They are giving all their attention to the neon God they created and are worshipping all what it says without using a voice. It’s just easier to swim with the tide than against it.Īnd the sign said “The words of the prophetsĪll those people don’t want to listen to his warnings, are not touched by his his words. He tries to warn the people in his dream, he invites them we try to rebel against the system, but they just turn their heads and look the other way. He asks them to hear his words and to hold his hand. The narrator calls them fool, because silence has an abnormal unhealthy growth, like cancer. It is an image painted in the 1960s but it anticipates what is happening in our present society: people next to each other seem to say things (on the phone or the social media) to everybody except the ones immediately surrounding them. Unfortunately, many of us don’t really pay attention to the content of what we hear or say. The complete impersonality of a crowd is portrayed : not only are we lonely when we are alone, but we are also alone even when we are surrounded by other people. Our meaningless existence applies to everyone else, we fail to communicate, to enter into relationships with others. Some of them are even writing songs that will never be sung. Now the sharp light allows him to see a lot people are talking without speaking and hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never share something arrived to distract him (he is still alone) from his lonely feelings. This refers to the deceitful nature of life that may prevent us from realising the emptiness or alienation of our lives. Suddenly the “ neon light” hit his eyes, i.e. It is dark, cold and wet, and he “ Turned my collar to the cold and d amp” to highlight that we everybody seems obliged to accept bad conditions. This might mean that the more enlightened we are, the lonelier we become. Now the poet describes his restless dream, in which he seems alone, walking in a dark world of nothingness. When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light Maybe we are aware we are familiar with the darkness, but he has had a “ vision softly creeping”, a sort of inspiring dream that has triggered a sort of self-awareness, of enlightenment The singer seems to realise what we are in essence – lonely people, living in the darkness, in the void. The vision still remains there in the sound of silence. The narrator says that he has come to talk to it because a certain vision has planted its seeds in his brain while he was sleeping. The poem begins with an address to darkness. The poem ‘The Sound of Silence’ consists of five irregular stanzas in which the poet describes the conflict between spiritual and material values in our modern world.Īnd the vision that was planted in my brain Sounds of silence may come to pass.The oxymoron (=combination of words having opposite or very different meanings) in the title gives a good idea of incommunicability among people America requires mutual respect from all sides our leaders have forfeited their duty to country, and instead have made their party and power their gods. I think we are headed for more destructive behavior, which may bring down our country. The Sound of Silence is symbolic of the distance between the so called Liberals and Conservatives.

They elected a candidate that was not representing the establishment. The difference today is the media can not brainwash all of the people all of the time. But is it? Big money has always tried to rule the day. Insight and ignorance, darkness and light, love and hate, wisdom and stupidity. The human condition is the same bell shaped curve as it was in the sixties. However, as I have grown older I see what he meant. It used to annoy me because I disagreed with him. My Uncle Tony used to say there is nothing new under the sun. People writing songs that voices never shareĪnd the sign said, 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And the vision that was planted in my brain

The soudn of silence lyricsx