The Sound of Silence
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| "The Sound of Silence" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by Simon and Garfunkel | ||
| from the album Sounds of Silence | ||
| Released | September 1965 | |
| Format | 7" single | |
| Recorded | March 10, 1964 (main track); June 15, 1965 (overdub) | |
| Genre | Folk Rock | |
| Length | 3:05 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Writer(s) | Paul Simon | |
| Producer(s) | Tom Wilson | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| Simon and Garfunkel singles chronology | ||
| n/a | "The Sound of Silence" (1965) |
"Homeward Bound" (1966) |
"The Sound of Silence" is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon and Garfunkel to popularity. It was written 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 left by the sudden death of a vigorous and visionary leader. It was originally recorded as an acoustic piece for their first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. but was later electrically overdubbed and released as a single. 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 features Simon on acoustic guitar and both Simon and Garfunkel singing.
Contents |
[edit] History
The song took several months to write. Although Simon took a relatively short period of time to construct the melody, he did not fully nail down the lyrics until February 19, 1964, when, according to some accounts, the song seemed to "write itself." It was originally released exactly eight months later on the duo's debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., on October 19. Despite the fact that in the liner notes Art Garfunkel described "The Sound of Silence" as "a major work" for the duo, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. flopped on its initial release.
Simon and Garfunkel then 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 Song Book.
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, he took the original track of Simon & Garfunkel and Simon's guitar, 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 Simon or Garfunkel's consent or even consulting them.[1] 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 onstage to perform at a club in Copenhagen, Denmark, and soon afterwards 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 Sound of Silence" as the 18th-most performed song of the 20th century. [2] 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.
[edit] In the media
- Featured in the soundtrack to The Graduate, "The Sound of Silence" carries themes of isolation and individuality.
- The song, and the sequence from The Graduate it features in, was pastiched as "The Sound of Grandpa" in a 1994 episode of The Simpsons [3].
- In 2000, Seattle-based progressive metal band Nevermore covered the song for their LP Dead Heart in a Dead World. Their interpretation of the song, however, hardly resembles the original's calm and quiet mood, despite the fact that it features the same lyrics (though in a slightly rearranged order).
- In 2000 Gregorian a German band, headed by Frank Peterson, performing Gregorian chant-inspired versions of modern pop and rock songs. Featured "Sound of Silence" on their first album, Masters of Chant (track #10)
- Christian parody band ApologetiX recorded a version with Bible based lyrics called "The Sounds of Silas" which describes some of the events from the book of Acts about Paul and Silas.
- In 2000 the industrial metal band Atrocity covered the song for their album, Gemini.
- In the 2006 docudrama of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination Bobby, "The Sound of Silence" was played in full over Kennedy's victory speech given moments before he was fatally shot.
- The song "The Spirit of Radio" by Canadian rock group Rush contains a reference to "The Sound of Silence" in its final lines ("The words of the profits are written on the studio walls, concert halls, and echoed with the sounds of salesmen").
- The song is included in the soundtrack for the film Old School.
- The darkwave/gothic influenced band The Awakening from South Africa also made a cover for the song included in their album "Sacrificial Etchings" on 2002.
- A flash animation music video on Newgrounds uses this song as a background to the story of a painter dying of radiation sickness after a nuclear weapon test near the city he lives in, from the moment he collapses after painting to the end, showing a finished painting of the desolated town visible through his door before the test.
- This song is also covered by a model named Jeannie.
[edit] Single
"The Sound of Silence" was released on Columbia Records as 45rpm 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 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."
[edit] Quotations
- "The Sound 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.
- A societal view of the lack of communication.
- The lyrics burst forth practically writing themselves.
- 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 [7]
| Preceded by "Over and Over" by The Dave Clark Five |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single January 1, 1966 |
Succeeded by "We Can Work It Out" by The Beatles |
[edit] References
The Simpsons Archive, episode guide, episode 1F21
