Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

The Sounds of Silence - Pentatonix / Simon & Garfunkel

Soundtrack for Your Life

Prompt: What were you listening to last year?

The Sound of Silence - Pentatonix


Beautiful rendition. I think I like this version better, although the original is sweet.

The Original - Simon and Garfunkel



A little about the meaning - from Wikipedia:

Simon wrote "The Sound of Silence" when he was 21 years old,[9][10] with Simon explaining that the song was written in his bathroom, where he turned off the lights to better concentrate.[11] "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.'"[12] According to Garfunkel, the song was first developed in November, but Simon took three months to perfect the lyrics, which he claims were entirely written on February 19, 1964.[13] Garfunkel, introducing the song at a live performance (with Simon) in Harlem, June 1966, summed up the song's meaning as "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly intentionally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other."

A few lyrics:
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 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 shared
And no one dared
Disturn the sounds of silence.


And a little extra Pentaonix:

This is also cool - history of music in about 4 minutes.