<Ul> <Li> Reginald Warburghton </Li> <Li> Stanley West </Li> </Ul> <P> Simon and Garfunkel became interested in folk music and the growing counterculture movement separately in the early 1960s . Having performed together previously under the name Tom and Jerry in the late 1950s, their partnership had since dissolved when they began attending college . In 1963, they regrouped and began performing Simon's original compositions locally in Queens . They billed themselves "Kane & Garr", after old recording pseudonyms, and signed up for Gerde's Folk City, a Greenwich Village club that hosted Monday night performances . In September 1963, the duo performed three new songs, among them "The Sound of Silence", getting the attention of Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson, who worked with Bob Dylan . Simon convinced Wilson to let him and his partner have a studio audition, where a performance of "The Sound of Silence" got the duo signed to Columbia . </P> <P> The song's origin and basis remain unclear, with multiple answers coming forward over the years . Many believe that the song commented on the John F. Kennedy assassination, as the song was released three months after the assassination . Simon stated unambiguously in interviews however, "I wrote The Sound of Silence when I was 21 years old", which places the timeframe firmly prior to the JFK tragedy, with Simon also explaining that the song was written in his bathroom, where he turned off the lights to better concentrate . "The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream . And I was always happy doing that . I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber . I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run (I like that sound, it's very soothing to me) and I'd play . In the dark .' Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again' ." In a more recent interview, Simon was directly asked, "How is a 21 year old person thinkin' about the words in that song?" His reply was, "I have no idea ." According to Garfunkel, the song was first developed in November, but Simon took three months to perfect the lyrics, which he claims were entirely written on February 19, 1964 . Garfunkel once summed up the song's meaning as "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other ." </P> <P> To promote the release of their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the duo performed again at Folk City, as well as two shows at the Gaslight Café, which went over poorly . Dave Van Ronk, a folk singer, was at the performances, and noted that several in the audience regarded their music as a joke . "' Sounds of Silence' actually became a running joke: for a while there, it was only necessary to start singing' Hello darkness, my old friend ...' and everybody would crack up ." Wednesday Morning, 3 AM sold only 3,000 copies upon its October release, and its dismal sales led Simon to move to London, England . While there, he recorded a solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook (1965), which features a rendition of the song, titled "The Sounds of Silence". </P>

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