Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together”
“I’ve got some real estate here in my bag”
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off to look for America

[Verse 2]
“Kathy,” I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now”
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I’ve gone to look for America

[Verse 3]
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said “Be careful his bowtie is really a camera”

[Verse 4]
“Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat”
“We smoked the last one an hour ago”
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

[Verse 5]
“Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

America:

“America” is a song performed by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel, which they released from their fourth studio album, Bookends, in 1968. Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, the song was later issued as a single in 1972 to promote the release of Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.

The song was written and composed by Paul Simon, and concerns young lovers hitchhiking their way across the United States, in search of “America,” in both a literal and figurative sense. It was inspired by a 1964 road trip that Simon took with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty. The song has been regarded as one of Simon’s strongest songwriting efforts and one of the duo’s best songs. A 2014 Rolling Stone reader’s poll ranked it the group’s fourth best song.^[2]

Background:

“America” was inspired by a five-day road excursion Simon undertook in September 1964 with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty. Producer Tom Wilson had called Simon back to the United States to finalize mixes and artwork for their debut studio album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.^[3] Simon, living in London at the time, was reluctant to leave Chitty, and invited her to come with him, forgetting the album and spending five days driving the country together.^[3] Several years later, “America” was among the last songs recorded for Bookends, when production assistant John Simon left Columbia Records, forcing Simon, Garfunkel, and producer Roy Halee to complete the record themselves.^[1] In 2004, Bob Dyer, a former disc jockey from Saginaw, Michigan, explained the song’s genesis in an interview with The Saginaw News. According to Dyer, Simon wrote the song while visiting the town in 1966, when he booked him for Y-A-Go-Go, a concert series hosted by the Saginaw YMCA.^[4]

I asked Paul Simon if they were still charging the $1,250 we paid them to play and he said they were getting about four times that much then. Then I asked him why he hadn’t pulled out, and he said he had to see what a city named Saginaw looked like. Apparently, he liked it; he wrote ‘America’ while he was here, including that line about taking four days to hitchhike from Saginaw.^[4]

Composition

“America” is a song that “creates a cinematic vista that tells of the singer’s search for a literal and physical America that seems to have disappeared, along with the country’s beauty and ideals.”^[5] Art Garfunkel once described the song as “young lovers with their adventure and optimism”.^[6] The song has been described as a “folk song with a lilting soprano saxophone in its refrain as a small pipe organ paints acoustic guitars, framed by the ghostly traces of classic American Songbook pop structures.”^[7] According to EMI Music Publishing‘s digital sheet music for the song, “America” is composed in the key of E-flat major and set in a 6/8 time signature, and has a moderately fast groove of 172 beats per minute.^[8] The duo’s vocals span from the low note of B♭₃ to the high note of F₅.^[8] Drummer Hal Blaine, keyboardist Larry Knechtel, and bassist Joe Osborn provide additional instrumentation on the track.^[9] The lyrics do not follow any formal rhyme scheme.

The song opens, on Bookends, with a crossfade from “Save the Life of My Child.” (This effect is not present on the single versions, which begin with a “clean” open.) The song follows two young lovers — “an apparently impromptu romantic traveling alliance” — who set out “to look for America.”^[10] The song makes reference to the town of Saginaw, Michigan, with the protagonist seemingly hailing from the town, but “[seeking] his fortunes elsewhere.”^[11] The narrator’s companion Kathy is a reference to Chitty, linking the song autobiographically to the earlier Simon and Garfunkel hit “Homeward Bound,” ^[5] and to “Kathy’s Song,” a love song from a previous album, Sounds of Silence.

The narrator spends four days hitchhiking from Saginaw to join Kathy in Pittsburgh, where together they board a Greyhound bus to continue the journey.^[9] The narrator begins with a lighthearted and optimistic outlook (“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together”) that fades over the course of the song. To pass time, he and Kathy play games and try to guess the backgrounds of their fellow passengers. Over the course of their journey, they smoke all their cigarettes. Kathy reads a magazine before falling asleep, leaving the narrator awake to reflect on the meaning of the journey alone.^[9] In the final verse, the narrator is able to speak his true emotions to Kathy, now that she is sleeping and cannot hear or answer. “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why” captures the longing and angst of the 1960s in nine simple words. The narrator then stares out the window “counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike.” Many other empty, aching, and lost souls are on the highway, each on their own journey alone even if someone is traveling with them. The soaring harmony lines and crashing cymbals create a powerful and poignant end to the song’s final verse: “They’ve all come to look for America.” ^[10] Pete Fornatale interprets this lyric as a “metaphor to remind us all of the lost souls wandering the highways and byways of mid-sixties America, struggling to navigate the rapids of despair and hope, optimism and disillusionment.”^[12]

Reception

Stephen Holden, in reviewing Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits in 1972, wrote, “‘America’ … was Simon’s next major step forward. It is three and a half minutes of sheer brilliance, whose unforced narrative, alternating precise detail with sweeping observation evokes the panorama of restless, paved America and simultaneously illuminates a drama of shared loneliness on a bus trip with cosmic implications.”^[13] Thom Jurek of Allmusic described the song’s central question as an “ellipsis, a cipher, an unanswerable question,” a song in which “sophisticated harmonic invention is toppled by its message.”^[7] David Nichols, in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, called the song “a splendid vignette of a road trip by young lovers; both intimate and epic in scale, it traces an inner journey from naive optimism to more mature understanding.”^[14] American Songwriter deemed the song “essentially a road-trip song, but like all road trips, it tends to reveal as much about the participants as it does about the lands being traversed.”^[9]

Disc jockey and author Pete Fornatale describes “America” as one of Paul Simon’s “greatest writing achievements in this phase of his career.”^[6] In 2014, a Rolling Stone readers poll ranked it fourth among the duo’s best compositions, with the magazine writing, “it captured America’s sense of restlessness and confusion during the year that saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, as well as the escalation of the war in Vietnam,” declaring it one of their most “beloved” songs.^[2]

Legacy

The song enjoyed a resurgence in popularity — and was introduced to a new generation — after being featured in Cameron Crowe‘s critically acclaimed film Almost Famous in 2000. An early scene in the film, set in 1973, finds the free-spirited character “Anita” (Zooey Deschanel) playing the song for her mother (Frances McDormand) to “… explain why [she] is leaving home to become a stewardess.” The financial services company American Express also used the song in a series of popular television advertisements in the late 2000s.

In 2010, lyrics from the song began appearing spray-painted on vacant buildings and abandoned factories in the town of Saginaw, Michigan, which is mentioned in the song.^[4] The group of artists, Paint Saginaw, decided to paint the phrases after the population had dwindled vastly, noting that the song became rather “homesick” for the town’s residents.^[11] The song’s entire lyrics are painted on 28 buildings in the city, including railroad tracks and bridge supports.^[4]

The song was featured in “America,” a television advertisement for the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries.^[15] The campaign sought permission to use it from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel themselves, who both agreed. Garfunkel stated that he was a supporter of Sanders and his campaign, and that the usage of “America” did not take away from the song’s original premise.^[16]

The song appears in a 2017 TV commercial for the Volkswagen Atlas.^{[citation needed]}

Cover versions

Yes and 1-2-3/Clouds arrangements

The song was rearranged by the progressive rock band Yes in 1970, performing it in concert on the first tour after Steve Howe replaced Peter Banks. Yes added elements typical to progressive rock, such as changes in time signature and long instrumental segments, while dropping the song’s original repeat and fade ending. At one point bassist Chris Squire quotes “America” from West Side Story in the intro. The Yes studio version clocks in at ten and a half minutes, with live versions on the 1970-1971 tour extended to more than fifteen minutes. The studio recording first appeared in 1972 on the sampler album The New Age of Atlantic and was later included on the compilation album Yesterdays in 1975, the box set In a Word: Yes (1969–) in 2002, and on the 2003 re-issue of their album Fragile. An edited version of this recording lasting 4 minutes was released as a single and hit #46 on the pop chart. It also appeared on the Yesyears boxed set and its condensed version Yesstory, along with The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection. The edited version was also included as a bonus track on the 2003 re-issue of Close to the Edge, while the unedited studio version appears on Steven Wilson‘s 2013 remix of the same album. A live version of the song was included on 1996’s Keys to Ascension as well as a performance from the final show of the 1970-1971 tour (which preceded the studio recording) on 2005’s The Word Is Live.

The earliest known performances of “America” came from the band Clouds.^[17] In their earlier incarnation as 1-2-3, they had performed a re-written version of the song that included all the elements later used by Yes: changes in time signature, classical interludes, newly written segments etc. A live tape exists of this being performed at the Marquee in April 1967, prior to the release of any known recording by any artist, including the lyricist-composer, Paul Simon, himself. Simon had recorded demos at Levy studios in London in 1965, and tapes of these were passed to the band by a studio engineer (Stu Francis of Radio Luxembourg). In 1966, 1-2-3 also performed Sounds of Silence from this same tape.^[18]

Bert Sommer version

Folk Singer Bert Sommer, a member of the group the Left Banke, covered the song in the late 1960s, and he also performed the song at Woodstock in 1969.^[19]

David Bowie performance

David Bowie performed a minimalist version of the song to open The Concert for New York City in October 2001. Bowie performed seated on the floor, center stage, with a microphone and a Suzuki Omnichord. Bowie was actually in attendance at the Marquee during 1967 when 1-2-3 (later Clouds) performed this song, and Bowie’s New York performance is starkly similar to the quiet solo organ section in the 1-2-3 version. He was a friend of Billy Ritchie, the keyboard player/writer, and the band were also at the time, playing a song by a then-unknown David Bowie, “I Dig Everything.”^[20]

Other versions

American singer-songwriter Josh Groban recorded it on his live album, Live at the Greek (2003), and has performed the song live on multiple occasions, including a Howard Gilman Opera House for Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s celebration of Simon’s music in 2008,^[21] and at the A Capitol Fourth concert in 2011.^[22] “Paul Simon is one of my favorite artists and ‘America’ has always been a song I’ve loved,” he once remarked.^[23]

Vocalist Alyssa Graham replaces Simon’s “Kathy” with “Douglas” in her version, the leadoff track on her 2008 album Echo.

English progressive rock band Yes performed the song, which remained unreleased until 1972’s “The New Age Of Atlantic” sampler album.

Lucy Wainwright Roche performs it, together with The Roches, on her 2010 album Lucy.^[24]

The band America also released a recording of the song on their 2011 album Back Pages.^[25]

The Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit performed the song in honor of Paul Simon at the 2012 Polar Music Prize award ceremony, which earned them a standing ovation from Paul Simon himself.^[26] On Black Friday of 2014, First Aid Kit released a 10″ single containing the song as the title track.

The Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps of Canton, Ohio featured the song in their 2013 production, “…to look for America.”

Traverse City, MI singer-songwriter Joshua Davis performed the song on April 13, 2015 on Season 8 of NBC’s The Voice.

Sting performs the song on a quarter size acoustic guitar live on stage on the Paul Simon with Sting tour.

U2 has snippeted the song on multiple occasions during their 2015 and 2017 world tours.^[27]

Chart positions

Weekly charts

Personnel

Music video by Simon & Garfunkel performing America (Audio). (C) 2017 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

http://vevo.ly/R2gFHO

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
No one dared
Disturb the sound 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 sound of silence”

The Sound of Silence

This is the original version from 1964 from the album “Wednesday Morning, 3 AM.” Just Simon’s guitar and the vocals. The famous version was released in 1966. After “Wednesday Morning, 3 AM” flopped, they split up. Without either their knowledge, electric guitars and drums were added and that version of The Sound of Silence became very popular, reaching #1 on the charts in America on New Years Day, 1966. Because of this, Simon and Garfunkel teamed up again and created three more studio albums, one of which one a Grammy award for album of the year and song of the year (Bridge Over Troubled Water).

“The Sound of Silence“, originally “The Sounds of Silence“, is a song by the American music duo Simon & Garfunkel. The song was written by Paul Simon over a period of several months in 1963 and 1964. A studio audition led to the duo signing a record deal with Columbia Records, and the song was recorded in March 1964 at Columbia Studios in New York City for inclusion on their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M..

Released in October 1964, the album was a commercial failure and led to the duo breaking apart, with Paul Simon returning to England and Art Garfunkel to his studies at Columbia University. In the spring of 1965, the song began to attract airplay at radio stations in Boston, Massachusetts, and throughout Florida. The growing airplay led Tom Wilson, the song’s producer, to remix the track, overdubbing electric instrumentation. Simon & Garfunkel were not informed of the song’s remix until after its release. The single was released in September 1965.

The song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending January 1, 1966, leading the duo to reunite and hastily record their second album, which Columbia titled Sounds of Silence in an attempt to capitalize on the song’s success. The song was a top-ten hit in multiple countries worldwide, among them Australia, Austria, West Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. Generally considered a classic folk rock song, the song was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” in 2013 along with the rest of the Sounds of Silence album.

Originally titled “The Sounds of Silence” on the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the song was re-titled for later compilations beginning with Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.^[2][3]

Background

Origin and original recording

Simon and Garfunkel became interested in folk music and the growing counterculture movement separately in the early 1960s. Having performed together previously under the name Tom and Jerry in the late 1950s, their partnership had since dissolved when they began attending college. In 1963, they regrouped and began performing Simon’s original compositions locally in Queens. They billed themselves “Kane & Garr”, after old recording pseudonyms, and signed up for Gerde’s Folk City, a Greenwich Village club that hosted Monday night performances.^[4] In September 1963, the duo performed three new songs, among them “The Sound of Silence”, getting the attention of Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson, who worked with Bob Dylan.^[4][5] Simon convinced Wilson to let him and his partner have a studio audition, where a performance of “The Sound of Silence” got the duo signed to Columbia.^[6]

The song’s origin and basis remain unclear, with multiple answers coming forward over the years. Many believe that the song commented on the John F. Kennedy assassination, as the song was released three months after the assassination.^[4] Simon stated unambiguously in interviews however, “I wrote The Sound of Silence when I was 21 years old”,^[7][8] which places the timeframe firmly prior to the JFK tragedy, with Simon also explaining that the song was written in his bathroom, where he turned off the lights to better concentrate.^[5] “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’.”^[9] In a more recent interview, Simon was directly asked, “How is a 21 year old person thinkin’ about the words in that song?” His reply was, “I have no idea.”^[10] 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.^[11] Garfunkel once summed up the song’s meaning as “the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other.”^[5]

To promote the release of their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the duo performed again at Folk City, as well as two shows at the Gaslight Café, which went over poorly. Dave Van Ronk, a folk singer, was at the performances, and noted that several in the audience regarded their music as a joke.^[12] “‘Sounds of Silence’ actually became a running joke: for a while there, it was only necessary to start singing ‘Hello darkness, my old friend…’ and everybody would crack up.”^[13] Wednesday Morning, 3 AM sold only 3,000 copies upon its October release, and its dismal sales led Simon to move to London, England.^[14] While there, he recorded a solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook (1965), which features a rendition of the song, titled “The Sounds of Silence”.^[15]

The original recording of the song is in D♯ minor, using the chords D♯m, C♯, B and F♯. Simon plays a guitar with a capo on the sixth fret, using the shapes for Am, G, F and C chords.^[16] The vocal span goes from C♯4 to F♯5 in the song.^[17]

Remix

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. had been a commercial failure before producer Tom Wilson was alerted that radio stations had begun to play “The Sound of Silence” in spring 1965. A late-night disc jockey at WBZ in Boston began to spin “The Sound of Silence” overnight, where it found a college demographic.^[18] Students at Harvard and Tufts University responded well, and the song made its way down the East Coast pretty much “overnight”, “all the way to Cocoa Beach, Florida, where it caught the students coming down for spring break.”^[18] A promotional executive for Columbia went to give away free albums of new artists, and beach-goers only were interested in the artists behind “The Sound of Silence”. He phoned the home office in New York, alerting them of its appeal.^[19] An alternate version of the story states that Wilson attended Columbia’s July 1965 convention in Miami, where the head of the local sales branch raved about the song’s airplay.^[20]

Folk rock was beginning to make waves on pop radio, with Bob Dylan‘s “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Byrds‘ “Mr. Tambourine Man” (also a Dylan song) charting high.^[21] Wilson listened to the song several times, considering it too soft for a wide release.^[18] Afterwards, he turned on the Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!“, which gave him the idea to remix the song, overdubbing rock instrumentation.^{[22][dubious – discuss]} He employed musicians Al Gorgoni (and Vinnie Bell) on guitar, Bob Bushnell on bass, and Bobby Gregg on drums.^[23] The tempo on the original recording was uneven, making it difficult for the musicians to keep the song in time.^[21] Engineer Roy Halee employed a heavy echo on the remix, which was a common trait of the Byrds’ hits.^[21] The single was first serviced to college FM rock stations, and a commercial single release followed on September 13, 1965.^[20] The lack of consultation with Simon and Garfunkel on Wilson’s remix was because, although still contracted to Columbia Records at the time, the musical duo at that time was no longer a “working entity”.^[21][24] It was not uncommon at the time for producers to add instruments or vocals to previously existing recordings and re-release them as new entities.

In the fall of 1965, Simon was in Denmark, performing at small clubs, and picked up a copy of Billboard, as he had routinely done for several years.^[20] Upon seeing “The Sounds of Silence” in the Billboard Hot 100, he bought a copy of Cashbox and saw the same thing. Several days later, Garfunkel excitedly called Simon to inform him of the single’s growing success.^[20] A copy of the 7″ single arrived in the mail the next day, and according to friend Al Stewart, “[Paul] was horrified when he first heard it … [when the] rhythm section slowed down at one point so that Paul and Artie’s voices could catch up.”^[22] Garfunkel was far less concerned about the remix, feeling conditioned to the process of trying to create a hit single: “It’s interesting, I suppose it might do something, It might sell,” he told Wilson.^[25]

Chart performance

“The Sound of Silence” first broke in Boston, where it became one of the top-selling singles in early November 1965;^[20][26] it spread to Miami and Washington, D.C. two weeks later, reaching number one in Boston and debuting on the Billboard Hot 100.^[27]

Throughout the month of January 1966 “The Sound of Silence” had a one-on-one battle with The Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” for the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The former was No. 1 for the weeks of January 1 and 22 and No. 2 for the intervening two weeks. The latter held the top spot for the weeks of January 8, 15, and 29, and was No. 2 for the two weeks that “The Sound of Silence” was No. 1. Overall, “The Sound of Silence” spent 14 weeks on the Billboard chart.^[28]

In the wake of the song’s success, Simon promptly returned to the United States to record a new Simon & Garfunkel album at Columbia’s request. He later described his experiences learning the song went to No. 1, a story he repeated in numerous interviews:^[29]

I had come back to New York, and I was staying in my old room at my parents’ house. Artie was living at his parents’ house, too. I remember Artie and I were sitting there in my car one night, parked on a street in Queens, and the announcer [on the radio] said, “Number one, Simon & Garfunkel.” And Artie said to me, “That Simon & Garfunkel, they must be having a great time.” Because there we were on a street corner [in my car in] Queens, smoking a joint. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves.^[30]

For his part, Garfunkel had a different memory of the song’s success:

We were in L.A. Our manager called us at the hotel we were staying at. We were both in the same room. We must have bunked in the same room in those days. I picked up the phone. He said, ‘Well, congratulations. Next week you will go from five to one in Billboard.’ It was fun. I remember pulling open the curtains and letting the brilliant sun come into this very red room, and then ordering room service. That was good.”^[29][31]

Reception

In 1999, BMI named “The Sound of Silence” as the 18th most-performed song of the 20th century.^[32] In 2004, it was ranked No. 157 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the duo’s three songs on the list. The song is now considered “the quintessential folk rock release”.^[33]

On March 21, 2013, the song was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress for long-term preservation along with the rest of the Sounds of Silence album.^[34]

In popular culture

When director Mike Nichols and Sam O’Steen were editing the 1967 film The Graduate, they initially timed some scenes to this song, intending to substitute original music for the scenes. However, they eventually concluded that an adequate substitute could not be found and decided to purchase the rights for the song for the soundtrack. This was an unusual decision for the time, as the song had charted over a year earlier and recycling established music for film was not commonly done.^[35]

The song was parodied by The Simpsons(as ‘The Sound of Grampa’) in the closing credits of the episode “Lady Bouvier’s Lover” .

With the practice of using well-known songs for films becoming commonplace, “The Sound of Silence” has since been used for other films, such as Kingpin (1996), Old School (2003), Bobby (2006), Watchmen (2009), and Trolls (2016). In the German TV movie Ein Drilling Kommt Selten Allein the song was sung by grandparents to calm down crying triplets. It appeared on the fourth season of the television series Arrested Development in 2013 as a running gag of characters’ inner reflections. It was also used as part of the soundtrack of episode 4 of the 2017 documentary on the Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

The Rush song “The Spirit of Radio” ends with a satirical homage to the final lines of “The Sound of Silence”: “For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall, concert hall, and echoes with the sounds of salesmen”.

Charts and certifications

Certifications

Disturbed version

“The Sound of Silence”
Single by Disturbed
from the album Immortalized
Released	December 7, 2015
Format	12″ digital download
Genre	Piano rock[47]
Length	4:08
Label	Reprise
Songwriter(s)	Paul Simon
Producer(s)	Kevin Churko
Disturbed singles chronology
“The Light” (2015) “The Sound of Silence” (2015) “Open Your Eyes” (2016)

A cover version was released by American heavy metal band Disturbed on December 7, 2015.^[48][49] A music video was released on December 7, 2015.^[50] Their cover hit number one on the Billboard Hard Rock Digital Songs^[51] and Mainstream Rock charts,^[52] and is their highest-charting song on the Hot 100,^[53] peaking at number 42. It is also their highest-charting single in Australia, peaking at number 4.

David Draiman sings it in the key of F#m. The chord progression is F#m, E, D, A. The first two verses are almost an octave lower than the original and jumped up an octave for the last three verses.^[54] His vocal span goes from E2 to A4 in scientific pitch notation.^[55]

In April 2016, Paul Simon endorsed the cover.^[56] Additionally, on April 1, Simon sent lead vocalist Draiman an email praising Disturbed’s performance of the rendition on American talk show Conan. Simon wrote: “Really powerful performance on Conan the other day. First time I’d seen you do it live. Nice. Thanks.” Draiman responded, “Mr. Simon, I am honored beyond words. We only hoped to pay homage and honor to the brilliance of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Your compliment means the world to me/ us and we are eternally grateful.”^[57] As of September 2017, the single had sold over 1.5 million digital downloads^[58] and had been streamed over 54 million times, estimated Nielsen Music.^[59] The music video has over 327 million views on YouTube, while the live performance on Conan has over 70 million, making it the most watched video from the show.

Accolades

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/Sales
Australia (ARIA)[88]	2× Platinum	140,000^
Austria (IFPI Austria)[89]	Gold	15,000*
Canada (Music Canada)[90]	Platinum	10,000^
Germany (BVMI)[91]	Platinum	400,000^
Italy (FIMI)[92]	Gold	25,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)[93]	Gold	7,500*
Norway (IFPI Norway)[94]	Platinum	10,000*
Sweden (GLF)[95]	3× Platinum	120,000^
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[96]	Gold	15,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[97]	Silver	200,000
United States (RIAA)[98]	3× Platinum	1,502,000[58]
*sales figures based on certification alone ^shipments figures based on certification alone sales+streaming figures based on certification alone

Other cover versions

• Dutch singer Boudewijn de Groot included a Dutch translation of the song (“Het geluid van stilte”) on his self-titled 1965 debut album.^[99]
• In 1966, Spanish rock band Los Mustang recorded a Spanish-language cover of the song, entitled “El Ritmo Del Silencio”.^[100]
• Irish pop music trio The Bachelors recorded a cover version of the song in 1966, and this earned the group their last top 10 hit in both Ireland (#9) and the UK (#3). The original version by Simon & Garfunkel has never charted in either Ireland or the UK.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1966, South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela included the song to his album Hugh Masekela’s Next Album.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1967, Jamaican reggae bands The Soul Vendors and The Gaylads recorded a cover of the song.^[101]
• Jazz singer Carmen McRae covered the song for her 1968 album of the same name.
• Mercy released a version of the song on their 1969 album, Love Can Make You Happy.^[102]
• Swedish singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad recorded a Swedish-language cover of the song, entitled “En ton av tystnad”, which was featured on her 1971 debut album, Frida.^{[citation needed]}
• Serbian and former Yugoslav acoustic music duo Vlada i Bajka recorded a Serbian language version of the song, “Zvuk tišine”, released on a single in 1971.^[103]
• Israeli duo The Parvarim recorded a Hebrew-language version on their 1972 LP The Parvarim Sing Simon & Garfunkel. The lyric was translated by Ehud Manor.^{[citation needed]}
• Los Angeles punk band The Dickies recorded a cover of the song, released on a single in 1978.^[104]
• French singer Gérard Lenorman in his 1981 album D’amour, featured a rewritten lyrics of this song, and he named it “Chanson d’innocence”.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1986, Stanley Jordan recorded an instrumental version on his Standards, Vol. 1 album.^{[citation needed]}
• In the late 1980s, The Fools often covered “The Sound of Silence” at their live performances. One such performance was released on the band’s 1987 live album Wake Up… It’s Alive!!!. The album was re-released with more tracks in 1993 as Wake Up… It’s Alive!!! (Again).^{[citation needed]}
• American heavy metal band Heir Apparent covered “The Sound of Silence” 1989 album One Small Voice.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1990, Brazilian singers Leandro e Leonardo covered “The Sound of Silence”, re-written as the love song “É Por Você que Canto” (“It is For You That I Sing”). This version has since been re-covered by other groups.^[105]
• In 1996, Filipino singer Regine Velasquez interpolated the song as a “Prologue” and an “Epilogue” for her album Retro.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1996, Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini covered “The Sound of Silence”.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1997, South African metal band The Awakening covered “The Sound of Silence” on their debut album Risen. Another version was recorded for their 2014 compilation album Anthology XV.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1999, Gregorian covered “The Sound of Silence” on their album Masters of Chant.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2000, Atrocity covered “The Sound of Silence” on their EP Sounds of Silence.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2000, Nevermore covered “The Sound of Silence” on their album Dead Heart in a Dead World.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2005, Italian singer Andrea Parodi, together with American guitarist Al Di Meola, covered the song, writing new lyrics in Sardinian language and renaming it Deo ti Gheria Maria (The Sound of Silence). This version is featured in his live album Midsummer Night in Sardinia.^{[citation needed]}
• Italian classical singer Michéal Castaldo recorded an Italian version of this song on his 2010 album Aceto.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2007, rock duo Shaw Blades covered “The Sound of Silence” on their second album, Influence.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2007, New Zealand singer Brooke Fraser, released a live cover version on the deluxe edition of her album Albertine.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2008, the band Ascension of the Watchers covered “The Sound of Silence” on their album Numinosum.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2009, Bananarama covered “The Sound of Silence” on their tenth album Viva as an iTunes bonus track.^[106]
• In 2010, Polish singer Ania Dąbrowska covered “The Sound of Silence” on her album “Ania Movie”.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2010, Sharleen Spiteri covered “The Sound of Silence” on her album The Movie Songbook.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2010, Sufjan Stevens included lyrics from “The Sound of Silence” in his song “All Delighted People” from the album of the same name.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2010, the duo Peixoto & Maxado recorded a smooth ska version of “The Sound of Silence” on their album “I Wanna Shoyu”^[107]
• In 2011, Phil and Tim Hanseroth covered “The Sound of Silence” on Brandi Carlile‘s album Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2011 Kina Grannis covered “The Sound of Silence” on the deluxe edition of her album Stairwells.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2011, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny opened on his Grammy Award-winning solo cover album What It’s All About with “The Sound of Silence”.^{[citation needed]}
• In August 30 of 2011, Bobaflex

  released Hell In My Heart with their version of “The Sound of Silence” as track 15.^[108]

• Two of Celtic Thunder‘s principal singers Keith Harkin and Colm Keegan covered the song for their 2013 album Mythology.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2013, husband-wife duo Jenny & Tyler recorded the song as a part of their cover album For Freedom, the proceeds of which they designated for the International Justice Mission.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2015, Allison covered “The Sound of Silence” for the soundtrack in the 2015 French television series L’Emprise. The song charted on the official French Singles Chart, the SNEP.^[109]
• In 2015, James Blake covered “The Sound of Silence” and released the track on his official YouTube channel.^{[citation needed]}
• British musician Passenger regularly plays the song live following his own song “Riding To New York”.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2016, American Idol finalist Dalton Rapattoni covered the song on Top 5 night.^[110]
• A cover of this song was used on the TV series Timeless.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2016, the movie Trolls featured a cover in its entirety by Anna Kendrick.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2017, Jew in the City released a music video covering “The Sound of Silence” featuring The Maccabeats with visuals drawn from a reinterpretation of the lyrics, such as “People talking without speaking” and “the people bowed and prayed / To the neon god they made,” to refer to modern communications technology and mobile phone overuse.^[111]
• In February 2017, Todd Hoffman from Gold Rush released his own cover version on social media recorded by Black Diamond Recording Studios. The cover version went viral later on in the year and as of January 2018 had received over 6 million views.
• In March 2017, American a cappella artist Peter Hollens released a cover version on YouTube featuring Tim Foust of the band Home Free. As of February 2018, the video has reached over 2 million views.
• In early 2017 a cover version featuring young Canadian singer Jadyn Rylee was released on the compilation album “Your Songbook”, a collection of tracks recorded by German drummer Sina. As of March 2018 the YouTube video of this cover had reached over 7.5 million views.
• In 2018 Jess & Matt covered the song on their album Songs from the Village. It featured Chris Isaak.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know your part’ll go fine
Fly down to Mexico
Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New York

[Verse 2]

I get the news I need on the weather report
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New York

[Bridge]
Half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where
And we don’t know where
Here I am…

Half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where
And we don’t know where

[Verse 3]
Tom, get your plane right on time
I know that you’ve been eager to fly now
Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine now
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York
The only living boy in New York

The Only Living Boy in New York

“The Only Living Boy in New York” is a song written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel. It is the eighth track from the American pop duo’s fifth and final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water. The song was also issued as the B-side to the duo’s “Cecilia” single.

Background

Simon wrote this as a thinly veiled message to Art Garfunkel, referencing a specific incident where Garfunkel went to Mexico to act in the film Catch-22. Simon was left alone in New York writing songs for Bridge over Troubled Water, hence the lonely feelings of “The Only Living Boy in New York.” Simon refers to Garfunkel in the song as “Tom”, alluding to their early days when they were called Tom and Jerry, and encourages him to “let your honesty shine . . . like it shines on me”.^[1] The background vocals feature both Garfunkel and Simon recorded together in an echo chamber, multi-tracked around eight times.^[2]

Personnel

• Paul Simon — lead vocals, background vocals, acoustic guitar
• Art Garfunkel — backup and harmony vocals
• Joe Osborn — bass guitar
• Larry Knechtel — Hammond organ
• Fred Carter, Jr. — acoustic guitar
• Hal Blaine — drums, triangle

Covers

• The reggae hit “Weather Report”, by The Tennors, was adapted from this song.
• A cover of the song was played by Everything but the Girl on their album Home Movies; video directed by Hal Hartley. Everything but the Girl’s version was a Top 50 single in the UK in 1993.^[3]
• This song was covered by The Coolies on their 1986 album dig..?, along with eight other tongue-in-cheek covers of Simon & Garfunkel classics.
• The 1990s British indie band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine parodied the title of the song for their biggest-selling single, “The Only Living Boy in New Cross“. (New Cross is an area of south-east London.)
• Black 47 frontman Larry Kirwan covered the song on his 2001 solo project Kilroy Was Here.
• Marc Cohn released a cover version as part of his 2010 album of tribute songs, Listening Booth: 1970.
• Passenger, The Once and Stu Larsen covered the song as part of their American Tour series.
• Kishi Bashi covered the song as one of two singles released July 12, 2017 exclusively on Spotify, both songs having been recorded in the company’s NYC studios in early April of the same year

Use in film

• Everything but the Girl‘s cover was featured in the 2002 film Tadpole
• The original recording is featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2004 film Garden State
• Used as part of the soundtrack of the 2009 film New York, I Love You.
• Honda has used sections of this song for their television commercials of the 2011 Accord.
• The original recording is featured during the final scenes of the second season finale of Alphas.
• The original recording is used in the credits of the film Koch
• The original recording was used in the first season finale of BBC3’s comedy Uncle.
• Used in the final scene of the HBO film version of Larry Kramer‘s The Normal Heart (2014).
• Used in the film with the same name: The Only Living Boy in New York (2017).

Use in other media

• David Gallaher and Steve Ellis used the song as inspiration for their 2009 “The Only Living Boy” webcomic series.

• Saturday Night Live, May 13, 2017 in comedy sketch with Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer and Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump.

Music video by Simon & Garfunkel performing The Only Living Boy in New York (Audio). (C) 2017 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

http://vevo.ly/kQF0Ny

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls

[Verse 2]
And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England, where my heart lies

[Verse 3]
My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
And kiss you when you start your day

[Verse 4]
And a song I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can’t believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme

[Verse 5]
And so you see, I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you

[Verse 6]
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

[Verse 2]
June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks, she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight

[Verse 3]
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old

April Come She Will

“April Come She Will” is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel from their second studio album, Sounds of Silence (1966). It originally appeared on the solo album The Paul Simon Songbook. It is the B-side to the hit single “Scarborough Fair/Canticle“.^[1]

Background and composition

The song was written in 1964 while Paul Simon was in England. Its lyrics use the changing nature of the seasons as a metaphor for a girl’s changing moods. The inspiration for the song was a girl that Simon met and the nursery rhyme she used to recite.^[2] It is the shortest song on the album.^[3] According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the song is composed in the key of G Major with Paul Simon’s vocal range spanning from D₃ to D₄.^[4] On the duo’s recording, Art Garfunkel sings the lead vocals.

Release and reception

In the February 1968 release of the soundtrack for the movie The Graduate, the song appeared (in a different version) as the seventh track.^[5] It is featured in a pool scene in the movie, and was used as a rhythmic guide for the editing of the film.^[6]

Reviews for the song were generally positive. Matthew Greenwald of Allmusic wrote: “The sense of yearning in this song would later be beautifully echoed in one of the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme masterpieces, “For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her.” Like that song, it is very brief, yet the shortness of the song adds to the effectiveness and economy of both the lyric and melody.”^[2] George Starostin called the song a “gorgeous ballad” and said it was “pretty much the same song as ‘Leaves That Are Green’ except it’s completely different.”^[7]

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of min

[Verse 2]
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Tracing of sparrow on snow crested ground)
Without no seams nor needle work
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

[Verse 3]
Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Washes the grave with silvery tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strands
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine

[Verse 4]
Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather
(War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they’ve long ago forgotten)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine

[Verse 5]
Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Scarborough Fair

“Scarborough Fair” is a traditional English ballad about the Yorkshire town of Scarborough.

The song infers the tale of a young man who instructs the enquires to tell his former love to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

As the versions of the ballad known under the title “Scarborough Fair” are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is about the Great Plague of the late Middle Ages. The lyrics of “Scarborough Fair” appear to have something in common with an obscure Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight (Child Ballad #2),^[1] which has been traced at least as far back as 1670 and may well be earlier. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task (“For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he”); she responds with a list of tasks that he must first perform (“I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand”).

The melody is in Dorian mode, and is very typical of the middle English period.

As the song spread, it was adapted, modified, and rewritten to the point that dozens of versions existed by the end of the 18th century, although only a few are typically sung nowadays. The references to the traditional English fair, “Scarborough Fair” and the refrain “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” date to 19th century versions, and the refrain may have been borrowed from the ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded, (Child Ballad #1), which has a similar plot. A number of older versions refer to locations other than Scarborough Fair, including Wittingham Fair, Cape Ann, “twixt Berwik and Lyne”, etc. Many versions do not mention a place-name, and are often generically titled (“The Lovers’ Tasks”, “My Father Gave Me an Acre of Land”, etc.).

Alternative refrains

The oldest versions of The Elfin Knight (circa 1650) contain the refrain “my plaid away, my plaid away, the wind shall not blow my plaid away”. Slightly more recent versions often contain one of a group of related refrains:

• Sober and grave grows merry in time
• Every rose grows merry with time
• There’s never a rose grows fairer with time
• Yesterday holds memories in time

These are usually paired with “Once (s)he was a true love of mine” or some variant. “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” may simply be an alternate rhyming refrain to the original based on a corruption of “grows merry in time” into “rosemary and thyme”.

Commercial versions

The earliest commercial recording of the ballad was by actor/singers Gordon Heath and Lee Payant, Americans who ran a cafe and nightclub, L’Abbaye, on the Rive Gauche in Paris. They recorded the song on the Elektra album Encores From The Abbaye in 1955.^[2][3] Their version used the melody from Frank Kidson‘s collection Traditional Tunes, published in 1891, which reported it as being “as sung in Whitby streets twenty or thirty years ago” – that is, in about the 1860s.^[4]

The song was also included on A. L. Lloyd‘s 1955 album The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, using Kidson’s melody. The version using the melody later used by Simon & Garfunkel in “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” was first recorded on a 1956 album, English Folk Songs, by Audrey Coppard.^[4][5] It was included by Ewan MacColl on Matching Songs For The British Isles And America (1957), by MacColl and Peggy Seeger on The Singing Island (1960), and by Shirley Collins on the album False True Lovers (1959).^[3][4][6] It is likely that both Coppard and Collins learned it from MacColl, who claimed to have collected it “in part” from a Scottish miner. According to the Teesdale Mercury and Martin Carthy’s daughter, it emerged that researcher-musician MacColl wrote a book of Teesdale folk songs after hearing Mark Anderson sing in the late 1940s. The book included Anderson’s rendition of a little-known song called “Scarborough Fair”. However, according to Alan Lomax, MacColl’s source was probably Cecil Sharp‘s One Hundred English Folk Songs, published in 1916.^[6][7]. It should be noted however that the melody in ‘One Hundred English Folksongs’ is not that used by MacColl or later artists.

In April 1966, Marianne Faithfull recorded and released her own take on “Scarborough Fair” on her album North Country Maid about six months prior to Simon & Garfunkel’s release of their single version of the song in October 1966.^[8]

Simon & Garfunkel

Paul Simon learned the song in London in 1965 from Martin Carthy,^[9] who had picked up the tune from the songbook by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger^[10] and included it on his eponymous 1965 album. Simon & Garfunkel set it in counterpoint with “Canticle” – a reworking of the lyrics from Simon’s 1963 anti-war song, “The Side of a Hill”,^[11] set to a new melody composed mainly by Art Garfunkel.^[10][12] It was the lead track of the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and was released as a single after being featured on the soundtrack to The Graduate in 1968.^[10] The copyright credited only Simon and Garfunkel as the authors, causing ill-feeling on the part of Carthy, who felt the “traditional” source should have been credited.^[10] This rift remained until Simon invited Carthy to perform the song with him as a duet at a London concert in 2000.^[10] Simon performed this song with The Muppets when he guest starred on The Muppet Show.

Before Simon had learned the song, Bob Dylan had borrowed the melody and several lines from Carthy’s arrangement to create his song, “Girl from the North Country“,^[13] which appeared on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), Nashville Skyline (1969) (together with Johnny Cash), Real Live (1984) and The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993).

The Coolies‘ first album, dig..?, released in 1986 by DB Records, consisted of nine tongue-in-cheek covers of Simon & Garfunkel classics, including this track. “Scarborough Fair” b/w “The Sound of Silence” was released as a 7″ single.

Chart performance

Other recordings

• The Gothard Sisters released a folk version on their 2011 album, Story Girl^[15]
• In 2017, Norwegian singer Aurora was invited by Brazilian TV channel Rede Globo to sing a version of “Scarborough Fair” for the opening theme of telenovela Deus Salve o Rei.^[16]
• Tamaru Yamada sang a version of “Scarborough Fair” for the opening episode of WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?.
• In 2018, Jess & Matt covered the song on their album, Songs from the Village.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
I’m sittin’ in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination, mmm
On a tour of one night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one man band

[Chorus]
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

[Verse 2]
Everyday’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines, Mmm
And each town looks the same to me
The movies and the factories
And every stranger’s face I see
Reminds me that I long to be

[Chorus]
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

[Verse 3]
Tonight I’ll sing my songs again
I’ll play the game and pretend, mmm
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me

[Chorus]
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Silently for me

“Homeward Bound” is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel written by Paul Simon and produced by Bob Johnston. The song was released as a single on January 19, 1966 by Columbia Records.

The song appears on the duo’s third studio album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), although it was recorded during the sessions for their second album Sounds of Silence and included on that album in the UK. It was their second single, the follow-up to their enormously successful breakthrough hit “The Sound of Silence“. It performed very well domestically, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining on the charts for 12 weeks. Internationally, the song performed best in Canada, where it hit number two; it was also a top five hit in the Netherlands.

A live version of the song is included on the compilation Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, and it was also performed during the duo’s legendary 1981 reunion, The Concert in Central Park.

Background

“Homeward Bound” was written by Paul Simon after returning to England in the spring of 1964. He had previously spent time in Essex, and he became a nightly fixture at the Railway Hotel in Brentwood, beginning that April.^[1] He was reeling from his brief period in the Greenwich Village folk scene, as well as the recording of his first album with Art Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which he anticipated would be a failure.^[2] During this time, he met Kathy Chitty, who was working as a ticket-taker at the club. The two hit it off instantly, but it became clear that Simon desired to perform in London, resulting in an emotional farewell.^[2] Following a performance in Liverpool, Simon was at Widnes railway station, waiting for the early morning milk train to London. He had been missing Chitty’s company and he began to write “Homeward Bound” on a scrap of paper.^[3]

Chitty is mentioned in several other Simon & Garfunkel songs, most notably “Kathy’s Song” and “America“. In their 1969 hit “The Boxer“, Simon alludes to a railway station, a possible reference to “Homeward Bound”.^[4] A plaque commemorating this claim to fame is displayed on the Liverpool bound platform of Widnes railway station.^[5] Simon is quoted as saying “[i]f you’d ever seen Widnes, then you’d know why I was keen to get back to London as quickly as possible.”^[6]

Chart performance

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow

[Refrain]
I am a rock
I am an island

[Verse 2]
I’ve built walls
A fortress, steep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain

[Refrain]
I am a rock
I am an island

[Verse 3]
Don’t talk of love
Well, I’ve heard the words before
It’s sleeping in my memory
And I won’t disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I never loved, I never would have cried

[Refrain]
I am a rock
I am an island

[Verse 4]
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

[Refrain]
I am a rock
I am an island

[Outro]
And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

“I Am a Rock” is a song written by Paul Simon. It was first performed by Simon alone as the opening track on his album The Paul Simon Songbook which he originally recorded and released in August 1965, only in the United Kingdom. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, as the American folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel, re-recorded it on December 14, 1965, and included as the final track on their album Sounds of Silence, which they released on January 17, 1966.

Writing

The song was not included on Simon & Garfunkel’s first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which they released on October 19, 1964. The folk-rock nature of the music makes it unlikely that Simon would have written it much earlier than 1964, when he first began experimenting with the folk genre. Some sources say that it was performed by Simon on January 27, 1965, on a promo show for the BBC.^[1] In any case, Simon seems to have written the song before the end of January 1965, and certainly had it down before May, when he recorded it. Thematically, the song deals with isolation and emotional detachment.

Releases and commercial success

The original version of “I Am a Rock” was first released on The Paul Simon Songbook, and became, in the summer of 1965, the A-side to Simon’s only single released from the album, backed with “Leaves That Are Green” on CBS 201797. Like the album, the single was not a commercial success. It is an extremely rare single to locate. Meanwhile, The Paul Simon Songbook, which for a long time Simon himself had disdained as an album, remained available only in the United Kingdom until 1981.

While Paul Simon was in Europe during the summer of 1965, Tom Wilson, the producer of Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., responded to requests for “The Sound of Silence” from American radio stations and dubbed an electric guitar and drums onto the original track. He then released the song as a single, whereupon it entered the United States pop charts. When Simon heard about the success of this song, he was still touring in Europe as a poor solo folk singer. He immediately returned to the United States, and in December 1965 he and Garfunkel began a series of hasty recording sessions to match the electric “mold” created by Wilson with many of the other songs that Simon had recorded on the Song Book, including “I Am a Rock,” which was re-recorded during these sessions on 14 December 1965.^[2] The result was the album Sounds of Silence, which the duo released the following January. “I Am a Rock” was the fifth and closing track on Side 2 of the record. With “The Sound of Silence” (the opening track), it bookends the rest of the material. This album quickly capitalized on the success of the new album’s title track as a #1 single, and itself rose to #21 on the Billboard charts.

The duo cashed in quickly on their new-found success. They released “I Am a Rock” as a single in the late spring of 1966,^[3] and the song reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the third single (chronologically) by Simon & Garfunkel to reach the top 5 (after “The Sound of Silence” and “Homeward Bound“).

This single had two incarnations. First, as a promotion, it was released on red vinyl to radio stations, with a mono mix on one side and a stereo version on the other. These copies are somewhat difficult to locate for collectors. The standard version sold in stores, however, was the black vinyl 45 rpm record with the red Columbia Records label. The B-side was a version of “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall,” which was later released on Simon & Garfunkel’s even-more-successful (and critically acclaimed) album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The single mix of the song features a more prominent lead vocal track (and different phrasing in the opening lines) by Paul Simon, and less reverb, than the more common LP version.

Until 1981, the initial official recording of “I Am a Rock” on The Paul Simon Song Book remained unavailable in North America. This was partly because Simon himself disdained the album, saying on the album’s liner notes:

“This L.P. contains twelve of the songs that I have written over the past two years. There are some here that I would not write today. I don’t believe in them as I once did. I have included them because they played an important role in the transition. It is discomforting, almost painful, to look back over something someone else created and realize that someone else was you. I am not ashamed of where I’ve been and what I’ve thought. It’s just not me anymore. It is perfectly clear to me that the songs I write today will not be mine tomorrow. I don’t regret the loss.”^[4]

As a result, the Song Book album was only made available in North America when it was released as part of the box set of albums Paul Simon: Collected Works. The album was not released on CD until March 23, 2004.^[5] When it was, Columbia Legacy included two bonus tracks, one of which was an alternate take of “I Am a Rock”, during which one can plainly hear Simon stamping his foot for a beat.

Chart performance

Other versions

• It was covered in 1966 by The Hollies on their fourth album Would You Believe?.
• It was covered in 1966 by The Grass Roots on their first album Where Were You When I Needed You.
• It was covered in 1968 by Bobby Goldsboro on his album Word Pictures
• It was covered in 1982 by The Church on their EP Singsongs.
• It was covered in 1986 by The Coolies on their album dig..?, along with eight other tongue-in-cheek covers of Simon & Garfunkel classics.
• It was covered in 1990 by The Hated on the Wedge 7″ compilation, and released again on The Machines: Simple Machines 7″s (1990-1993) in 1994.
• It was covered in 1993 by Red House Painters on their third album Red House Painters.
• It was covered in 1997 by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes on their album Have a Ball.
• It was covered in 1997 by Arjen Lucassen on his solo album Strange Hobby.
• It was covered in 2000 by Shelter on their album When 20 Summers Pass.
• It was covered in 2001 by April Wine on their album Back to the Mansion.
• It was covered in 2007 by Shaw Blades on their album Influence.
• It was covered in 2016 by Tim Heidecker, with parodic lyrics, as “I Am a Cuck”.^[13]
• It was covered in 2017 by The Wailin’ Jennys on their album Fifteen
• It was covered in 2017 by ASP on their album Zutiefst.

Lyrics:

When you’re weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I’m on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I’ll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

Bridge over Troubled Water

For the song, see Bridge over Troubled Water (song). For the Paul Desmond album, see Bridge over Troubled Water (Paul Desmond album).

Bridge over Troubled Water
Studio album by Simon & Garfunkel
Released	January 26, 1970
Recorded	November 1969
Studio	Studio B and Studio E, Columbia Studio Building, 49 East 52nd Street, New York City; CBS Columbia Square, Los Angeles[1][2]
Length	36:29
Label	Columbia
Producer	Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Roy Halee
Simon & Garfunkel chronology
Bookends (1968) Bridge over Troubled Water (1970) Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits (1972)
Singles from Bridge over Troubled Water
“The Boxer“ Released: 21 March 1969[3] “Bridge over Troubled Water“ Released: January 1970 “Cecilia“ Released: April 1970 “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)“ Released: September 1970

Bridge over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, released in January 1970 on Columbia Records. Following the duo’s soundtrack for The Graduate, Art Garfunkel took an acting role in the film Catch-22, while Paul Simon worked on the songs, writing all tracks except Felice and Boudleaux Bryant’s “Bye Bye Love” (previously a hit for the Everly Brothers).

With the help of producer Roy Halee, the album followed a similar musical pattern as their Bookends, partly abandoning their traditional style in favor of a more creative sound, combining rock, R&B, gospel, jazz, world music, pop and other genres. After filming Catch-22, Garfunkel returned and the duo recorded around 14 tracks, three of which were not featured in the album. The inclusion of a 12th track was long discussed but they eventually decided upon 11 songs. It was described as both their “most effortless record and their most ambitious.”^[4]

Bridge over Troubled Water was released on January 26, 1970, and several re-releases followed. The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic. Columbia Records released a 40th Anniversary Edition on March 8, 2011, which includes two DVDs, including the politically themed TV special Songs of America (1969), the documentary The Harmony Game, additional liner notes and a booklet. Other reissues contain bonus tracks, such as the 2001 version, which covers the demo tapes of “Feuilles-O” and “Bridge over Troubled Water”.

Despite numerous accolades, the duo decided to split up, and parted company later in 1970; Garfunkel continued his film career, while Simon worked intensely with music. Both artists released solo albums in the following years. Bridge includes two of the duo’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful songs, “Bridge over Troubled Water” and “The Boxer“, which were listed on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Critically and commercially successful, the album topped the charts in over ten countries and received two Grammy Awards, plus four more for the title song. It sold around 25 million records and was ranked on several lists, including at number 51 on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The story of the making of the album is told in the 72 minute documentary The Harmony Game (2011), featuring interviews with both Simon & Garfunkel and various collaborators.