. At one point, the calm of the night is attacked
by a blinding glare, which reveals the presence of a flood of people:

> And in the naked light I saw
> Ten thousand people, maybe more
> People talking without speaking
> People hearing without listening
> People writing songs that voices never share
> And no one dared
> Disturb the sound of silence

The pleasant silence that accompanied the walk of that lonely figure changes
shape, turning into something distressing. Individuals, physically close to each
other, are separated by the inability to communicate. They speak without
expressing concepts or emotions, they listen absently. The domain of silence, in
which only indistinct noises infiltrate, is absolute. Faced with this gruesome
spectacle, the man loses his temper:

> “Fools” said I, “You do not know
> Silence like a cancer grows
> Hear my words that I might teach you
> Take my arms that I might reach you”
> But my words like silent raindrops fell
> And echoed
> In the wells of silence

The attempt to establish a dialogue fails. There is no longer the hope of
creating authentic bonds. The emptiness of silence sucks up the words, giving
way to a general silence.

> And the people bowed and prayed
> To the neon god they made
> And the sign flashed out its warning
> In the words that it was forming
> And the sign said: “The words of the prophets
> Are written on the subway walls
> And tenement halls”
> And whisper’d in the sounds of silence

The mass has made its choice, which is realized in blind obedience … to what? To
dogmas? To capitalism? To all the nonsense that propaganda fills our heads with?
Simon undoubtedly had in mind the power of television and screens in general,
capable of shaping new thoughts in people. Whatever aspect you want to give to
this luminous divinity, the fate seems to be sealed: there will be no salvation
for men until they spiritually unite in a chain of solidarity and pity, as the
dramatic historical period we are experiencing teaches us.

Listening to this song is a strange experience, especially if we put it in the
context of our days. On the one hand you feel lulled by the arpeggio and the
light singing, on the other you have the feeling of being scolded, accused of
not having listened to the warning and trying to change things. Indeed, the
abyss of non-communication is today deeper than ever. Some more some less, we
are all in it.


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PUBLISHED BY EDOARDO CRASTA

Poet, class '94, he's sure that life is all about sounds. He lets art distract
him as much as possible from everyday life. He loves literature, cinema and
music, especially from 70s and 80s. He developed an obsession for Joy Division
which - he hopes - will never fade out. Despite he's left handed, he keeps using
the wrong scissors. View all posts by Edoardo Crasta


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