Listening to music sends your body on a physical joyride, your heart rate increases, you get chills and an intense rush of emotion comes flowing throughout your body. Song writers commonly use music to commune a message throughout a song, an example of this may be a protest song. The song Sound of Silence is a song about the inability to communicate with man and uses the imagery of light and darkness to a large extent to show how people's ignorance destroys their ability to talk to one another. Simon and Garfunkel’s use of poetic devices, such as alliteration, allusion, symbolism, simile and oxymoron very heavily form a deep bond with the listener, reaching a deeper level within our understanding of ourselves.
A man once said “You can have
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Simon and Garfunkel originally produced "The Sounds of Silence,” written by Paul Simon in 1964, which was a flop. Again in 1965, producer of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” added electric guitar and drums, later reaching #1 in the U.S. This song conveys a message of the inability of people to communicate emotionally. The first poetic device used is personification. In the first line “Hello darkness my old friend” Simon uses personification to create the image of embracing darkness as an old friend, as to say you’re the last friend I will have even though you are dead. In the line “I’ve come to talk with you again” when we close our eyes, our mind is swallowed by darkness, creating the sound of silence. This song uses metaphor to form an image, the line “When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night” tells listeners that thoughts are filled with money, cars and fashion, left isolated in a personal bubble of silence, seeing only the neon light. With this sentence, verse 2 talks about how society is enslaved by money, no one will listen, with the exception of darkness. "Talking without speaking" or "hearing without listening," is a form of paradox. The media talks without speaking and the
Therefore, the song starts itself off with a calm melody and the following lyrics, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night.” With these lyrics, the listener can easily be thinking of a bird literally singing in the night. However, when further explored in the context, there is actually more meaning to these lyrics that set the mood for the rest of the song. For example, this particular line is actually referring to the loneliness a person is going through in their life. Since the person is all alone in the night, singing to themselves, it is clear they are lonely and have nobody to be around with. When The Beatles singer, Paul McCartney, sang this song he also put a lot of emphasis on the word “night.” Which is why, when further explored in the lyrics, it could represent the constant darkness the person is going through when they are trying to live their life, but cannot escape because they have no one to help them along in their journey.
As the narrator wakes up in the silence of the morning, a peaceful tone arises yet again until broken by the build up of unsaid words. The author uses the word “broken” specifically to demonstrate the destruction and disruption. In addition to this, the usage of words the author puts into the poem portrays a dark and serious tone. “And there is a silence of this morning / Which I have broken with my pen, / A silence that had piled up all night” (14-16). In order to reveal the tension of the overall silence, a serious and dark tone become a necessity. Readers experience the negative effects of silence on life. By using words like “broken” and “piled” it seems as if the unspoken words cause more destruction than wanted. Also, the lack of humor throughout the poem portrays that the scenarios described provoke readers to think, making the examples given come off more dark than anything. The peace at times becomes disrupted because of the involvement of such a dark and serious tone in order to emphasize clearly that the tension of these words built up over time, and left a more troublesome situation. The author also uses structural elements such as an enjambment. “The silence of the falling vase / Before it strikes the floor;” (13-14). By
For the music industry, Simon and Garfunkel, musical rock artists during this time, wrote “Sound of Silence” in 1966. This song displayed sequences of guitar, bass, and drums and quickly became a pop hit due to the increased tempo, in which Simon and Garfunkel only found out about after it was recorded.
Significantly, the speaker begins the poem by saying, “A darkness was ripped from my eyes” (line 2).
This song represents the feeling of emptiness throughout life. Through all of Kurt Cobain's life, it was mostly empty. People are searching for the theme, and that can be found in the lyrics, “With the lights out, it's less dangerous, / Here we are now; entertain us, / I feel stupid and contagious” (Nirvana). It is said that these lyrics show the security and satisfaction after shooting up with heroin. The idea of drugs and sex is messed up but nothing can entertain a group of young teens. People are trying to introduce this idea of heroin as an idea that is better than sex, which is almost all that someone can say after shooting up too many times. Charlie soon finds the lifestyle inside highschool of drug parties, drama, and nighttime adventures. Charlie is dipped into the 90s music era and this helps cope with problems that may occur later throughout the
“'Cause somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence.” This is a quote from the song “Car Radio” by twenty one pilots. The song “Car Radio” is about a man driving a car with no radio, meaning there is no noise to drown out his racing thoughts. The journey of the singer from spiraling with his thoughts to learning to embrace the silence is one of the best representations of my life story because it shows the journey from pain to acceptance of one’s self. “I ponder something terrifying.
To begin with, the narrator is greatly shocked by the negative side of the world and he uses sad imagery to add depth to his song. The narrator exaggerates, “hide my head; I wanna drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow”. The song narrator mentions with great dispute that the immunity of the world is highly in danger due to the negativity that seeks to exist in it. The narrator uses sad and dark imagery to add depth to his song and implicate satire; there is no securing future for the world to exist in. Next, the narrator tremendously justifies that there is decline of positive sense in the world and he uses dark/sad imagery to add greater meaning to the text.
As the speaker walks through his “restless dreams” to find answers, his internal reflection is cut short by a piercing “neon light that split the night”. Starting to observe the people worshipping this “neon god”, Paul Simon depicts the actions of the misguided crowd with powerful paradoxes: describing that they “talk without speaking”, “hear without listening”, and “write songs that voices never share”. This depiction of society explores the meaninglessness of solving intimate problems with general answers: these “ten thousand” people are all paying homage to their “neon god”, hoping that this will solve their growing emptiness inside, but instead, this solution is only a distraction from the real
Simon is somewhat ambiguous in the overall meaning behind his song. In order to understand the message, the listener must develop their own ideas. Themes Strengths Weaknesses AND Sellmon and Fryefunkel Greatest Hits Figurative Language and Devices Figurative Language and Devices Thanks for paying attention. The light in the song represents one's ideas or area of influence. The overpowering neon light is the media's influence over the general public's thoughts The neon god references the media through television and the internet that people use to guide their opinions on important matters such as religious or political beliefs. People talking without speaking and hearing without listening are the conformists who followed the generally accepted ideas blindly. The ones who are writing songs that are not shared are people who are afraid to share their new perspective or ideas because they are unlike what is commonly accepted. The silence is the hum of everyone agreeing to a narrow way of thinking. Although everyone is talking, they are all
There are thousands of songs, and the artists and songwriters who wrote them. Each song has their own meaning, which the listener can identify by, can relate to. The listener can listen to the beat, the lyrics, anything about the song, and connect with it. Music is unlike anything else. There is nothing else that can mend a broken soul, get a message across, or a way to identify with as music can and will.
In the world today, music has become a big influence on everyone. With the power of music, each person has the ability to accomplish goals even if the music is country or rap. Most people believe that music can change a person’s mood or behavior which is true. Without music people could not control the way they act. Most music has the power to affect a person’s mood and other music can get them out of control. If music did not exist the world would be tedious. Without having music, people would not be able to motivate their moods. With the magic of music all people tend to have clear minds and better spirits. Music has the ability to put a smile on their face and a special song in their hearts. Even though most people feel confident about a special song, this can change their mind about how country music is better than rap music.
It is the most repeated word through the poem, and in the title to show and put emphasis on the idea of alienation and loneliness through the song. Overall the word “silence” is a metre, emphasizing and stressing the word each
Many people use music to help them relax and think. Music can relax a person’s mind, but at the same time it can make them feel so full of energy. Some believe that music helps the mind think clearer than those that don’t listen to music. Music is used in most movies and video games as a way to express the way the watcher and the player feels. Also, it can make the onlooker
Many people have no idea that a song can be a wonderful poetry which is called lyrical poetry, but all songs are not poems. In this amazing poetry “the sound of silence”, both the authors Paul Frederic Simon and Arthur Ira Garfunkel ironically implied their frustration on the modern world and how it’s changing. In 60’s this lyrical poetry has left an indelible mark on pop culture. This poem’s lyrics has a disturbing picture of a society which work with materialism and self-absorption. The poem uses the imagery of light and darkness to show how people's ignorance and enthusiasm to destroys their ability to communicate even on simple levels. Day by day people are becoming more secretive about their life and forgetting being social on some level. Moreover, the narrators strongly felt these changes and transformation could lead us to a robotic life. The Sound of Silence" contains numerous poetic elements, including figurative language devices, rhyme scheme and tone. Throughout this poem, narrator is addressing the dark site of the society, people and how its leading them in to a false dilemma.
Thesis: Music is a unique form of sound powerful enough to manipulate mood, feelings, and cognition.