Happy Hippy-rific Humpday!
::On This Day Wiki "Facts"::
1940 – FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time.
And now, for today's
::On This Day Wiki "Facts"::
1940 – FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time.
1984 - The Police, announced a farewell concert for March 2 in Australia.
The group had been together for 9 years.
1998 - Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident.
***
PopCultureMadness.com
1998 - Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident.
***
PopCultureMadness.com
| 1966 Billboard Number One Hits |
| 1966 January 1- January 7: The Sound of Silence Simon & Garfunkel |
And now, for today's
Ocho-rific Song o the Day...
::from SongMeanings.net::
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly 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
Beneath 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 deared
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 its 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 whispered in the sounds of silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly 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
Beneath 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 deared
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 its 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 whispered in the sounds of silence
::WIKI "FACTS"::
"The Sound of Silence" is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon and Garfunkel to popularity. It was written in February 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the November 22, 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.[1] After being later re-mixed with electric instruments, this commercial version has been called the "quintessential folk rock release".[2] In the U.S., it was the duo's second most popular hit after Bridge Over Troubled Water.
The song features Simon on acoustic guitar and both Simon and Garfunkel singing. It was originally recorded as an acoustic piece for their first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. in 1964 but on the initiative of the record company's producer, Tom Wilson, it was later overdubbed with electric instruments and rereleased as a single in September 1965.[3][4] The single reached number one on New Year's Day 1966 and was included in the 1966 album Sounds of Silence.
The song was originally called "The Sounds of Silence" and is titled that way on the early albums in which it appeared and on the single. In later compilations it was retitled "The Sound of Silence". Both the singular and the plural form of the word appear in the lyrics. In his book Lyrics 1964–2008 Simon has the title in the singular.
Shaw Blades covered both The Sound of Silence and I Am a Rock on their 2007 album Influence.
***
"The Sound of Silence" is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon and Garfunkel to popularity. It was written in February 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the November 22, 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.[1] After being later re-mixed with electric instruments, this commercial version has been called the "quintessential folk rock release".[2] In the U.S., it was the duo's second most popular hit after Bridge Over Troubled Water.
The song features Simon on acoustic guitar and both Simon and Garfunkel singing. It was originally recorded as an acoustic piece for their first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. in 1964 but on the initiative of the record company's producer, Tom Wilson, it was later overdubbed with electric instruments and rereleased as a single in September 1965.[3][4] The single reached number one on New Year's Day 1966 and was included in the 1966 album Sounds of Silence.
The song was originally called "The Sounds of Silence" and is titled that way on the early albums in which it appeared and on the single. In later compilations it was retitled "The Sound of Silence". Both the singular and the plural form of the word appear in the lyrics. In his book Lyrics 1964–2008 Simon has the title in the singular.
Simon began working on the song sometime after the Kennedy assassination. He had made progress on the music but had yet to get down the lyrics. On 19 February 1964 the lyrics apparently coalesced, as Simon recalled:
| “ | The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run — I like that sound, it's very soothing to me — and I'd play. In the dark. 'Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again'.[5] | ” |
Simon showed the new composition to Garfunkel the same day, and shortly afterward, the duo began to perform it at folk clubs in New York. In the liner notes of their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., Garfunkel claims:
| “ | 'The Sound of Silence' is a major work. We were looking for a song on a larger scale, but this is more than either of us expected.[6] | ” |
The duo recorded it for the first time on March 10, and included the track on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which was released that October.[7] The album flopped upon its release, and the duo split up, with Simon going to England for much of 1965. There he often performed the song solo in folk clubs, and recorded it for a second time on his solo LP in May 1965, The Paul Simon Songbook.
In the meantime, Simon and Garfunkel's producer at Columbia Records in New York, Tom Wilson, had learned that the song had begun to receive airplay on radio stations inBoston, Massachusetts and around Gainesville and Cocoa Beach, Florida.
On June 15, 1965, immediately after the recording session of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," Wilson took the original acoustically instrumented track of Simon & Garfunkel's 1964 version, and overdubbed the recording with electric guitar (played by Al Gorgoni), electric bass (Bob Bushnell), and drums (Bobby Gregg), and released it as a single without consulting Simon or Garfunkel. The lack of consultation with Simon and Garfunkel on Wilson's re-mix was because, although still contracted to Columbia Records at the time, the musical duo at that time was no longer a "working entity".[3][8][9] Roy Halee was the recording engineer, who in spirit with the success of The Byrdsand their success formula in folk rock, introduced an echo chamber effect into the song.[3] Al Gorgoni later would reflect that this echo effect worked well on the finished recording, but would dislike the electric guitar work they technically superimposed on the original acoustic piece.[3]
For the B-Side, Wilson used an unreleased track he cut with the duo a few months earlier on which they had tried out a more "contemporary" sound. The record single "Sounds of Silence"/"We've Got a Groovey Thing Going" entered the U.S. pop charts in September 1965 and slowly began its ascent. In the first issue of Crawdaddy!magazine, January 30, 1966, Paul Williams, in reviewing the later album, wrote that he liked this B-side song which he found pure "rock and roll", "catchy", with a "fascinating beat and melody" and great harmony.[10]
Simon learned that it had entered the charts minutes before he went on stage to perform at a club in Copenhagen, Denmark, and in the later fall of 1965 he returned to theUnited States. By the end of 1965 and the first few weeks of 1966, the song reached number one on the U.S. charts. Simon and Garfunkel then reunited as a musical act, and included the song as the title track of their next album, Sounds of Silence, hastily recorded in December 1965 and released in January 1966 to capitalize on their success. The song propelled them to stardom and, together with two other top-five (in the U.S.) hits in the summer of 1966, "I Am a Rock" and "Homeward Bound," ensured the duo's fame. In 1999, BMI named "The Sound of Silence" as the 18th-most performed song of the 20th century.[11] In 2004 it was ranked #156 on Rolling Stone's list of the500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the duo's three songs on the list.
The original acoustic stereo mix of the song had the duo's vocals on separate channels, spotlighting the delicate harmonies. When the 'rock' version was mixed to stereo, Wilson mixed the vocals in the middle, which is not as clear sounding as the original acoustic version.
On the duo's 1968 album Bookends, the track "Save the Life of My Child" features a distorted sample of Art Garfunkel's "Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you" line from the original recording of "The Sound Of Silence"). At 2:16 in the song somebody says "echo me"
In 2009, the song was released (along with "I Am a Rock") as a downloadable track for the rhythm video game Rock Band 2
Shaw Blades covered both The Sound of Silence and I Am a Rock on their 2007 album Influence.
***
::Extra Goodies from SongFacts.com::
Simon & Garfunkel performed this at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit in 1993 with Eddie Van Halen backing them on guitar.
Despite its great popularity, Blender magazine voted this the 42nd worst song ever, remarking sardonically that "If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like this." The magazine's editor, Craig Marks, defended Blender's decision to include this much-loved song on their list, stating: "It's the freshman-poetry meaningfulness that got our goat, with self-important lyrics like 'hear my words that I might teach you', it's almost a parody of pretentious '60s folk-rock." The brief article on the song corresponding with this called the "hear my words" line "the most self-important... in rock history," and elaborated on Mark's remarks with: "Simon and Garfunkel thunder away in voices that suggest they're scowling and wagging their fingers as they sing. The overall experience is like being lectured on the meaning of life by a jumped-up freshman."
The first recording was an acoustic version on Simon & Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, which sold about 2000 copies. When the album tanked, Simon and Garfunkel split up. What they didn't know was that their record company had a plan. Trying to take advantage of the folk-rock movement, Columbia Records had a producer named Bob Johnston add electric instruments to the acoustic track. Simon and Garfunkel had no idea their acoustic song had been overdubbed with electric instruments, but it became a huge hit and got them back together. If Wilson had not reworked the song without their knowledge, Simon and Garfunkel probably would have gone their separate ways.
***
Click Here to Read More of
the Ochorific Song o' the Day!
Simon & Garfunkel performed this at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit in 1993 with Eddie Van Halen backing them on guitar.
Despite its great popularity, Blender magazine voted this the 42nd worst song ever, remarking sardonically that "If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like this." The magazine's editor, Craig Marks, defended Blender's decision to include this much-loved song on their list, stating: "It's the freshman-poetry meaningfulness that got our goat, with self-important lyrics like 'hear my words that I might teach you', it's almost a parody of pretentious '60s folk-rock." The brief article on the song corresponding with this called the "hear my words" line "the most self-important... in rock history," and elaborated on Mark's remarks with: "Simon and Garfunkel thunder away in voices that suggest they're scowling and wagging their fingers as they sing. The overall experience is like being lectured on the meaning of life by a jumped-up freshman."
The first recording was an acoustic version on Simon & Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, which sold about 2000 copies. When the album tanked, Simon and Garfunkel split up. What they didn't know was that their record company had a plan. Trying to take advantage of the folk-rock movement, Columbia Records had a producer named Bob Johnston add electric instruments to the acoustic track. Simon and Garfunkel had no idea their acoustic song had been overdubbed with electric instruments, but it became a huge hit and got them back together. If Wilson had not reworked the song without their knowledge, Simon and Garfunkel probably would have gone their separate ways.
***
Click Here to Read More of
the Ochorific Song o' the Day!
Until next time...
Have a Grand and Groovy Day!!
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