What a Song Can Do

In the sixth grade we were introduced to the idea of rotating classrooms in order to prepare us for Junior High School, when we would have different teachers for each subject. Every day at 10'o'clock we had to gather our textbooks and notes and shuffle across the hall to Mr. Hoffman's room for Math and Social Studies.  Mr. Hoffman was a gruff middle-aged man who smelled of cigarettes and occasionally brought baked goods to share on Fridays.

One day, Mr. Hoffman said he would not be lecturing.  He would be playing music, one song: The Sound of Silence, by Simon & Garfunkle.  I thought he was joking because the name "Garfunkle" sounded funny to me.  Some of the students had heard of Simon & Garfunkle and some of us, like me, had not.  But I am pretty sure I had heard their songs on the AM radio.

Anyway, he announced the song, telling us there was a lesson to be learned from the lyrics of the song.  I'm reasonably sure he simply meant for us to be quiet.  The Sound of Silence was meant for us, as sixth-graders, to shut us up.

The song begins with a haunting acoustic guitar riff, and the voices sing in perfect harmony: "Hello darkness, my old friend..." and I am gripped.  My imagination is soaring, and the worksheet I am working on lies forgotten on the wooden desk.

I remember thinking, what is the sound of silence?  That doesn't make any sense.  Yet there they are, singing it.  Is it another joke by Mr. Hoffman?  Does he just want us to shut up and be quiet today?  If you are surrounded by silence, do you spontaneously begin hearing something like music?  This music?

I am energized by the mystery of it all: "And in the naked light I saw, ten-thousand people, maybe more..."  My mind is wondering about the silence.  My mind is captured by the melodies, the harmonies.  The lyrics do not make sense to me, but it must mean something to someone.  I want to know what it means.  I want to know the Sound of Silence, and be able to answer, nod my head with that serious look in my eyes when someone mentions the Sound of Silence.  I want to be in the crowd that knows what you are talking about.  Yeah, man, groovy, the Sound of Silence, you dig?

People bowing and praying to Neon Gods, words of prophets written on subway walls, yeah man.

I can't say for sure what Mr. Hoffman wanted us to learn, or what he was trying to say to us, but I can say I learned something.  I learned that I love music, songs in minor keys, two-part harmonies and songs that are mysteries, songs that say something, anything.

Yeah man.