At home, on the radio, I listen mostly to R6 Music. In my car, I hardly ever listen to my own music. I'll listen to BBC R4, and when that tends towards the tedious, I'll switch over to R3 for some culture. But mostly.., I just drive.
However, when Covid-19 got going, I felt the urge to listen to some stuff. Pulled out a long unplayed CD. This track I first heard, as a teen, when I went to see the 1967 film 'The Graduate'.
Originally released in 1964 on the album 'Wednesday Morning 3am', the whole album was a commercial failure. Simon and Garfunkel split up and went their separate ways, Paul Simon to England. A couple of years later, radio stations picked up a remixed version of the song, and it rose in the charts. At this, Simon returned to the US to make a new album with Garfunkel.
Simon's recall of the day Sound of Silence reached No 1.
".... I had come back to New York, and I was staying in my old room at my
parents' house. Artie was living at his parents' house, too. I remember
Artie and I were sitting there in my car one night, parked on a street
in Queens, and the announcer [on the radio] said, "Number one, Simon &
Garfunkel." And Artie said to me, "That Simon & Garfunkel, they must
be having a great time." Because there we were on a street corner, in my car in Queens, smoking a joint. We didn't know what to do with ourselves.... "
Here's the original version...
