The Sound of Silence

"The Sound of Silence"
Song

"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.

The song features Simon on acoustic guitar and both Simon and Garfunkel singing. It was originally recorded as an acoustic piece for their first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., but was later overdubbed with electric instruments and re-released as a single in September 1965. The single slowly climbed the charts until it reached number one on New Year's Day 1966. The song was included in the 1966 album Sounds of Silence.

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 song was used in the film The Graduate, played during the opening credits and the closing footage, and in the film Bobby, where it is played during Robert Kennedy's victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel, just before his assassination.

History

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 19 February 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.

In the meantime, Simon and Garfunkel's producer at Columbia Records in New York, Tom Wilson, had learned that the song had begun to receive airplay on radio stations in Boston, Massachusetts and around Gainesville and Cocoa Beach, Florida.

On 15 June 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.

Single

"The Sounds of Silence" was released on Columbia Records as 45 rpm catalog number #4-43396. The single has several variations:

• One variation was a promotional release on red vinyl. This copy was unique in that it featured the original acoustic version found on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. on one side and the electric overdubbed version later featured on Sounds of Silence on the other. This release was mainly distributed to radio stations and carries a white label. This version is rare to find today, and quite valuable to collectors.

• The standard version of the single was released on black vinyl, with a red label the same Columbia catalog number, and backed with "We've Got a Groovey Thing Goin'." The now-passé adjective is normally spelled "Groovy", as it would be on their later issue, "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)".

• "The Sounds of Silence" was later released in the 1970s on the Columbia "Hall of Fame" series, catalog number 13-3396, which featured back-to-back hits of a group on 45. This time the song was backed by "Homeward Bound".

Quotations

• "'The Sounds of Silence' is a major work. We were looking for a song on a larger scale, but this is more than either of us expected."

- Art Garfunkel

• "A societal view of the lack of communication."

- Paul Simon

• "The lyrics burst forth practically writing themselves."

- Paul Simon

• "The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run — I like that sound, it's very soothing to me — and I'd play. In the dark. 'Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again'."

- Paul Simon

Cover versions

• The Bachelors released a cover version as a single (Decca F12351, 9 Apr 1966), hitting number 3 in the UK charts. The track has been included on many of their albums.
• B.B. Seaton and The Gaylads recorded a Reggae version in 1967.
• Boudewijn de Groot, a famous Dutch artist, included a translated version of the song on his Apocalyps album. The lyrics were translated by his textwriter Lenneart Nijgh.
• It was covered in French by Gérard Lenorman under the title "Chanson d'innocence".
• "The Sounds of Silence" was covered by Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini for a 1996 compilation.
• Gregorian (band) recorded a version for their 1999 album Masters of Chant.
• Progressive metal band Nevermore also recorded their own rendition for their 2000 album, Dead Heart in a Dead World. While directly borrowing Simon's lyrics and vocal melody, musically, Nevermore's version barely resembles the original, lasting over two minutes longer, and with only the introductory guitar chords resembling the original melody.
• German metalband Atrocity covered this song for their album Gemini in 2000 (Motor Music).
• Dinu Bomha released an instrumental version on the panflute
• Shaw Blades, consisting of Night Ranger's Jack Blades and Styx's Tommy Shaw, covered the song on their 2007 album Influences.
• In November 2007, the female British classical choral quartet All Angels of Universal Records released a cover of the song on their album Into Paradise.

Live cover performances

• New Zealand singer/song-writer Brooke Fraser covered this song live for her Albertine tour and is available in the Deluxe Edition of her studio album of the same name.
• Alizee performed a cover during her "Psychédélices" tour in Moscow, Russia on the 18th of May, 2008. Introducing the song, she said, "The next song is my favorite song."

See also

• List of best-selling singles in Japan