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
[Verse 2]
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
[Verse 3]
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
And no one dared disturb the sound of silence
[Verse 4]
"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
About
This track about the inability of people to communicate emotionally, was thought by many to be a response to the Kennedy assassination as it was written during the same time and then released three months later in 1964. Simon’s biographer Robert Hilton describes Simon locking himself in his family’s bathroom in the nights after the Kennedy assassination:
It was around then that he hit some warmly evocative notes that he played over and over again. Slowly, he began reflecting on thoughts that had been nagging at him for months: the way people ignored the words of those, from musicians to religious leaders, who preached against injustice and excess materialism.
As he sat alone, these words eventually burst forth: “Hello darkness, my old friend.” (Hilton, Paul Simon: The Life, Simon and Schuster, 2018, p. 6)
Much to Simon’s delight, his father, Lou–a career musician who refused to flatter his son with untruths about the quality of his compositions–loved the song immediately and had him play it for some of his musician friends, who also praised it.
Simon himself denies that he tried to write a song about anything in particular:
Whatever came out, I didn’t sit down to write a song about alienation in America. I’m not saying the song isn’t about that, but it wasn’t my intention, and that’s still true of my writing today. I don’t ever set out to write a song about something, though after a while it becomes apparent in the construction of a song that I’m writing about something. Then I have a choice. Do I want to stay with that subject or shut it down?“ (Hilton, Paul Simon, pp. 58-59)
Paul Simon originally wrote the song as an acoustic ballad for their debut, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, but Simon & Garfunkel’s first single version died and the album was considered a commercial failure.
Later in ‘65, while Simon was in England, Tom Wilson, producer of Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” asked members of Dylan’s studio band to add electric guitar and drums. Columbia released the amplified Silence, which became a hit before Simon and Garfunkel had even heard it. This second version peaked at #1 in the U.S., and charted in 7 others countries, becoming one of the most successful remixes of all-time.
A third version of the song was released in 1982 on their internationally successful live album, The Concert in Central Park.
…we have people unable to touch other people, unable to love other people. This is a song about the inability to communicate.
–Paul Simon
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Many people, including Paul Simon himself say yes, it is.
A way to protect one from the cold. The lyricist is creating a picture of darkness and cold, in contrast to the neon light that will appear in the next lines.
The song was written 38 years before 9/11 (2001). Absolutely no connection!