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From album
Sounds of Silence
Simon & Garfunkel · 1966 · Track 6
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The story behind
The first time I heard Anji, I had the feeling it was a song that had always been there, but that no one else seemed to notice. It doesn’t carry the weight of The Sound of Silence nor the drama of Mrs. Robinson, but it sounds as if it were recorded in a single take, without filters. In just two minutes and sixteen seconds, it achieves something few folk rock pieces manage: conveying a complete story in a time that feels just right—not too short, not too long. The guitar riff, repeated with a cadence that almost seems like a whisper, is what makes it instantly recognizable, even if you don’t know what it’s about.
The version we know didn’t start out as its creators imagined. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel originally recorded Anji in 1965 for an acoustic album, but it was forgotten until Tom Wilson, producer at Columbia Records, decided to give it an unexpected twist. Without telling them, he added bass and drums to the original recording and released it as a single in September of that year. By the time the duo found out, it was too late: the song had already started playing on the radio and slipped into their second album, Sounds of Silence, released in January 1966. It wasn’t their most ambitious track, but it ended up being one of those songs that survive purely on intuition.