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Mon 3 May, 2010 12:09 pm
My sister listens to the songs ‘Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel, “Oh Susannah” by Stephen Foster and “Shut the Door” by Fugazi. My daughter asked me the other day what is the meaning of the following lines in these songs:
The lines from sound of silence: “People talking without speaking”
“People hearing without listening”
“Disturb the sound of silence”
From Oh Susannah: “The sun so hot I froze to death”
And from ‘Shut the Door’ by Fugazi: “I tie my arms to be free”
I know that these are contradictory statements, but they must serve a purpose in the context of these songs and have a deeper meaning; but I just can’t figure out. If you understand these lines, could you please let me know?
Simon and Garfunkle can be safely interpreted as discussing apathy and people whose lives are meaningless. Foster wrote a nonsense song that has the feeling of a love song, perhaps, unrequited love. My ex husband told me that Chinese people find the song funny because the word banjo in Chinese means penis but my ex was an idiot in many ways.
@plainoldme,
Thank you! I see 'sound of silence' is making sense to me now. And thankyou for the funny joke about 'banjo'.
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