The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel

In the Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesday’s with Morrie”, he narrated an incident in one of his class where his professor did not say a word one day. He just looked at his class. The students of course were quite uncomfortable. Imagine, the teacher in front of the class just staring at his students. What is he thinking? What is he doing? Do I sense trouble? He finally broke his silence and made a point. He asked, what is it about silence that embarrasses people?

There are a lot of things that can be said with silence. For me, I welcome it. No, I enjoy it.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left it’s 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 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
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And 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 signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.