THE SOUND OF SILENCE THE SOUND OF SILENCE The Sound of Silence (theme song of "The Graduate") was very popular as the theme song of the American movie "The Graduate" in 1967. Originally recorded by Salmon and Calfoun three years ago, Dev-Guruji cleverly transformed this piece into a film musical. As a 1968 Oscar-winning classic film, "The Graduate" starring actor Dustin Hoffman was one of the favorite movies for young Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. For Chinese college students in the 1980s and 1990s, this movie is almost their window into Western civilization and youth life. Naturally, the beautiful and rustic music of this movie is also one of the reasons that fascinates them.
The soundtrack album of "The Graduate" was produced by the famous American folk group Paul Simon and Garfunkel. The album also made Paul Simon and Garfunkel big stars. The melody of "The Sound of Silence" is slow and low, and the lyrics are full of a hallucinatory mood. Listening carefully, it seems to be telling a kind of catharsis of youthful helplessness. In front of me, I seem to see an ignorant girl walking alone in a narrow, cold alley paved with cobblestones. The noisy crowd gradually fades away behind her, and there is an endless night in front of me... If the song is a folk ballad, The words seem too profound. If the rhythm that oscillates with the powerful music is rock, it is too delicate. Musically, it creates a neutral body of the genre, which should be the biggest reason for its success. This song was written in the 1960s. The 1960s were a troubled time for the United States, which experienced a series of turmoil and unrest. Internally, the awareness of anti-racial discrimination and civil rights is rising; externally, it is burdened with the heavy burden of the "Vietnam War". At a time of internal and external troubles, President John F. Kennedy, the spiritual leader of Americans, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The world was shocked and the country mourned. The anti-violence and anti-racial discrimination campaign led by the black human rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in full swing, and the domestic voice against the Vietnam War was also growing stronger. The dream of the American people was shattered the moment President Kennedy fell! In this context of time and space, American folk singer Paul Simon composed this well-known and thought-provoking song: The Sound of Silence ( The Sound Of Silence), dedicated to the turbulent 1960s. It's a pity that such a good song that pointed out the current ills was not favored when it was released in 1964, and people are still hearing without listening. If a DJ had not particularly loved the song and increased its frequency on the radio, Columbia Records would not have considered re-arranging the song and releasing it as a single. However, it seems destined that talents such as Paul Simon should not be buried by the times. So the most beautiful duo in history, Simon & Garfunkel, was reborn in this rearranged "Sound of Silence".
Let’s explore this sobering “song of protest” in detail. When discussing this song, you may have a question, is this song The Sound of Silence? Sounds of silence? The sounds of silence? If Simon sings it alone, it’s The Sound of Silence. If two people sing it together, it’s The Sound of Silence. Is there a definite article The? The track on the second album is Sounds of silence, without The. So it depends on which album you buy, but most music books and magazines print it as The sound of silence. This is the correct title of the song.
The song itself is a wonderful poem with a rigorous structure. It is really difficult to take into account all aspects of form, pronunciation and meaning when translating, so I had to leave out the rhyme part and try my best to convert the words. In the process, the form and meaning (content and structure) of the original poem are retained, and it will be translated again when the translation skills are improved in the future. Let’s take a look at the meaning of this song and explore its deeper meaning step by step.
This song*** is divided into five sections, and the sections are interlocking and completed in one go. The speaker in the first paragraph comes to talk to Darkness, an old friend, again, and treats Darkness as an old friend to confide in. This shows that he has always been lonely, and this is not the first time that he talks alone or meditates in the darkness. . What I want to tell my dark friend this time is a vision that lingers in my mind. Vision is translated as phantom because it often appears in the narrator's dreams. Although it is so illusory, it is so real.
The second paragraph tells the reality of the phantom.
In the dream, the narrator is always uneasy and walks alone on the cobblestone street. Judging from the two sentences 'Neath thehalo of a street lamp, and I turned my collar to the cold and damp, it must be a wet and damp person. Cold night. On such a lonely and cold night, he was awakened by the sudden neon light and experienced true "silence". "Light" originally had positive meanings such as civilization, hope, and enlightenment. Here, Paul Simon reverses this image.
The third paragraph enters the climax in the phantom. Naked means naked, naked women means women without clothes, naked sight means naked eyes, and naked light means light emitted without a lampshade. It is very strong because it is direct. Under such strong light, he saw thousands of people. These people are talking, but the content of the conversation is empty and has nothing to say, so it is talking without speaking; the person receiving the words listens with the left ear and the other ear, and is absent-minded, so it is hearing without listening. Being able to cleverly juxtapose common simple words like talk, speak, hear, and listen to achieve artistic effects is truly a master in the folk ballad world. In addition to their empty words and absent-mindedness, some of these people even write songs and sing them, but sing them insincerely and without emotion. They do'nt mean the words they're singing. Writing songs is one thing, singing them is another matter. People's voices cannot share the same sound as the songs written by oneself. Despite this, no one dared to face up to this problem or disturb the silence. Therefore, the narrator is anxious and angrily warns them about the horror of "silence", because silence is like cancer that will continue to spread until it devours everyone. He wanted everyone to listen carefully to what he said so that he could help them, but no one paid attention to him. His words were like silent raindrops falling on the bottom of a silent well, causing no ripples. In this way, everyone remains the same, worshiping and praying to the Neon God they have created. The neon god here is related to the neon light in the second paragraph, and the meaning of the sign is ready to emerge. It is not until the subway walls in the fifth line of this paragraph and the tenement halls in the sixth line that the real meaning finally emerges. Subway walls are often the home of hobos, while tenements are at best better than ghettos. Neon lights contrast with it, forming a strong contrast. It represents the civilization of capitalism and its decadent material enjoyment. In the second paragraph, Paul Simon uses a metaphor to reverse the positive meaning of light and turn it into a dazzling abyss, because the neon lights make people unable to see the direction and cannot see clearly. Because people are greedy for material enjoyment and ignore the things around them that they should care about, therefore, the neon god is a symbol of money worship. Just as the narrator was trying in vain to bring order to the chaos, a neon sign flashed a warning, which read: "The words of the prophet are written on the walls of the subway and in the halls of the apartments." Prophets are not the figures mentioned in religion who can predict the future, but vagrants and poor people. They often write their inner complaints and dissatisfaction on the walls of the subway and the halls of their apartments. However, these voices are drowned in this materialistic society.
At this point, we can find that this song basically covers two themes, one is to criticize the money worship of capitalism, and the other is caused by interpersonal alienation and apathy. Human beings have lost the ability to communicate. In fact, these two themes are causal. Since the term "silent masses" appeared, "silence" has almost become synonymous with "indifference". The next paragraph is excerpted from Art Garfunkel's annotation for Simon's first album. We can get a glimpse of the annotation of the song "The Sound of Silence":
The Sound of Silence is a major work. We were looking for a song that covered a wide range of topics, and none of us expected that this song would go even further. By November, Paul already had the theme and melody for the song, but the creation of the song still required three months of hard work, which was often frustrating. On February 19, 1964, the song just wrote itself. Its theme is man’s inability to communicate with man. The author sees that the scope of human communication is limited to the surface and business transactions (neon signs can be representative of this).
Because there is no serious communication (serious communication), there is no serious understanding (serious understanding) --- "people talking without speaking, hearing without listening", no one Dare to take a risk and reach out.
(Grab my arm so I can reach you) Disturbing the sound of silence. The poet's efforts are in vain (---but my words are like raindrops falling silently into countless silent wells). The ending is puzzling. This is my understanding of the song, but like other good works, it should be best interpreted by each person himself. The song tells us that when meaningful communication fails, the only sound left is silence.
" In today's era of advanced technology and unimpeded access to the Internet, Simon's "Sound of Silence" is particularly of epoch-making significance. Simon's song seems to be telling us: "In the vast sea of ????people, the crowd follows the crowd, We feel lonely all the time. Stop and let us communicate, otherwise human relations will deteriorate day by day and we will fall victim to the technology of the new century.
”
Lyrics: Hello darkness, my old friend Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again I've come to talk with you again
< p>Because a vision softly creeping Because a vision is coming to me quietlyLeft its seeds while I was sleeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain This illusion took root and sprouted in my mind
Still remainsWrap me
Within the sound of silenceWithin the sound of silence
Still remains p>
In restless dreams I walked aloneIn restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone Narrow cobblestone streets
'Neath the halo of a street lamp Under the halo of the street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp I turned up my collar to resist the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light The dazzling neon lights pierced my eyes
That split the night It cut through the night sky
And touched the sound of silence Touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw In the dazzling light
Ten thousand people, maybe more I saw thousands of people
People talking without speaking People talking but not talking to each other< /p>
People hearing without listening People can listen but do not listen
People writing songs that voices never share People create songs but cannot sing
And no one dare disturb the sound of silence
"Fools" said I, "You do not know Silence like a cancer grows" I said: "Fool, don't you know Silence like a cancer grows" Stubborn diseases grow
”Hear my words that I might teach you Listen to the helpful words I say to you
Take my arms that I might reach you Take my arms that I might reach you< /p>
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. People bowed and prayed to the neon god they created.
And the sign flashed out its warning. The sign flashed out its warning. >And the words that it was forming specify between the lines
And the sign said: It tells people
"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls Written on the walls of subways
and tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence." murmured in the sound of silence