In “The Sounds of Silence” I Found a New Meaning

Image credit: Rob Bogaerts / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Recently I have been experiencing different feelings when I listen to some old song lyrics, as I continue my meditation practices.

I started noticing it a few months ago while listening to a new version of the amazing song “The Sounds of Silence”, written by Paul Simon in 1963/64.

The old song

Until recently, I only knew the original version, performed by Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon, and I liked it — it always seemed like a beautiful and powerful song that could bring us some peace and focus.

Although I always admired the song, I must confess that I never found in it any special meaning to me. It was a song always worth listening but there wasn’t much more to it.

Simon & Garfunkel — The Sound of Silence (from The Concert in Central Park)

Becomes a new song

But last month I discovered a new version that dramatically increased the impact those lyrics had on me. This new version, performed by Disturbed made me stop, hear the song lyrics in a different way, and find new meanings in the words.

First, I was struck by the very different style of the interpretation. To be completely honest, the first time I listened to it it seemed almost like a “violent misinterpretation”, like if the singer was picking up something calm and peaceful and decided to turn into a shout of dissatisfaction, almost sounded like something he was not singing but throwing out to people faces…

But that first impression quickly vanished as the singer’s voice and new music arrangement dragged me into the song’s rhythm, and I ended up really captivated by this “radical” new interpretation.

Disturbed — The Sound Of Silence [Official Music Video]

With new meanings

Also, I started to listen to the words of the song more carefully, and some sentences got new meanings to me. Probably influenced by some meditation practices I have been involved in the last years, I really felt like if I was reading it for the very first time…

When I say different meanings, I am referring to the meanings I attribute those sentences now and that, in some cases, is very different from what the songwriter, Paul Simon, was trying to communicate through them.

Although there are some doubts about the original meaning of the song, Simon Garfunkel once summed up the song’s meaning as: “the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other”.

Looking at some of the lines, that explanation seems to make sense, right?

“(…) 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 dare

Disturb the sound of silence”.

Through the lens of meditation

In the last years, I have been discovering meditation practices and the positive impact it can have on our daily life. I found it can really help me become calmer and focused, to better recognize and accept my feelings, emotions, and thoughts, to go deeper into who I really am and what I find really important in life.

Well, some of these meditation practices involve moments of silence, not only to be in silence but also to learn to listen to what is transmitted in the moments of silence. As Eckhart Tolle beautifully explains it:

“We were born with silence, and as we grew up we lost the silence and we were filled with words. We lived in our hearts, and as time passed we moved into our heads. Now the reverse of this journey is enlightenment. It is the journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to silence; getting back to our innocence in spite of our intelligence.”

Considering this perspective, and the insights that mindfulness practices produce, the words from the “Sounds of Silence” acquired, to me, a very different meaning, and now can also resume the new teachings that meditation can bring in an admirable new way.

So, when I read some lines of the song, to me, they relate now with some refreshing new meanings.

“Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again”

These lines remind me of the importance of taking time to be alone with myself, of those moments to sit, close my eyes, and to be aware of what is happening (not on the outside but inside my mind and body).

Also, they call the need to accept what is going through my mind for what they really are, just thoughts, like a “(..) vision that was planted in my brain” and “still remains”, but that must be perceived as just a small part of me — and that is something I find easier to understand when I feel “touched the sound of silence”.

They also remind me of some uncommon moments in the meetings of the mediation group I have been involved in. In our regular gathering, some special moments happen, moments in which we feel more connected when a more profound presence is noticed and we feel like part of a deeper conscience.

Those are moments of shared awareness and that I feel could be very well summarized in sentences like these:

“People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dare

Disturb the sound of silence”

In meditation practices, learning to be in silence, to experience what the sense perceptions bring in that state, is a fundamental step to raise awareness. So, what was probably described in the original intention of the song as a negative situation can now be interpreted by me in a very positive and meaningful way.

The same principle, of learning to respect the silence and its role, can be very beneficially applied in many of our daily situations — like when we are listening to someone explaining a situation or problem to us.

How many times do we start a conversation and, in just a few seconds, we go into our heads, get completely distracted thinking about what we did before or have to do next, and completely lose the connection with that person? Probably more often than we would like to admit…

From a mindfulness perspective, learning to be in silence, to be with the silence, and to listen to it, is a really important part of our process to live a more joyful and calmer life.

The meditation process usually involves practices to help you in this “silence learning” process and that can make you and others benefit from it.

We all know that, in any conversation, communication is much more than what is said, right?

So, in order for that communication process to work better, I believe that we all can greatly benefit from learning to also hear what is “whispered in the sounds of silence”.