TRIVIAL PURSUITS
Get Smart quiz
Two 16-year-olds calling themselves Tom and Jerry recorded a single in 1957, “Hey, Schoolgirl,” an Everly Brothers-influenced ditty. The Queens, New York, buddies enjoyed transitory stardom from the minor hit, which made it to the middle of the
Billboard charts. For the next several years, the musicians tried to duplicate that first effort, without success.
Then in early 1964, the pair reappeared with a new sound and using their real names, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. As Columbia Records artists, Simon & Garfunkel recorded their debut album
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., an acoustic work of Simon originals, folk songs and traditional tunes. Released that October, the LP sold a paltry 2,000 copies, a victim of that year’s Beatlemania. Simon and Garfunkel went their separate ways—for a while.
One of the album’s tracks was “The Sounds of Silence,”—later “The Sound of Silence”— a tune Simon had composed in 1963 while still living with his parents. “I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber,” he said. “I’d play, in the dark—Hello darkness my old friend/I’ve come to talk with you again.”
A powerful social statement, the song warned against alienation and indifference toward others. And as antiwar sentiment grew, many heard the lyrics as a call to unity. Without telling the musicians, Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson added drums and electric guitars to the song, creating a haunting folk-rock single with
Top 40 appeal. Released in October 1965, the 45 rocketed to No. 1 in the months following, heralding a coming stardom that the friends had only dreamed about.
“I rate it as one of the best songs I’ve written.”
Paul Simon