The next album is one that has been with me a long time, and helped me through some tough times.
Disc 239 is...Sounds Of Silence
Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Year of Release: 1965
What’s Up With The Cover?: A pretty straightforward folk album cover. Just a picture of the band, taken by someone who is clearly not a professional, or if they are, is hiding it well. With the hipster movement going on, these clothes are something you'd see in the street today. The more things change...
How I Came To Know It: I believe I ordered this album as one of eleven cassettes I would get 'for only a penny!' from Columbia House back in about 1986. When you live in a small town, Columbia House isn't a bad deal, given the general lack of music options you are going to have. Once I moved away to University, I quickly realized just living in a city was a lot easier.
How It Stacks Up: I only have two of Simon & Garfunkel's five albums, which is really a gap in my collection. Of the two, "Sounds of Silence" is a very close second - not bad, but just not quite good enough to be #1.
Rating: 5 stars, but really should just be a high 4 (see below).
In the mid- to late sixties, Simon & Garfunkel were making some of the most thoughtful music you could find (alongside Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt). Paul Simon is an amazing songwriter, and while his vocals may not be great, he is wise enough to just provide harmony to the beautiful instrument that is Art Garfunkel on that front.
"Sounds of Silence" is a sad record, which explores themes of disconnection, isolation and the fleeting nature of love and happiness. Consider that the record has only eleven tracks, and two of them ("Richard Cory" and "A Most Peculiar Man") are about suicide.
The album has an amazing pair of songs that serve as five star bookends (Bookends! Get it? Get it?). Since I could be here all day discussing each song, I'll stick to these for brevity's sake.
The opening track, "The Sounds of Silence" begins with some of the most famous lines in music:
"Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again"
These disconcerting lines set the tone for the whole record and serve notice that wrapped in the pretty melodies and harmonies serious subjects are about to be explored.
"The Sounds of Silence" is a song about man's fundamental inability to truly connect with his fellow man in the modern world. It is a song set inthe glare of harsh neon light, with thousands of people going by one another, physically close, but afraid to speak, much less share a meaningful moment. The singer goes on to warn us of what will result from withdrawing from one another:
"'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 well
Of silence."
Considering how disconnected modern society has turned out, these words can now be seen as sadly prophetic.
While "The Sounds of Silence" discusses the disconnect of society as a whole, the final track of the album, "I Am A Rock" is more introspective, sharing the story of a person who has completely withdrawn from human contact. Like "The Sounds of Silence" the song begins with a powerful image:
"A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock
I am an island."
The song plays off of John Donne's famous sermon about how 'no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.' The song's opening refutation of this claim captures a deep isolation that in lesser hands would come off as maudlin. However, with Simon's graceful phrasing, and Garfunkel's angelic voice, it instead sends chills up your spine.
These songs mean a lot to me, and got me through some very hard times in the late eighties and early nineties. At that time I was deeply heartbroken - and I mean deeply heartbroken. At that time it sometimes felt like my only connection to the world anymore was through the literature and philosophy I was soaking up at University.
"Sounds of Silence" was a record that by telling its own sad tales actually helped me get through my own. Paradoxically, by putting a voice to the emotional alienation I was feeling, it managed to communicate that things were going to be OK. I recently read a quote by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that sums it up nicely:
""Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
Simon and Garfunkel gave me this, and I'll never be able to repay that. And so despite some questionable tracks that would ordinarily hold this album to four stars, I'm giving it five, because I owe it that. It may not be consistently amazing, but it is amazing enough, and it certainly changed me.
Best tracks: The Sounds of Silence, Leaves That Are Green, Kathy's Song, A Most Peculiar Man, April Come She Will, I Am A Rock
Disc 239 is...Sounds Of Silence
Artist: Simon & GarfunkelYear of Release: 1965
What’s Up With The Cover?: A pretty straightforward folk album cover. Just a picture of the band, taken by someone who is clearly not a professional, or if they are, is hiding it well. With the hipster movement going on, these clothes are something you'd see in the street today. The more things change...
How I Came To Know It: I believe I ordered this album as one of eleven cassettes I would get 'for only a penny!' from Columbia House back in about 1986. When you live in a small town, Columbia House isn't a bad deal, given the general lack of music options you are going to have. Once I moved away to University, I quickly realized just living in a city was a lot easier.
How It Stacks Up: I only have two of Simon & Garfunkel's five albums, which is really a gap in my collection. Of the two, "Sounds of Silence" is a very close second - not bad, but just not quite good enough to be #1.
Rating: 5 stars, but really should just be a high 4 (see below).
In the mid- to late sixties, Simon & Garfunkel were making some of the most thoughtful music you could find (alongside Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt). Paul Simon is an amazing songwriter, and while his vocals may not be great, he is wise enough to just provide harmony to the beautiful instrument that is Art Garfunkel on that front.
"Sounds of Silence" is a sad record, which explores themes of disconnection, isolation and the fleeting nature of love and happiness. Consider that the record has only eleven tracks, and two of them ("Richard Cory" and "A Most Peculiar Man") are about suicide.
The album has an amazing pair of songs that serve as five star bookends (Bookends! Get it? Get it?). Since I could be here all day discussing each song, I'll stick to these for brevity's sake.
The opening track, "The Sounds of Silence" begins with some of the most famous lines in music:
"Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again"
These disconcerting lines set the tone for the whole record and serve notice that wrapped in the pretty melodies and harmonies serious subjects are about to be explored.
"The Sounds of Silence" is a song about man's fundamental inability to truly connect with his fellow man in the modern world. It is a song set inthe glare of harsh neon light, with thousands of people going by one another, physically close, but afraid to speak, much less share a meaningful moment. The singer goes on to warn us of what will result from withdrawing from one another:
"'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 well
Of silence."
Considering how disconnected modern society has turned out, these words can now be seen as sadly prophetic.
While "The Sounds of Silence" discusses the disconnect of society as a whole, the final track of the album, "I Am A Rock" is more introspective, sharing the story of a person who has completely withdrawn from human contact. Like "The Sounds of Silence" the song begins with a powerful image:
"A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock
I am an island."
The song plays off of John Donne's famous sermon about how 'no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.' The song's opening refutation of this claim captures a deep isolation that in lesser hands would come off as maudlin. However, with Simon's graceful phrasing, and Garfunkel's angelic voice, it instead sends chills up your spine.
These songs mean a lot to me, and got me through some very hard times in the late eighties and early nineties. At that time I was deeply heartbroken - and I mean deeply heartbroken. At that time it sometimes felt like my only connection to the world anymore was through the literature and philosophy I was soaking up at University.
"Sounds of Silence" was a record that by telling its own sad tales actually helped me get through my own. Paradoxically, by putting a voice to the emotional alienation I was feeling, it managed to communicate that things were going to be OK. I recently read a quote by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that sums it up nicely:
""Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
Simon and Garfunkel gave me this, and I'll never be able to repay that. And so despite some questionable tracks that would ordinarily hold this album to four stars, I'm giving it five, because I owe it that. It may not be consistently amazing, but it is amazing enough, and it certainly changed me.
Best tracks: The Sounds of Silence, Leaves That Are Green, Kathy's Song, A Most Peculiar Man, April Come She Will, I Am A Rock
1 comment:
Yes, I found this album very soul-stirring at that time, too. The words and Artie's immaculate voice breaking through the mist was very moving. Never heard a duo quite like them.
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