This song is one of my all-time favourites. I love it regardless of what its critics may say. The melody demands listening, the lyrics are vocally very strong. The Sound of Silence has always seemed to touch me deep inside and I felt there was a profound meaning to it that I was unable to grasp. From the opening, haunting lyric – “Hello Darkness My Old Friend” - I’m already captivated and can easily apply that line to periods of my life.
Two ‘Original’ Versions Simon & Garfunkel recorded The Sound of Silence in two different versions. The first is acoustic and is the last track on side 2 of their 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. The second is electric and opens the follow-up, Sounds of Silence album. The truth though isn’t quite as simple as that. Producer, Tom Wilson had signed Simon & Garfunkel two years before. Wednesday Morning, 3 AM had failed only selling a few thousand copies, disillusioned the pair split up going their separate ways. Wilson however didn’t give up as easily. Without Simon & Garfunkel’s knowledge he hired a bunch of session musicians and remixed the track by adding electric guitars and a rhythm section. In the mid-60s, led by the likes of The Byrds and Bob Dylan there was a new wave of folk-road music starting to crystallise in America, the new version of The Sound of Silence rode in on the back of this movement. Paul Simon was reputedly left cold upon hearing it, however it went on to top the Billboard charts selling over a million copies. As a result, Simon & Garfunkel got back together, started over and went on to prove their class. When you understand this you realise what a fine line there is between success and obscurity in music. What’s the Song Actually About? The very fact that nobody can actually agree on what the song means adds to it aura. You can easily come up with what some of the lines or phrases mean, but nobody seems to have come up with a consistent, meaningful interpretation that takes into account all the lines. Paul Simon is reported as saying that it's just teenage angst and I tend to agree with that – but those other theories still nag in my mind. There’s quite a strong leaning to the interpretation which says it’s about man’s inability to relate to his fellow man. There are many reminders in the lyrics of the way we live and carry out our daily lives. A failure to communicate with each other is shaping a destructive end yet we remain silent on burning and troubling issues which is equally as destructive, dangerous and as weighty as the title of the song itself. Don’t forget it was written during the heights of the Cold War. Another darker interpretation of The Sound of Silence is that it’s about a deeply depressed individual who is contemplating suicide because no one is listening to the nightmares he suffers. I get that logic but I’m not sure it’s that deep a song. There are many other theories including one that it’s Paul Simon’s response to the shooting of John F Kennedy in December 1963 but I’m not sure I believe that one either. That Disturbed Cover The heavy metal band Disturbed surprised many people by covering The Sound of Silence for their 2015 ‘Immortalized’ album. For me, this has to be the best cover of the song I’ve ever heard. It’s a version that really does justice to the original and yet adds many additional layers of emotion, intensity, empathy, understanding and pathos to it. David Draiman sings it just as powerfully as anything Simon and Garfunkel could muster. Guitarist Dan Donegan said "We wanted to showcase his vulnerability and take a leftfield approach. The strings and violins really deepen it. It's something that might shock people because we went down a new path altogether. We did what felt right and saw the vision through."
Aside of the Disturbed version, I find it interesting that Rush borrowed some of the lyrics for their hit "The Spirit of Radio" the final verse containing "For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall." Which, strangely enough were also in the last verse of The Sound of Silence. The Sound of Silence I don’t think we will ever know what the song is actually about, you can only tell what it means to you or what you think is its meaning. It’s still the lyrics that pull you into the song, the strong sentences capture my attention and imagination which is like an unfolding lesson and when you consider certain words and phrases used it does bear down heavily on the social decay we have witnessed in almost every nation across the world. In today’s world we spend hours texting or chatting on social media; talking without speaking; hearing without listening. Natural communication is at an all-time low. Instead of us having family time and talking with one another we spend endless hours in an unnatural worship of technology. People now blindly believe what they are told without thinking things through for themselves. They watch movies, listen to what is said in the mainstream media and are shaped into viewing things the way the powers behind our globalised world want them to view it. Maybe, just maybe Paul Simon foresaw this over 50 years ago?
Sometimes a new artist comes along that you think, ‘he sounds all right, I’ll keep an eye on what he does’ – but then he’s go stratospheric and you can’t bear the sound of them anymore !! Well this happened to me with George Ezra.
First track I heard a couple of years ago was 'Budapest' which is an incredibly catchy, feel-good song albeit he does have an odd voice, sounds a bit like a little boy mimicking his dad. He sings in that trendy indie folk fake accent, just like Mumford & Sons and Sam Smith. Must admit I wasn’t sure I could listen to a full album of it without it becoming annoying though. Move on to last year and good old George has now released an album and is getting regular airplay on the radio. Don’t ask me what happened but last summer it all changed. In our office we usually had Virgin Radio on, a station that played a big enough variety of music that we could all cope with it - admittedly it was the only station we could all agree on!! Problem was they played 'Shotgun' by Mr Ezra, now this wasn’t just once or twice a day but (it felt like) every hour, every day. This went on for months and it became a running joke in the office – especially if we hadn’t heard it for an hour or so!! Upshot of this was that George Ezra was now everywhere, not only were we hearing him ALL the time on the radio, we were seeing him plenty in the press, he was on the TV all the time too! Sorry, but this just turned me off him, it got to a point where I can’t stand his fucking annoying, faux old fashioned American black guy voice anymore!! He even spoiled Jools Hollands Hootenany on New Year’s Eve for me, let me tell you I’d have quite happily taken a shotgun to him myself that night. Over-Exposure leads to career death This isn’t the first time over-exposure of a debut artist has lead me from liking them to detesting them, remember Emile Sande? She followed a similar path to George Ezra going from nothing to being absolutely everywhere – and what has she done since? Nothing to match that first album! - I’d like to say Ed Sheeran too but I never really liked him from the start!! Traditionally artists would normally get that level of exposure by around their third album - if all was going well, not now though! I think the lack of regular charts and programmes like Top Of The Pops leads the media grasping at anything that sounds remotely good, they just totally over do the exposure and kill that artists career. So they do what they do with everything else, build it up and up till it eventually collapses. As with most things, slow and steady often wins the race. Since the New Year we’ve changed stations now on our office radio and I haven’t heard George Ezra since. Ahhh Blisss !!!
Happy New Year readers. This year’s blogs start with a recommendation for an artist I discovered entirely by accident but took to immediately. I had Sunday Brunch on the TV last Sunday whilst I was doing the ironing (yes, I am house trained!), playing the show out was a girl from Croydon by the name of Jade Bird, who blew me away with her performance so I had to do some digging about her.
Jade’s originally from the North East but now resides (via South Wales) in Croydon. She’s only 21 years old but has already been signed by Glassnote Records the label behind Mumford and Sons with release of her debut album in the spring. First thing that hits you when you listen to Jade is how similar she is to Alanis Morissette, having a similar ‘alternative’ punky yet soulful sound. The attitude is there as is the delivery but Jade ain’t just a one-dimensional facsimile of Morissette, she’s so much more. Throw in a bit of folk and bordering on a bit of country music you’re starting to get the picture. Her influences sound fairly broad - much like her music, taking in the likes of Lana Del Ray and Ryan Adams through to Lady Gaga, Neil Young, CS&N and even Leonard Cohen. A couple of Jade’s recent tracks I was particularly impressed with are : Love Has All Been Done Before A song she belts out all about her frustration in a relationship that’s got complacent and ‘samey’. With lyrics like “Everything's a rerun; Before it's even begun; Tell me, what's the reason? If everything's a season; Then I'm a setting sun; We're already done” Jade doesn’t hold back in having a go at her partner explaining quite vividly what she’s looking for in their relationship. I think this track is actually more Patti Smith than Alanis - she gets some power out of that acoustic guitar too! Uh Huh This is just a brilliant song, with a fantastic vocal from Jade. In many ways this is a mash-up of 70’s folk, 90’s grunge and todays music sung by Janis Joplin all wrapped up in one track. I watched the video on YouTube and she comes across as very natural, with it all being about the performance. Unlike a lot of today’s music you can actually hear the lyrics which are both witty and meaningful. It’s not just her own tracks that are good, check out her piano cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ from a Radio 1 session which is absolutely sublime.
Overall Jade’s got the best female voice I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve downloaded a lot of her tracks and have now got them on repeat in the car. I’ll certainly be getting the album when it comes out in the spring. Rolling Stone named Jade Bird as an “Artist to Watch” last year and Vevo have named her one of their ‘2019 Artists To Watch’. After watching her videos and listening to the tracks I certainly agree and expect her success to rocket this year. Don’t take my word for it though, go look her up yourself.
