Sounds of Silence is the second album by Simon & Garfunkel, released on January 17, 1966. The album's title is a slight modification of the title of the duo's first major hit, "The Sound of Silence," which originally was released as "The Sounds of Silence". The song had earlier been released in an acoustic version on the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., and later on the soundtrack to the movie The Graduate. Without the knowledge of Simon and Garfunkel, electric instruments and drums were overdubbed by Bob Dylan's studio band on June 15, 1965. This new version was released as a single in September 1965, and opens the album.
"Homeward Bound" was released on the album in the UK, placed at the beginning of Side 2 before "Richard Cory". It was also released as part of the box set Simon & Garfunkel Collected Works, on both LP and CD. Many of the songs in the album had been written by Paul Simon while he lived in London during 1965.
"I Am a Rock," "Leaves That Are Green," "April Come She Will," "A Most Peculiar Man," and "Kathy's Song" had appeared on The Paul Simon Songbook, released in August 1965 in England as had another version of the title track. "Richard Cory" was based on a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" was essentially a rewrite of the previous album's "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." and "Anji" was an instrumental piece that Simon had picked up, presumably in London, from guitarist Davey Graham. Hence the only brand new Paul Simon compositions on the album were "Blessed" and "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'".
The album is also included in its entirety as part of the Simon & Garfunkel box sets Collected Works and The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964–1970).
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Read more about Sounds Of Silence: Notes, Personnel, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words Sounds Of Silence, sounds of, sounds and/or silence:
“The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
—Paul Simon (b. 1941)
“Johann Strauss—Forty couples dancing ... one by one they slip from the hall ... sounds of kisses ... the lights go out”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)