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From album
Sounds of Silence
Simon & Garfunkel · 1966 · Track 2
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The story behind
This song begins with a harpsichord arpeggio that sounds like an autumn sigh. It's not an epic piece nor an anthem, but something more intimate: a folk-pop ballad that uses the changing of the seasons to speak of what is lost without one realizing it. The lyrics progress with simple imagery — leaves turning brown, a love fading into the night — but the detail lies in how the music accompanies that feeling. The rhythm is not solemn; it has a lively pulse, with percussion giving it a playful air, as if time itself were playing hide-and-seek among the chords.
The first version was released in The Paul Simon Songbook (1965), only with guitar and voice, but when Simon & Garfunkel recorded it for Sounds of Silence the following year, they added the harpsichord, bass, and electric guitar. They weren't aiming to sound more grandiose, but rather to give the song an unexpected twist: that baroque keyboard gave it a melancholic shine that contrasts with the lyrics. Cash Box described it as a ballad "melodic about constant aging," and they weren't wrong. Even Billy Bragg used a verse from this song in his own track A New England, as if the echo of those falling leaves had crossed decades without losing strength.