Standing in line at Starbuck's three days ago, I heard the familiar strains of "The Sound of Silence" for the first time in a while.
The following line struck me as it never had before:
But my words, like silent raindrops fell /
And echoed in the wells of silence. /
What?
Silent raindrops -- as opposed to noisy raindrops?
If they were silent, how could the raindrops echo?
"Songfacts" http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=796 claims that Paul Simon took six months to write the lyrics, averaging a line per day. [Lots of rewrites? The song is but 34 lines long.]
Simon should have sent it to me. Even though I was only twelve, I could have helped.
I liked the song when I was in grade school.
What was I thinking?
What was Simon thinking?
The answers are blowing in the wind.
4 comments:
Oh, come on Bill...it's poetry. It's metaphorical(or simile? simalicious?), not literal.
One way of reading it:
silent = empty (in the emotional sense)
rain = sadness, tears
well of silence = extended human or deeper personal sense of ennui/sadness/emptiness
Or something like that. No?
I PRESUME THAT POETRY AND LYRICS ARE BEST WHEN THE FIGURATIVE AND THE LITERAL WORK TOGETHER.
ON THAT PRESUMPTION, "THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE" SHOULD HAVE BEEN RETURNED TO THE AUTHOR FOR A REWRITE.
RELAX THIS CONSTRAINT -- THAT LYRICS/POEMS SHOULD WORK BOTH LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY -- AND YOU END UP WITH POEMS LIKE THE FOLLOWING:
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
DOGGEREL TO ME. TO YOU?
RELAX THE CONSTRAINT AND YOU END UP WITH JIM WEBB'S NONSENSE IN "MCARTHUR PARK:"
Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed,
In love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants
MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
Someone left the cake out in the rain
and I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
"OH, NO!" IS RIGHT, JIM!
I KNOW THAT MANY BOOMERS RELAXED STANDARDS SO THAT THEY COULD CALL BOB DYLAN, JIM MORRISON, AND PAUL SIMON POETS.
WHEN RELAXATIONS GAIN US SOMETHING, I CAN LIVE WITH RELAXATIONS. MY STANDARDS FOR ROCK ESPECIALLY ARE LOW.
STILL, WHEN IN "L. A. WOMAN" WE HEAR "I see your hair is burnin / Hills are filled with fire / If they say I never loved you / You know they are a liar," LET US DO POPULAR MUSIC THE COMPLIMENT OF ASKING WHY PLURALS -- "FIRES" AND "LIARS" -- WOULD NOT DO AS WELL AND PRESERVE GRAMMAR.
SIMON'S GRATUITOUS MISSTEPS IN "THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE" DID NOT TROUBLE ME IN THE 1960s. I SEE THEM AS FLAWS NOW BECAUSE THEY BETOKEN LAZINESS OR INEPTITUDE.
AND WHAT DO YOU TAKE "EMPTY" RAINDROPS TO BE?
IF I TRULY RUN OUT OF TASKS, I'LL REWRITE "THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE" FOR PAUL.
WATCH FOR FUTURE BLOGS IN WHICH I ASK WHAT "BLOWIN' IN THE WIND" MEANS.
I have to (well, I don't have to) side with Wild Bill on this one. The silent raindrops echoed in the well of silence? True, with "the sounds of silence," Simon is obviously treading familiar poetic, paradoxical territory, but even so, Wild Bill may be correct to be mystified and to wish the metaphor to be blocked. However, the opening lines of the song are seductive, or were, to angst-ridden "youts," to use the pronunciation from "My Cousin Vinnie." Best regards, Me and Julio
Songfacts had an entry that I just espied:
"Despite its great popularity, BLENDER magazine voted this the 42nd worst song ever, remarking sardonically that "If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like this."
That does not work for me [Wild Bill], but there you have it. BLENDER continued:
"The magazine's editor, Craig Marks, defended BLENDER's decision to include this much-loved song on their list, stating: 'It's the freshman-poetry meaningfulness that got our goat, with self-important lyrics like 'hear my words that I might teach you', it's almost a parody of pretentious '60s folk-rock."
I agree.
"The brief article on the song corresponding with this called the 'hear my words' line 'the most self-important... in rock history,' and elaborated on Mark's remarks with: 'Simon and Garfunkel thunder away in voices that suggest they're scowling and wagging their fingers as they sing. The overall experience is like being lectured on the meaning of life by a jumped-up freshman.' "
Just so!
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