The Sound of Silence
“The Sound of Silence” is a classic folk song of the 60s written by Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel as a response to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy about the lack of real communication. While its original connotation is a serious one, I have found in my academic overload-related stupor that one could reinterpret the lyrics to apply to life on Vanderbilt’s campus on today, Reading Day Dec. 9, 2011.
Reading Day is the one day off of school Vanderbilt students get to prepare for finals. Some unlucky students have finals exams as early as tomorrow. Then Sunday is our weekend break before a slew of finals from Monday-Saturday.
Here are the lyrics with my interpretations in bold:
Hello darkness, my old friend darkness = finals week / I’ve come to talk with you again like every semester / Because a vision softly creeping of failing classes / Left its seeds while I was sleeping yea, we dream about our classes here / And the vision that was planted in my brain that this final is going to be really tough / Still remains who could forget that / Within the sound of silence you better not be talking in the library! shh! (check out places to study on campus)
In restless dreams I walked alone because everyone else had already gone to sleep, but I stayed up studying / Narrow streets of cobblestone you know this really could refer to some of Vanderbilt’s walkways / ‘Neath the halo of a street lamp we have those too! / I turned my collar to the cold and damp yea, we’re talking fall semester finals, hello winter / When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a light the libraries are now open 24/7 / That split the night not used to all these building still fluorescing / And touched the sound of silence because you know what people are doing in there? — studying.
And in the naked light I saw through the window / Ten thousand people, maybe more OK this is an over exaggeration…though if you include grade students Vanderbilt does have more than 10,000 students / People talking without speaking technology! we’re not going to speak even though we’re sitting right next to each other…instead we’ll gchat / People hearing without listening ditto, plus you gotta be able to lip read if you want to communicate via “talking” / People writing songs that voices never share don’t you dare look at my paper topic / And no one dared we have a strong honor code policy here at Vandy / Disturb the sound of silence study study study
“Fool,” said I, “You do not know …wait for it / Silence like a cancer grows we really need to try to enjoy finals week a little more / Hear my words that I might teach you none of these stressfests and lack of sleep / Take my arms that I might reach you” I don’t know about this one…poetic license? / But my words, like silent raindrops fell people are going to glare if I actually make a noise / And echoed silently / In the wells of silence aka libraries
And the people bowed and prayed really want good grades / To the neon god they made I’m going to go with this representing YES and its display of our transcript / And the sign flashed out its warning grades! / In the words that it was forming GPA! / And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls the real world perhaps, away from academia’s ivory tower / And tenement halls” have you seen Vanderbilt’s residence halls, definitely not the real world, they treat us well here / And whispered in the sounds of silence hey, but we know what’s going on…we just can’t get there until we graduate!
On a happier note, than the “silence before the kill” perhaps of Reading Day…here are some fun times from the Fall Semester!