I've
just played a bit of Simon and Garfunkels “ The Sound of Silence”
for you. I, personally, enjoy the song very much; beyond my enjoyment
however, the song is interesting in several regards, as a testament
of alienation, as an example of reactions to the tumult of the
sixties, as a comment on technology's effects on society, and so on .
Today, I'd like to talk about the Bible and prophets, of the idea
and function of the prophet within the song using as an interpretive
lens the concept of the American Jeremiad as articulated by Sacvan
Bercovitch in his 1978 study, The American Jeremiad. "The
Sound of Silence" (sometimes called "Sounds of Silence")
was written by Paul Simon in February 1964 shortly after the
assassination of President Kennedy. The first version, heard on Simon
& Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday
Morning, 3 A.M.- who's cover touted the album as “exciting new
sounds in the folk tradition”
was indeed that- a quiet, mournful folk song. It was nothing dynamic
or earth-shaking, muscially at least, and the album itself was
somewhat of a flop, rising to spot 30 in the U.S. after whichSimon
and Garfunkel split up for the time being. The song wouldn't find
its place in the canon of American music until record producer Tom
Wilson decided to re-release "The Sound of Silence" that
same year with overdubbed drums , electric bass and electric guitar
. This version of the song reached Number One on New Year's Day 1966,
Simon and Garfunkel reunited, released another album entitled “Sounds
of Silence” ( with the electric version of the song) and went on to
become of the most popular duo that they are. I'll discuss a bit more
about the song's historical placement later, but right now I'd like
to more on to a closer analysis of the text itself.
I’m deeply
interested in Biblical elements within the lyrical structure of the
song, as well as the impact and importance of mid-1960s American
culture, in particular the youth culture’s response to the
assassination of John F. Kennedy. Expanding the idea of the Jeremiad
from its origins in Puritan and Colonial Studies into the arena of
post-WWII culture and popular music, I assert that the song can be
understood as a complicated sort of Jeremiad that replaces ideas of
religious deviation with those of individual alienation and social
tension, addressing both ailments but ultimately offering little in
the way of a solution to either. Keeping in step with the form of
the Jeremiad, “The Sound of Silence” is “able to make sense out
of existence as long as adversity is to be overcome, but in the
moment of victory it is confused” (Miller 33). Teeming with keen
and poetic expressions of both social and personal alienation, with
isolation and a thwarted, but fighting, hope for eventual
renewal—indeed with the “lurid and gloomy eloquence” that
characterizes so much of Biblical prophecy—the song exhibits a
feeling of crisis created by the distance between possibility and
reality. The anxiety of this distance expresses itself in the
exhorting lyrics, which, when juxtaposed against hymn-like musical
components, serve to further this anxious dissonance.
What
exactly is a Jeremiad? In short form, it is a work that accounts for
the misfortunes of an era as just penalty for great social and moral
evils, but holds out hope for changes that will bring about a happier
future.It
is rooted in the Old Testament books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, taking
its name from the latter prophet, who in the seventh century B.C.
attributed the calamities of Israel to its abandonment of the Jewish
God and its turn to pagan idolatry, calling on the people to repent
and reform so that they might once again enjoy divine blessings.
Although European forms exist, in America, the Jeremiah gained its
foothold in colonial Puritan discourse, specifically between the
years of 1660 and 1690, and was best articulated by preachers such as
Samuel Danforth and Increase Mathers who stressed the need for a
return to a stringent individual and social morality if the settlers
were to maintain the favor and blessings of God. In current
scholarship, the term has been expanded to include not only sermons,
but other texts, such as captivity narratives, letters, covenant
renewals, as well as some histories and biographies that rehearse the
familiar tropes of the Jeremiad formula. I argue that musical
expression, particularly “The Sound of Silence,” can also situate
itself among these texts.
The
Jeremiad, as understood by Bercovitch, “is at once lament and
indictment of the community’s sins and exhortation to return to the
true faith.” It also “exhorts to action and cautions against
headlong zeal.” Although anxiety is a key feature in such a text,
by the end there is always the hope that, if the community does
indeed reform and return, peace, prosperity, and salvation are
assured, and that there exists in the present day “a spirit, now
slumbering be able to be awakened.” This exhortation comes from a
person, set apart from the rest of the community, who serves as an
intermediary between a divine authoritative message source and the
intended audience” (Stoda and Dionisopoulos 31).
Within
“The Sound of Silence,” it is easy enough to see the narrator as
this intermediary and the divine message source in the first few
lines as a “softly creeping” nighttime vision that visits the
anxious speaker with familiarity, as his “old friend.” One is
reminded of the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts, of the “last
days” where God pours out his spirit on all flesh, where sons and
daughters prophesy and young men see visions and old men dream dreams
(Acts 2:16-17). Following these dreams and visions, however, there
comes a crisis, according to the Bible, of a magnitude never yet
experienced on Earth, where the sun is turned to darkness, the moon
to blood and only those that call on the name of the Lord will be
saved. This is the Jeremiad in short form: Crisis abounds and yet
hope exists, salvation is possible but never promised. Its very
function is to “create a climate of anxiety that helps release the
restless ‘progressivist’ energies required for the success of the
venture…anxiety is its end as well as its means. Crisis is the
social norm it seeks to inculcate” and in this state of crisis the
hope for better prospects.
The
future, though divinely assured, is never quite there yet. And so we
see it play out the same way in the song, lyrically as well as
musically, as voices rise in volume and intensity, most notably, on
lines such “hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that
I might reach you” before falling again on “ but my words like
silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence” . Paul
Simon said in a 1984 Playboy interview that the song, although dated,
can “be quite effective” as “it caught the mood of the time:
alienation.” This alienation manifests itself in very strong words
as the crowd are addressed as “fools” . One is quickly reminded
of the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:22: “But
I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be
subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister,
'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!'
will be in danger of the fire of hell”. In light of a biblical
lens, the mixture of anxiety and alienation has put the speaker in
quite the serious position.For all of his
attempts at connection, his displays of concern, for all of his
outpouring of words, some very strong indeed, despite even his
physical attempts to reach those around him, he never quite
succeeds. His anxiety remains his own, the “I” of the speaker and
the “you” of the people never merging into a “we.” His words
fall like silent raindrops, numberless, anonymous and soon washed
away, and he remains alone both physically and in his divine
awareness of the gravity of the situation. His arms remain empty and
his words fall on deaf ears. Those who have ears to hear have indeed
not heard at all. The seeds he has tried to plant have not taken
root. They have been eaten by birds, fallen amongst rocks and thorns,
scorched and withered, not by the sun, but by the “naked light”
of silence. Nothing has taken root (Mark 4: 1-12) because the
audience the speaker is reaching to is as much the same one described
by Isaiah 6: 9-10: “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understand; otherwise they might turn and
be forgiven.” These are people who are “talking without speaking,
people hearing without listening, people writing songs” that are
divorced from a physical existence, that “voices never sing.” The
crop that the speaker is trying to plant among them produces no
fruit. Perhaps this is understood by the last stanza where there are
no longer any “I”’s there, “I” referring to the speaker.
The prophet seems to have abandoned his quest and disappeared
altogether; and yet, there remains hope as his words are softly
whispered, both on the page and in the recording of the song, among
the silence. This whispering implies a physical closeness, breath
moving on an attentive ear as a hidden message is passed carefully
along.
Has
the prophet succeeded? No, or at least not for sure. But in the
tradition of the Jeremiad, they seldom do, preferring instead to
remain suspended in between the anxiety of how life is at the present
and the hope that it might someday be transformed. Success consists
more in maintaining an atmosphere of crisis within which there
remains the possibility for reform and renewal, be it spiritual or—as
in post-18th century Jeremiads—social in nature, in which
“‘providence’ itself was shaken loose from its religious
framework to become part of the belief in human progress a regional
past substituted for a Biblical past, and fulfillment translated from
its meaning within the closed system of sacred history into a
metaphor for limitless secular improvements.” At the foundation of
such exhortations and desires for social renewal is a “vision fed
on the distance between promise and fact.”
This
distance between promise and fact, between possibility and reality
that propels the creation of the Jeremiad is highlighted by the
knowledge that “The Sound of Silence” was first recorded on March
10th, 1964 and the lyrics only completed after the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. While the counterculture itself had not
yet blossomed, the youthfulness of the president and the hope that he
seemed to embody, especially among young people, did constitute a
community. Avenues for social and worldwide service such as the Peace
Corps and the possibility of progress on social issues like civil
rights ( leaving out the actual intentions or reality behind them)
contributed to an atmosphere of hope and change that were indeed
shattered by Kennedy's assassination, leaving a nation looking for
answers, for whys, and at least, according to Paul Simon, not finding
them. “Sounds of Silence” is not simply a song about this
assassination, but it would be ill considered to not mention its
effect on the writing of the song. One must attribute for the song's
continued popularity however. It has been used in numerous films,
spanning quite a large number of years, from The Graduate ( of
course) in 1967 to 2009's The Watchman . In 1999, Broadcast Music
Incorporated ranked it as the 18th most performed song of
the 20th century. In 2013, the group's 1966 album “Sounds
of Silence” was among 25 recordings from the 20th
century selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry
at the Library of Congress. While its historical setting is no doubt
important, beyond the specific historical setting of 1964 it
contains other significant and still-felt emotions: the alienation of
the individual, especially in times of crisis, the distance between
men, between promise and possibility and the faint hope that still
exists beneath all this separateness if such silence can be overcome.
