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What are you waiting for?
Hello Darkness my old friend (smiles because the Darkness always knows)
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision soflty creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision, that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the Sound of Silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed with a flash of a neon light
It 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
No one dared
Disturb the Sound of Silence
"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.
And the People bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out it's warning
in the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "That the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
and tenement halls"
And whispered, in the Sounds of Silence
-Paul Simon
I have researched the meaning of this song, and peoples interpretation.
There are so many different perpectives, that this was a dream Simon had, that this was supposed to signify the folk-like rock of the 60's speaking about peace. It was written by Paul Simon when he was 21 years old. He never really goes in depth about what it is truly about, maybe because he's expecting us to "get it" on our own.
When Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights march, it was a peaceful and silent protest. Martin Luther King Jr. believed answering violence with violence only created more conflicts losing the purpose to the focus of violence. He believed in peaceful, silent, civic disobedience. Sometimes you can say something best without saying anything at all.
Maybe Paul Simon was waiting for us to catch on to that concept, who knows? I for one think it is so. But I am only one, and I can be wrong. I'd be interested in what others think Paul Simon means by this.
Also "neon god" could mean anything from the bright lights of Vegas/Sin City, to the movies created, to a simply hotel sign saying "no vacancy." It gives us a lot to interpret and think about.
