(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Tue 13 January 2026 17:18, UK
Paul Simon is a songwriter who doesn’t have to live with the worry of ever being forgotten or becoming yesterday’s news.
Even if he never pens another classic song from this stage on in his career, Simon’s career, with and without Art Garfunkel, will continue to be passed down by families to the next generation for eternity. There’s a timeless nature to his way with words and knack for melody that will never go out of fashion, which artists today still regularly cite as an inspiration.
As a result of the catalogue he has amassed over the last 60 years, picking a favourite is an almost impossible task that is akin to singling out your favourite child. Nevertheless, Simon does believe one track is the “most lasting” song of his career.
Artists spend their entire lives trying to find the song which will define their career. More often than not, it’s never the track they envisaged or the one that means the most to themselves on a personal or sentimental level.
As much as a songwriter would love to decide which of their creations will resonate most with the general public, it’s for the masses to decide.
Paul Simon in the moodiest of blues. (Credits: Far Out / Record Sleeve)
There’s a whole string of songs it’s possible to make a case for being Simon’s most definitive track, such as ‘Mrs Robinson’, ‘You Can Call Me Al’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water‘, or ‘Me and Julio Down By The School Yard’. However, Simon elected to choose ‘The Sound of Silence’, which dramatically changed the course of his career.
Notably, the classic track eventually appeared on Simon and Garfunkel’s second studio album, but was initially released two years earlier. At first, it was a commercial failure, causing the duo to veer off in other directions, believing that Simon and Garfunkel was nothing more than a short-lived phase.
After Simon and Garfunkel failed to take off as they’d envisaged, Simon decided to embark upon a new life by making a fresh start in England. At this time, the UK was an exciting place to be, and he found a home within the folk scene. It was also a period of immense creativity, with Simon crafting classics, including ‘Scarborough Fair’.
Unbeknownst to Simon, on the other side of the Atlantic, radio stations began to play ‘The Sound of Silence’. Despite him giving up on hope for the song, it climbed up the Billboard Hot 100 until it reached the top of the chart while he was playing tiny rooms in England. Following the single’s success, Simon had no option but to head home to America and reunite with Garfunkel to capitalise on their newfound stardom.
Reflecting on his career with Gramophone, Simon said of the life-changing composition: “My music goes from pretty simple stuff like ‘The Sound of Silence’ – a very simple song in terms of chords and structure, but it might be the most lasting of what I’ve written.”
Meanwhile, during an interview with Mojo in 2000, Simon admitted his love of Bob Dylan influenced the hit: “I tried very hard not to be influenced by him, and that was hard. ‘The Sound of Silence’, which I wrote when I was 21, I never would have wrote it were it not for Bob Dylan. Never, he was the first guy to come along in a serious way that wasn’t a teen language song. I saw him as a major guy whose work I didn’t want to imitate in the least.”
There’s no denying that ‘The Sound of Silence’, which is already 60 years old, will continue to have a lasting longevity, but it is not alone in Simon’s back catalogue in this regard. However, due to it being the song that started it all, it’s understandable why Simon has such tender feelings towards it.
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