Comments on: Carl’s Rock Songbook #25: Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence”

By: Carl’s Rock Songbook #73: The Beatles, “All You Need Is Love” » Postmodern Conservative | A First Things Blog

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:25:03 +0000

[...] oneself, because one has become an inauthentic conformist, which we caught a glimpse of in the “Sounds of Silence” This is a theme of countless rock songs. YOU need discover the full uniqueness and potentiality of [...]

By: Carl’s Rock Songbook #31: The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby” » Postmodern Conservative | A First Things Blog

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:59:59 +0000

[...] was analyzing a set of songs about Loneliness and Individualism, such as Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence,” before it got side-tracked into laying out my theory of modernity’s sociological stages. It’s [...]

By: John Presnall

John Presnall — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:18:58 +0000

Yes this post was good. Thanks.

I liked the mention of the Apartment. Regarding that movie, there was an interview with Billy Wilder where he spoke about screening it in East Germany (I think).

Wilder said that the German communists loved it, in that it showed the petty brutalization of the office proletariat in capitalist society. There was no social solidarity, and people lived desperate private lives making them easily bullied by their overseers as they were forced to be their primps.

Wilder considered this account and responded that perhaps it was true. But then he said that the plot of this movie could have never taken place in a communist country, because when you went to the apartment for a private tryst, its rooms would already be crowded with your fellow comrades/flatmates.

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:35:19 +0000

Excellent analysis. Even though it was one of his earliest, I think The Sound of Silence is one of Paul Simon's most profound songs. It certainly speaks to a sense of isolation in the midst of the modern melee.

By: Carl’s Rock Songbook #25: Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence” | Kids Belief

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:12:16 +0000

[...] Full Article- follow the link below Carl’s Rock Songbook #25: Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence” >A sharply intelligent novelist, Stanley has everything, a successful career, a beautiful home, [...]

By: Peter Lawler

Peter Lawler — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:50:08 +0000

this is probably my favorite music post so far, although I don’t actually think much of the lyrics. good tune though, liked it when it was out as kind of pretentious suburban folk (and I am a pretentious suburban folk by background).

By: Anymouse

Anymouse — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:26:28 +0000

Part of it may be the nature of the country. We are not a homogeneous band of middle class, but include a great many urban poor, and have deep economic divisions within that middle class. As a result, only some of our society became “organization men”.