English III 3/21: "Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel

This is a classic that I think many of have probably heard at least some time in your life. Like Bob Dylan, these guys were more than musicians; they were (still are) poets. Look at these lyrics and try to find meanings that aren't directly stated, but that you feel are there.

I think this song is about the apocalypse. The gray time when silence comes to the race of humankind. It could also be about a time of mourning or of losing something essential (loved one, hearing, sight, a treasured ability...). They seems to be singing about an emptiness which can either be interpreted as internal or external.

--

"Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive 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 sounds 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 sounds 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 sounds 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." Simon and Garfunkel