The Sound of Silence
Simon & Garfunkel Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
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
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 dared
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 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 signs said,
"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence
The opening two lines of Simon & Garfunkel's song The Sound of Silence, "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again," sets the tone for the rest of the song as it depicts the state of loneliness and isolation. The persona feels more comfortable with darkness as it offers a sense of serenity, unlike the mundane world. The second stanza describes the gloomy atmosphere of the city as the persona takes a walk in it. Paul Simon uses a metaphor to describe the setting by saying "Narrow streets of cobblestone, 'Neath the halo of a street lamp," this picture paints the image of a lonely man walking through a dimly lit city at night. The persona's eyes were caught by a flash of a neon light, symbolizing the distraction of typical city life. Overall, the song depicts a world full of distractions and superficialities that are deaf to the persona's cries for meaningful communication.
Line by Line Meaning
Hello darkness, my old friend,
The singer is familiar with the feeling of despair and is addressing it as a friend.
I've come to talk with you again,
The singer is once again experiencing a feeling of despair and seeks to understand it.
Because a vision softly creeping,
The singer experienced a vision in their sleep that left an impression on them.
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
The vision created an idea or concept that grew while the artist slept.
And the vision that was planted in my brain
The impact of the vision was significant and stuck with the artist.
Still remains
The singer is still affected by the vision.
Within the sound of silence
The singer finds the only place they can reflect on the vision is in moments of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
The artist is walking along in their dreams, feeling restless and agitated.
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
The place where the artist is walking in their dream is an old-fashioned street made of cobblestones.
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
The street the artist is walking on is dimly lit by a streetlight.
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
The singer is trying to get warm by turning their collar up against the cold and damp.
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
Suddenly, the artist is blinded by the bright flashing lights of a neon sign.
That split the night
The neon lights are so bright that they make the darkness of the night disappear.
And touched the sound of silence
The neon lights made such a loud noise that they broke the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
In the bright light of the neon sign, the singer is able to see clearly.
Ten thousand people, maybe more
The artist sees a crowd of people, maybe even as many as ten thousand.
People talking without speaking,
The people are communicating without truly connecting or understanding each other.
People hearing without listening,
The people are not truly listening to each other even if they hear the words.
People writing songs that voices never share
The people are using music to express themselves, but their true feelings and ideas are never heard.
And no one dared
None of the people had the courage or desire to break the silence and truly connect.
Disturb the sound of silence
The mutual silence between people that keeps them from truly connecting and understanding needs to be broken.
"Fools" said I,
The artist refers to the people as 'fools' due to their inability to connect with each other.
"You do not know, silence like a cancer grows
The singer is suggesting that the mutual silence between people is growing and hurting them like a cancer.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
The artist is asking the people to listen to what they have to say so that they may learn something.
Take my arms that I might reach you"
The singer is using a metaphor to try and connect with the people, asking them to take his arms so they can connect.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
The singer's words had no impact on the people and fell on deaf ears.
And echoed
The singer's words reverberated back to them, but they were only echoes.
In the wells of silence
The artist's words disappeared into the mutual silence between the people.
And the people bowed and prayed
The people were desperate and resorted to prayer.
To the neon god they made
The people treated a man-made object, the neon sign, as a deity.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
Even the man-made object refused to be ignored and flashed a warning.
In the words that it was forming
The neon sign formed words that were meant as a warning or prophecy.
And the signs said,
The neon sign has become an oracle that speaks to the people.
"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
The sign refers to the underground parts of the city where the people are disconnected from each other.
And tenement halls
The sign also refers to the run-down apartments where the people are living their disconnected lives.
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence
The warning and prophecy of the sign is only heard in the silence that exists between the people.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: PAUL SIMON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@mickflaire
Hi Kerri,
Yours was the last comment to this video before this one, and I decided to reply to you because this song meant so much to meas well, as an 11 year old in November 1965 when the 2nd version with the electric overdubs was released.
A little over an hour ago (12:35 am, PST, on Wednesday, December 28, 2022) I recorded a version of me singing along with Paul Simon who performed "The Sounds of Silence" at the end of the "Homeward Bound: a Grammy tribute to the Songs of Paul Simon" that CBS broadcasted on one week ago, on Wednesday, December 21, 2022.
This song was the life soundtrack of our generation!
Love & cheers,
Mick Flaire
@johnbergstrom7045
Incredible Story . . . . . “Hello darkness, my old friend…” Everybody knows the iconic Simon & Garfunkel song, but do you know the amazing story behind the first line of The Sounds of Silence?
It began 62 years ago, when Arthur “Art” Garfunkel, a Jewish kid from Queens, enrolled in Columbia University. During freshman orientation, Art met a student from Buffalo named Sandy Greenberg, and they immediately bonded over their shared passion for literature and music. Art and Sandy became roommates and best friends. With the idealism of youth, they promised to be there for each other no matter what.
Soon after starting college, Sandy was struck by tragedy. His vision became blurry and although doctors diagnosed it as temporary conjunctivitis, the problem grew worse. Finally after seeing a specialist, Sandy received the devastating news that severe glaucoma was destroying his optic nerves. The young man with such a bright future would soon be completely blind.
Sandy was devastated and fell into a deep depression. He gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer and moved back to Buffalo, where he worried about being a burden to his financially-struggling family. Consumed with shame and fear, Sandy cut off contact with his old friends, refusing to answer letters or return phone calls.
Then suddenly, to Sandy’s shock, his buddy Art showed up at the front door. He was not going to allow his best friend to give up on life, so he bought a ticket and flew up to Buffalo unannounced. Art convinced Sandy to give college another go, and promised that he would be right by his side to make sure he didn’t fall - literally or figuratively.
Art kept his promise, faithfully escorting Sandy around campus and effectively serving as his eyes. It was important to Art that even though Sandy had been plunged into a world of darkness, he should never feel alone. Art actually started calling himself “Darkness” to demonstrate his empathy with his friend. He’d say things like, “Darkness is going to read to you now.” Art organized his life around helping Sandy.
One day, Art was guiding Sandy through crowded Grand Central Station when he suddenly said he had to go and left his friend alone and petrified. Sandy stumbled, bumped into people, and fell, cutting a gash in his shin. After a couple of hellish hours, Sandy finally got on the right subway train. After exiting the station at 116th street, Sandy bumped into someone who quickly apologized - and Sandy immediately recognized Art’s voice! Turned out his trusty friend had followed him the whole way home, making sure he was safe and giving him the priceless gift of independence. Sandy later said, “That moment was the spark that caused me to live a completely different life, without fear, without doubt. For that I am tremendously grateful to my friend.”
Sandy graduated from Columbia and then earned graduate degrees at Harvard and Oxford. He married his high school sweetheart and became an extremely successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.
While at Oxford, Sandy got a call from Art. This time Art was the one who needed help. He’d formed a folk rock duo with his high school pal Paul Simon, and they desperately needed $400 to record their first album. Sandy and his wife Sue had literally $404 in their bank account, but without hesitation Sandy gave his old friend what he needed.
Art and Paul's first album was not a success, but one of the songs, The Sounds of Silence, became a #1 hit a year later. The opening line echoed the way Sandy always greeted Art. Simon & Garfunkel went on to become one of the most beloved musical acts in history.
The two Columbia graduates, each of whom has added so much to the world in his own way, are still best friends. Art Garfunkel said that when he became friends with Sandy, “my real life emerged. I became a better guy in my own eyes, and began to see who I was - somebody who gives to a friend.” Sandy describes himself as “the luckiest man in the world.”
Adapted from Sandy Greenberg’s memoir: “Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man’s Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life."
@cecilferrell3479
John Bergstrom, I'm 58 yrs old and remember when Simon and Garfunkel were making hits, The Sound Of Silence. Thank you so much for sharing the knowledge you learned from Sandy's Documentary. I really am impressed by the life experiences that made that song between Art and Sandy. Again, thank you. I want to share with you since you shared knowledge with me.
This is a spiritual poem Jesus inspired me to write about the wife I'm waiting for him to bring to me. It's titled, She.
She
To awaken then see the beauty lying next to me.
Immediately I give thanks to He whom created she.
Can it be that she loves me as much as I love she.
So important to me happiness fills she to be a heart complete.
She fulfills me, dreams to reality, God made me One with she.
Can I be complete without she, I think not by me God's decree.
Love she for God and me need the bond three can be.
Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit are One, One then me with she are One.
That's she then me with God the way He meant it to be.
Love and thanks He that created me fused bond with she,
One love to be.
Copyright
Cecil Ferrell
6 - 17 - 2015
9:30 A. M.
Thank you again for sharing your wisdom, knowledge and understanding with me, John Bergstrom.
God bless you and family eternally. I love you as Jesus does. Be well, safe and happy, then walk complete in love.
@dumpster_mcgee_96
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 streetlamp
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 shared
No one dared
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 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 whispered in the sounds of silence"
@jeanniebee61
"I guess I had other things on my mind in the sixties, but I never knew the background of this song. A much kinder and gentler world back then and an example of ever-lasting friendship. Read below for context, but make sure to listen to the song, it is wonderful. 'Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend,' a Simon and Garfunkel song inspired by a College roommate who went blind - reveals an untold story. Enjoy and then listen to the song itself."
One of the best-loved songs of all time. Simon & Garfunkel's hit The Sound Of Silence topped the US charts and went platinum in the UK.
It was named among the 20 most performed songs of the 20th century, included in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and provided the unforgettable soundtrack to 1967 film classic The Graduate. But to one man The Sound Of Silence means much more than just a No 1 song on the radio with its poignant opening lines: "Hello Darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again."
Sanford "Sandy" Greenberg is Art Garfunkel's best friend, and reveals in a moving new memoir, named after that lyric, that the song was a touching tribute to their undying bond, and the singer's sacrifice that saved Sandy's life when he unexpectedly lost his sight.
"He lifted me out of the grave," says Sandy, aged 79, who recounts his plunge into sudden blindness, and how Art Garfunkel's selfless devotion gave him reason to live again.
Sandy and Arthur, as Art was then known, met during their first week as students at the prestigious Columbia University in New York.
"A young man wearing an Argyle sweater and corduroy pants and blond hair with a crew cut came over and said, 'Hi, I'm Arthur Garfunkel'," Sandy recalls.
They became roommates, bonding over a shared taste in books, poetry and music. "Every night Arthur and I would sing. He would play his guitar and I would be the DJ. The air was always filled with music."
Still teenagers, they made a pact to always be there for each other in times of trouble. "If one was in extremis, the other would come to his rescue," says Sandy They had no idea their promise would be tested so soon. Just months later, Sandy recalls: "I was at a baseball game and suddenly my eyes became cloudy, and my vision became unhinged. Shortly after that darkness descended." Doctors diagnosed conjunctivitis, assuring it would pass. But days later Sandy went blind, and doctors realized that glaucoma had destroyed his optic nerves.
Sandy was the son of a rag-and-bone man. His family, Jewish immigrants in Buffalo, New York, had no money to help him, so he dropped out of college, gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer, and plunged into depression. "I wouldn't see anyone, I just refused to talk to anybody," says Sandy. "And then unexpectedly Arthur flew in, saying he had to talk to me. He said, 'You're gonna come back, aren't you?' "I said,: 'No, There's no conceivable way.' "He was pretty insistent, and finally said, 'Look, I don't think you get it. I need you back there. That's the pact we made together: we would be there for the other in times of crises. I will help you'."
Together they returned to Columbia University, where Sandy became dependent on Garfunkel's support. Art would walk Sandy to class, bandage his wounds when he fell, and even filled out his graduate school applications. Garfunkel called himself "Darkness" in a show of empathy. The singer explained: "I was saying, 'I want to be together where you are, in the black'." Sandy recalls: "He would come in and say, 'Darkness is going to read to you now.' “Then he would take me to class and back. He would take me around the city. He altered his entire life so that it would accommodate me."
Garfunkel would talk about Sandy with his high-school friend Paul Simon, from Queens, New York, as the folk-rock duo struggled to launch their musical careers, performing at local parties and clubs. Though Simon wrote the song, the lyrics to The Sound of Silence are infused with Garfunkel's compassion as Darkness, Sandy's old friend. Guiding Sandy through New York one day, as they stood in the vast forecourt of bustling Grand Central Station, Garfunkel said that he had to leave for an assignment, abandoning his blind friend alone in the rush-hour crowd, terrified, stumbling and falling. "I cut my forehead" says Sandy. "I cut my shins. My socks were bloodied. I had my hands out and bumped into a woman's breasts. It was a horrendous feeling of shame and humiliation. "I started running forward, knocking over coffee cups and briefcases, and finally I got to the local train to Columbia University. It was the worst couple of hours in my life."
Back on campus, he bumped into a man, who apologized. "I knew that it was Arthur's voice," says Sandy. "For a moment I was enraged, and then I understood what happened: that his colossally insightful, brilliant yet wildly risky strategy had worked." Garfunkel had not abandoned Sandy at the station, but had followed him the entire way home, watching over him.
"Arthur knew it was only when I could prove to myself I could do it that I would have real independence," says Sandy. "And it worked, because after that I felt that I could do anything. That moment was the spark that caused me to live a completely different life, without fear, without doubt. For that I am tremendously grateful to my friend." Sandy not only graduated, but went on to study for a master's degree at Harvard and Oxford.
While in Britain he received a phone call from his friend - and with it the chance to keep his side of their pact. Garfunkel wanted to drop out of architecture school and record his first album with Paul Simon but explained: "I need $400 to get started." Sandy, by then married to his high school sweetheart, says: "We had $404 in our current account. I said, 'Arthur, you will have your cheque.' "It was an instant reaction, because he had helped me restart my life, and his request was the first time that I had been able to live up to my half of our solemn covenant."
The 1964 album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, was a critical and commercial flop, but one of the tracks was The Sound Of Silence, which was released as a single the following year and went to No 1 across the world. "The Sound Of Silence meant a lot, because it started out with the words 'Hello darkness' and this was Darkness singing, the guy who read to me after I returned to Columbia blind," says Sandy.
Simon & Garfunkel went on to have four smash albums, with hits including Mrs. Robinson, The Boxer, and Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Amazingly, Sandy went on to extraordinary success as an inventor, entrepreneur, investor, presidential adviser, and philanthropist. The father of three, who launched a $3million prize to find a cure for blindness, has always refused to use a white cane or guide dog. "I don't want to be 'the blind guy'," he says. "I wanted to be Sandy Greenberg, the human being."
Six decades later the two men remain best friends, and Garfunkel credits Sandy with transforming his life. With Sandy, "my real life emerged," says the singer. "I became a better guy in my own eyes, and began to see who I was - somebody who gives to a friend. "I blush to find myself within his dimension. My friend is the gold standard of decency." Says Sandy: "I am the luckiest man in the world"
@Casino3082
My father passed this morning in his sleep. This was his favorite song. RIP Pappy
@elizabethmelo6261
Great song! I lost my beloved daddy last year, & this song was played @ his funeral.
@olgacesp7120
So so sorry for your loss. Just put this song on because it reminds me of my childhood best friend who passed away 3 years ago. Strength, hold onto the good times, remember the smiles. Be well.
@serdelag100
Rip
@lauriejackson8351
So sorry to hear that
@LaskyLabs
My dad loved this song too. He died last year during the summer. I played it in the room after he died as well as southern nights, it was never so fitting.
The room was so quiet, it was saddest I've ever felt.
@bettyemanuel1367
88 years old now. Listening to Simon and Garfunkel Sound of Silence. 6 a.m.
@knowledgeseeker9756
70 and listening at 5:00am
@ew1745
32 & listening at 2:27pm.
@exdemocrat9038
❤️🙏