Sounds Of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel (words by Paul Simon)

A little more than jsut the words this time...

So, rock magazines come out with lists like Top 100 Albums Ever, Top 100 Guitarists Ever, etc, etc, and so on and so on and so on and so on...and now that I've grown bored doing that I'll move so on.

All these lists are meant to stimulate arguments, so that, guess what, people will buy magazines, just because they can't believe it and will have the physical prove when they show their friends and say: I can't believe it!

I get it. I'm hip. I'm diggin' on their trip...and many other 60's-70's long since buried slang phrases...though they may be dead for so long now, they're actually alive.

Anyway, I see this magazine with the Top 100 Worst Lyrics Ever and this, my friends (I hope you don't mind if I refer to us as friends) is beyond argument stimulating. These people are plain and simple looking for a fight. I don't know if someone has a pain fetish there, but I'm talking an old fashioned ass-whooping.

The song (and words) in question:

Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds Of Silence". Now I personally think Paul Simon (who wrote the song and words) is a true poet in general but I would like to submit for your approval (any Twilight Zone fans out there?) these particular words...and remember, way, way high up on the list of worst lyrics ever.

Anyway, here they are:

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seed while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walk alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath a halo of an '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
10,000 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

Fool, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grow
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 prophet
Are written on the subway walls and tenement halls

...and whispered in the sounds of silence
-------------------
Now, this is not about me attempting to convince you Paul Simon's great. That would be as futile as trying to shovel smoke with a pitchfork in the wind (John Lennon line). But WORST!!! W-O-R-S-T?!!!!

They're looking for a fight. And I'm going to give it to them. I'm going to find them, put up my dukes the way they did in the late-1800's, early 1900's and say 'Put 'em up'...and after they give me the ass-whooping I predicted above (I meant me in case there was some confusion), I will thank them for calling an ambulance and then get the last laugh when I shout out just as they close the doors and pull off:

Says you!!!

Seriously though, WORST? I write and am proud to say I've stolen from him on more than one occasion, this song particularly, and wrote these words repeatedly when I was supposed to be paying attention in class.

Anyway, to borrow a line from "Leave It To Beaver"...It just got me sore is all.