I love this song!!! But what do the words mean?
Are they talking about our society growing ever so complacent and apathetic? I take this from “people hearing w/o listening; talking w/o speaking; writing words that voices never shared”.
But what is this silence that no one dared disturb? And, what is this reference to a neon sign god? Is it that this flashing neon sign dared to make itself known “in the words that it was forming” when no one seems to be listening? And, what are the words of the prophets which are written on the subway walls? Is there something prophetic in graffitti?
I don’t get it! Would I need to see “Mrs. Robinson” for this to all make some sense? Could the complacency of and boredom of Mrs. Robinson’s life invoke her to have an affair…and no one seems to care (i.e.: the sounds of silence which no one wants to disturb?) I never saw the movie…
Deprived and confused,
Jinx
There is no dark side of the moon; matter of fact, it’s all dark!
In a broad sense, it’s about people’s inability to relate to other people on a personal level so that things like neon signs and subway grafitti become how we relate to others.
The Sounds of Silence was written long before the movie The Graduate was even planned, so watching the movie isn’t going tell you anything about the song. There have been lots of threads on the SDMB asking things like “What is the meaning of such-and-such a song?”. I think such questions totally miss the point of what art is. If a song or a novel or a poem or a movie or a painting were about nothing except the explicit “meaning” that they conveyed, what would be the point of experiencing the work of art? If you want to send a message, use Western Union. Art isn’t about conveying messages. Sure, there are lots of images in the song The Sounds of Silence which express vague ideas about alienation and such, but that’s not the same thing as the song having a tightly defined message.
Fantastic Nevermore song. When did Simon & Garfunkel cover it? For the words of the profits were written on the studio walls…concert halls
And echo in the sound…of SALESMEN!!
I agree with Wendell also. One of the best interpretations of The Sound of Silence I’ve ever read was on the Unknown Armies mailing list. One of the members was using it as the theme song of their campaign based on a global conspiracy of golems. One can only hope that that is off from the intent of the song.
Simon & Garfunkel released the song on two albums. The first version was acoustic. Then they rereleased it as more of a “folk rock” song with some electric guitar in it.
The electric guitars, etc., were added later by their management, and withouth their knowledge. The story goes that the new tracks were a bit too slow and so the original guitar and vocals had to be slowed down to match, thus changing the entire tone of the song.
I’m pretty sure that the whole thing about the subway walls and tenement halls is a reference to lonely people, and how they are the ones who know the ills of silence, but no one listens to them.
You mean…there is somebody else out there who knows it’s not about “some guy who’s depressed”?
weeps hysterically
This is always what I thought it to mean. I paticulary love the line “Silence like a cancer grows”
What I get from this is that no one seems to care- about anything. They let everyone and everything be done for them and said for them while taking no action.
I believe the neon sign god to be the media and/or the masses that people worship.
IMHO, I just don’t buy it. The artists MUST have been thinking something when writing these (or any other lyrics). Otherwise, it’d be mush -like “da-da” poetry. You can’t tell me there’s no meaning, no purpose. The exception to my opinion would be drug-induced babble like “Strawberry Fields Forever”. It’s fairly obvious when there’s no meaning to the lyrics…like White Rabbit has no message…anyone could write that. Heck, I could sing the sports page to that tune, and some would still think it’s a classic song! Again, IMHO… - Jinx
I always figured that this lyric was fairly literally about the corporate advertising signs that have become almost the equivalent of religious icons in modern -day America. Such as the McDonald’s golden arches, the Coca-Cola script, the Nike swoosh, etc, etc.
A song’s lyrics don’t have to be clear in order for them to convey meaning. Certainly there are some songwriters who are crystal clear and you know what they are talking about all the time, but there are writers who are much more “impressionistic” in thier approach. John Lennon’s “Strawberry Fields” is perhaps one of the best examples of this kind of songwriting. The lyrics are intentionally ambiguous, but I wouldn’t say they were "meaningless (They probably meant a lot to John Lennon, but on a very personal level). I think Lennon expected his listeners to interpret his lyrics in their own individual ways, and to bring thier own innerpersonal meanings to them. “Sounds Of Silence” has elements of that style of writing, although there clearly are some references and images in the song that speak of personal loneliness and others that are suggestive of socio-political commentary (perhaps the relative powerlessness of certain individuals).
Personally I love it when a songwriter goes with the ambiguous songwriting approach. I seem to be drawn back to songs like “Strawberry Fields” again and again, and my own personal interpretation of thier meanings changes over time.
Yes, I agree. I consider that part of the mass media (the advertising media)
One has to remember that it is far worse today that it was in the sixties when the song was written. That’s why I love S&G. it’s not “sixties music”. It’s classic music.
At its most basic the song is about a dream the singer has just awakened from that affected him in a profound way. A vision that came to him while sleeping “still remains within the sound of silence.” He describes restlessly wandering damp and narrow cobblestone streets when under a street lamp he is surprised by “the flash of a neon light”. (Nice contrast between cobblestone and neon, by the way.) In the neon light he sees a huge crowd enacting silent rituals by which they communicate to each other- “talking without speaking,” “hearing without listening,” and writing songs that they don’t sing- but there is a double edge to it- are they actually communicating or just going through the motions of it? The singer confirms that with the next line- “no one dared disturb the sound of silence,” so perhaps they took the lack of communication to be communication itself. In the next part of the song the people “bowed and prayed to the neon god they’d made,” and then the sign formed the words “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenament halls, and echo in the lilt of silence.”
It’s my humble opinion that the song is about symbolism. The language of dreams is symbols, the “seeds” of creativity and art are symbolism, signs themselves are often both a sign and a symbol, the underlying meanings of interactions between people are often symbolic- especially in a seeking or religious context, and the very nature of symbols themselves are that they convey meanings that cannot be adequately verbalized or plainly translated into everyday language- something is always lost in the translation. That may be partly why the message is that impulsive and uninhibited graffiti contains more truth about the nature of the world than sacred texts- graffiti is a kind of art, after all.
I guess you can tell I like this song a lot. It’s very powerful to me. When I first heard it I felt like my hair stood on end. The only other song I ever remember having that kind of effect on me was “John Barleycorn Must Die.” I totally understood the stories about Traffic being in concert with the audience chanting “John Barleycorn” until they played it- at which point the audience would go completely silent. Symbolism sometimes seems to have a power to effect us that is beyond our understanding.
ahem On a lighter note, I can’t really picture a crowd chanting “The sound of silence! The sound of silence!”
"THE SOUND OF SILENCE : “Take my arms that I may reach you” across the silence that divides the hearts, the neon that burns cold and stabs sight and “formulates at the end of a pin” all that lives in its light and shadow. A major work, it expresses the love of any poet, any individual in the face of an indifferent world and almost pleads “hear my words that I might teach you”, teach you to love again. "
I don’t know about the sign being mass media… It seems to me that the key thing about the sign is that even though the people are worshiping it, the sign knows that it’s not a god. “And the sign flashed out its warning”. The sign’s trying to tell them, hey, you want religion, go help poor people. Don’t come to me looking for religion. Modern science, maybe? We’ve created it, and now many people seem to think that science is God, or a god.
Hmm, Chronos. I think the sign knows it’s not a god as well - but you have to wonder, is the warning intentional, or is the warning a crack in the sign, showing it’s inautcheticty? The media knows it’s a “god” that people “worship”, but they usually try to keep the facade up.
It seems to be being the neon sign, it always has represented the media to me.
But hey, it’s a dream, so anything goes. Besides, songs can lose their fun if you analyze them too much.
I thought that assertion was nonsense as well: the first words that leapt to mind were “No meaning intended? That would be news to Bruce Springsteen. And to Sergei Eisenstein and Leni Riefenstahl, for that matter”.
