The Sounds of Silence ~ Simon and Garfunkel

The duo of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are American popular musicians known collectively as Simon & Garfunkel. They met in elementary school in 1953, when they both appeared in the school play Alice in Wonderland (Simon as the White Rabbit, Garfunkel as the Cheshire Cat). They formed the group Tom and Jerry in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit “Hey Schoolgirl”. As Simon and Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965 backed by the hit single “The Sounds of Silence”. Their music was featured on the landmark film The Graduate, propelling them further into the public consciousness. They are well known for their close harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. Their last album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was marked with several delays caused by artistic disagreements.

The song was originally called “The Sounds of Silence,” and is titled that way on the early albums in which it appeared and on the single. In later compilations, it was retitled “The Sound of Silence.” Both the singular and the plural form of the word appear in the lyrics.

The Sounds of Silence

“The Sounds of Silence” is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon and Garfunkel to popularity. It was written on February 19, 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Simon conceived of the song as a way of capturing the emotional trauma felt by many Americans.

Simon began working on the song sometime after the Kennedy assassination. He had made progress on the music, but had yet to get down the lyrics. On February 15, 1964, the lyrics apparently coalesced, and Simon showed the new composition to Garfunkel the same day. Shortly afterwards, the duo began to perform it at folk clubs in New York, and included it on their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., released that October. The album flopped upon its release, and the duo split up, with Simon going to England for much of 1965. There he often performed the song solo in folk clubs, and recorded it for a second time on his solo LP in May 1965, The Paul Simon Songbook.

On June 15, 1965, immediately after the recording session of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Wilson took the original track of Simon & Garfunkel, and overdubbed the recording with electric guitar (played by Al Gorgoni), electric bass (Bob Bushnell), and drums (Bobby Gregg), and released it as a single without even consulting Simon or Garfunkel. The song entered the U.S. pop charts in September 1965 and slowly began its ascent.

Simon learned that it had entered the charts minutes before he went on stage to perform at a club in Copenhagen, Denmark, and in the later fall of 1965 he returned to the United States. By the end of 1965 and the first few weeks of 1966, the song reached number one on the U.S. charts. Simon and Garfunkel then reunited as a musical group, and included the song as the title track of their next album, Sounds of Silence, hastily recorded in December 1965 and released in January 1966 to capitalize on their success. The song propelled them to stardom and, together with two other top-five (in the U.S.) hits in the summer of 1966, “I Am a Rock” and “Homeward Bound,” ensured the duo’s fame. In 1999, BMI named “The Sounds of Silence” as the 18th-most performed song of the 20th century. In 2004 it was ranked #156 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the duo’s three songs on the list.

This is one of the earliest performances days after it was written in New York City in February, 1964:

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.

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 dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

“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 to you.”
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of 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.

Other Songs Posted for this Artist

• April 30, 2010 -- A Poem on the Underground Wall – Simon and Garfunkel
• September 26, 2009 -- America ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• June 15, 2009 -- Keep the Customer Satisfied ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• March 28, 2009 -- Punky’s Dilemma ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• March 22, 2009 -- The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• March 8, 2009 -- Hazy Shade of Winter ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• November 30, 2008 -- The Boxer ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• November 27, 2008 -- A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission) ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• November 23, 2008 -- The Dangling Conversation ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• November 19, 2008 -- Homeward Bound ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• November 17, 2008 -- Kathys Song ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• August 3, 2008 -- American Tune ~ Simon and Garfunkel
• May 22, 2008 -- Scarborough Fair/Canticle ~ Simon and Garfunkel

Tagged as: Simon and Garfunkel