Sound of Silence
Listen to Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel and/or Disturbed
A 21-year-old Paul Simon would lock himself in the bathroom, sit alone with the lights off and play his guitar. It was while playing his guitar in the darkness he first sang, “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again”. The Sound of Silence was first recorded on the Simon and Garfunkel Wednesday Morning 3am album. The simplicity of the melody and the words have resonated with millions of people ever since. The popularity of the powerful reimagined cover version of The Sound of Silence released by the American Heavy Metal band Disturbed, showed that the over fifty-year-old song is very much still a song of today. The music video has over 500 million views and the raw vocals of lead singer David Draiman are incredible, receiving praise from Paul Simon himself after he had heard a live performance. I had the privilege of hearing Paul Simon on his Homeward bound tour last summer in Dublin and he finished his performance with The Sound of Silence. The crowd initially roars as they recognise the tune and then everyone falls silent as they experience the enduring haunting beauty of the song. The song is best heard live in the conditions it was originally written in. Paul Simon on his own on the stage with his guitar amidst the darkness and the silence.
But what does the song mean? The song starts with a man awoken from a dream and in the rest of the song he describes what he saw. He walks alone through the narrow streets in the dark until a neon light reveals a multitude of people. What are they doing? “People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never shared”. Garfunkel in an interview stated that the Sound of Silence is about the inability of people to communicate with one another. Paul Simon describes the song as a post-adolescent angst that no one is listening to me and no one is listening to anyone. People are talking to each other just for the sake of it, without really communicating anything. People are too self-absorbed that though they hear what others are saying they don’t really listen. The result of this lack of real communication is loneliness. They have no one to share their songs with. This is perhaps even more relevant in today’s world. People are spending more and more time tweeting, posting selfies on Instagram and updating their Facebook profiles craving the attention of their thousands of ‘friends’. But do they have the ability to communicate or engage in a meaningful way with each other?
Having meaningful conversations and relationships with others requires hard work and commitment. When Adam and Eve fell they did not just destroy their relationship with God, but sin also changed their attitudes to one another. You see it immediately; Adam and Eve’s first reaction is to “sew fig leaves together” to hide themselves from one another (Gen 3:7). The intimacy is gone, trust has been replaced with mistrust and for the first time, guilt and shame are experienced. A heart “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:13) is self-absorbed and unable to truly love for true “love is not self-seeking” (1 Cor 13:5).
In the song the singer calls out to the crowd, but his message falls on deaf ears – his “words like silent raindrops fell.” Jeremiah experienced the same frustration as he spoke God’s words to the Israelites. “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but see not, who have ears, but cannot hear” (Jer 5:21). Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites failed to heed God’s words and rebelled against him. Even after his mighty exodus deliverance and his miraculous provision for them in the desert, they respond with recriminations, grumbling and idolatrous worship of the golden calf. The scene in the final verse of Sound of Silence shows us something similar to the worshipping of the golden calf in Exodus 32. “The people bow and pray to the neon god they made”. The subject of the worship may have changed, the neon sign could represent mass media, consumerism or celebrities, but the result is the same. Moses when he came down the mountain to see the calf he broke the tablets of stone inscribed with God’s laws in pieces. The first commandment God had given him was “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exo 20:3). The breaking of God’s law was what marred our relationships with each other in the first place, but even more importantly our relationship with God. In the final verse of the song, there is a warning. “And the sign flashed it’s warning and the words that it was forming said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sound of silence”.
But God has not remained silent, God has spoken through his prophets, his word and ultimately he has revealed himself through His Son. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Jesus often said, “He who has ears let him hear”. God’s word speaks to us about Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection. As Moses mediated for the Israelites before God on the top of Mount Sinai, Jesus is the mediator between God and mankind (1 Timothy 2:5). His sacrificial death covers our shame like the garments God made for Adam and Eve after their fall (Genesis 3:21).
The Lord says to his people “Fear not, but speak and do not be silent” (Acts 18:9). Speaking about Jesus isn’t easy and sometimes it feels like our words also “fall like silent raindrops”. But God commands us as he commanded Moses “Now go! I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (Exodus 4:12). For as Paul reminds us “how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”(Romans 10:14).
