Andrew's View of the Week

This is a series of posts about the music I play while writing.  Today I’m discussing the first two on my play list — The Sound of Silence.  

Music is a powerful thing.  It can set a mood, inspire, energize, or take us down memory lane.  I love listening to music while I work as it helps block out random distractions and sometimes helps me get into the right frame of mind.  While woodworking I tend to listen to sea shanties – working songs of the sea.  While quilting I’ll listen to almost anything as it’s nice to just have a sound other than the sewing machine.  Strangely enough, I don’t listen to music while I drive.  I used to, but one day about 18 years ago I turned off the radio and never turned it back on.

I do listen to music while I’m writing.  I’ll put my headphones on and click on my writing play list on Spotify and bring up my editor and start typing.  I do this partly to block out the random noises in the house and partly to set my mind into a creative space.  Most of the songs I listen to are poetic in their lyrics, simple in melody and all have some special place in my life that bring back memories that help jumpstart a writing session.

Paul Simon’s The Sounds of Silence is the first song I added to my list.  Written and released in 1964, this is one of those songs that has been with me my whole life.  I remember hearing played on radio, at friend’s homes, and even tried to play on the piano once.  It’s a timeless song that any lover of Simon and Garfunkel or 60’s folk music just listens too.  The melody is simple and the combination of Simon and Garfunkel’s voices just bring the words to life.

But it’s the words, the poetry of Simon’s words that have always spoken to me.  This is one of those songs that can be read as poetry and not lose meaning.  There are so many great lines, like the opening, “Hello darkness, my old friend” or “When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light.”  The overarching theme is how we don’t communicate with each other as in, “People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening.” Sounds a bit like the world today.  It would be easy to go into a detailed essay about the meaning and implications of each line, but I won’t today.  I will suggest that you might want to read the lyrics and see for yourself: https://www.paulsimon.com/track/the-sound-of-silence/

The meanings in the lines just trigger a creative side of my brain and drive out distractions.  That gives me the space to focus on just one thing – transferring my thoughts into words on the screen.  It’s difficult to describe, but for years this is the first thing I listen to, the first part of my writing ritual.  I seldom actually notice when the song ends – it’s not for endings, but beginnings.

Now you want to know why it’s two songs on my play list.  Well, there are two versions of the song that I like, the original Paul Simon version released on the album, The Sounds of Silence, and the cover done by the heavy metal band Disturbed with vocals by David Draiman in 2015.

Here’s the Simon and Garfunkel version:

This is the classic version that most of us know and love.  Simon and Garfunkel’s voices just merge, and complement each other.  Their two voices and Simon’s guitar mix in a way few others have matched.  I’ve listened to other covers of the song and never found a version I like better or even as well.

Until I stumbled on Disturbed’s version after a YouTube search looking for the original.  The band Disturbed with David Draiman as lead vocalist is known as a heavy, heavy metal band and until they decided to cover The Sound of Silence, I’d never heard of them.  I’m not really much of a heavy metal fan.

Here’s the Disturbed version:

It’s powerful version and brings new energy to the original poem.  I also like the visuals they did as part of the video.  Draiman’s vocals are interesting the energy range he covers.  He starts out soft, mellow and introspective like Simon does, but then the song builds in energy and even anger and Draiman is practically yelling by the time he gets to, “and the people bowed and prayed.” Following that he brings it back a little and ends with a powerful “the sounds of silence.”  The visuals in the music video are also additive to my understanding of the song.  They start out slowly too as band members find instruments in the landscape and start a journey.  Pay attention to the lighting on Draimans face as the song progress, sometimes lighting eyes or lips.  

All of it just added to my appreciation of the music and now when I want to listen to this song I have to listen to both versions, because my mind naturally wants to drift between the two interpretations of Simon’s words.