One of the most iconic songs of the 1960s is “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel.
As most people probably know, the original song was a folk rock song sung in a gentle tone and was thought to be a response to the assassination of JFK. The lyrics describe a young man who is in a dark state of mind, feeling isolated from the world and unable to communicate. Though it described a different political moment and feeling than we’re experiencing now, the song has remained popular throughout the ages and has inspired all kinds of interpretations and covers.
Another one of those covers has just gone viral!
The cover was done by Celtic Thunder, an Irish singing group who do folk music and put on theatrical stage shows.
The group was formed in 2007 and has become popular throughout the world. Like the original Simon and Garfunkel version, Celtic Thunder begins their version in a relatively subdued tone. Still, once they get through the first verse, the energy picks up—drums kick in and the two singers start playing their guitars along with their singing.
Throughout the song, the two singers complement each others’ styles perfectly!
As the song progresses, the group adds in a string section as well!
While the two sing through all the iconic lyrics, the song builds in sweep and intensity and the strings hit a crescendo. When it’s finally over, much of the instrumentation cuts out and all that’s left is the signature finger-picked guitar lead and the voices of the two young men. As it ends, the crowd erupts with a huge round of applause!
Still, Celtic Thunder isn’t the only to bring “The Sound of Silence” back into the mainstream in recent days.
Perhaps the most infamous recent cover of the song was sung by the heavy metal band Disturbed.
The lead singer of the group, David Draiman, brings a much different approach to the song. Instead of singing it in the gentle, almost whispered tone that Simon and Garfunkel did, Draiman approaches it with a deep, operatic flair that has proven enormously popular. The band did an official cover of the song with a music video as well, a video that has more than 475 million views on YouTube!
Although Draiman starts off his performance with restraint, the song builds and builds until it reaches huge emotional heights at the end.
Although the song is not very similar to Disturbed’s usual musical output, it has been widely acclaimed—even by Paul Simon himself.
It all started when Simon saw Draiman do a live version of the song on Conan and was moved by the performance he saw. In response, Simon decided to send him a short email in response:
“Really powerful performance on Conan the other day. First time I’d seen you do it live. Nice. Thanks.”
For his part, Draiman couldn’t have been happier to get the seal of approval.
After getting the message, he passed along his own thanks to Simon as well:
“Mr. Simon, I am honored beyond words. We only hoped to pay homage and honor to the brilliance of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Your compliment means the world to me/us and we are eternally grateful.”
If you want to see the difference between the studio and the live performance, check out the video from Conan for yourself:
While the live one leaves out some of the heavier instruments, the singing is still as impeccable as ever.
Last but not least, there’s still one more cover of “The Sound of Silence” that has been making the rounds recently. This last one is by Todd Hoffman, star of reality TV show “Gold Rush” on Discovery. His own version has garnered more than nine million views on YouTube and strikes a nice balance between the Disturbed version and the Celtic Thunder version. Like all the others, he’s very talented and does a great job! Check it out for yourself:
If you’ve seen all of these covers, which one was your favorite?
Although I definitely appreciate all of these interpretations, the original version by Simon and Garfunkel is still my favorite of all. Regardless, the Celtic Thunder is definitely worth watching all on it’s own!
Nice work to Celtic Thunder! Check out their full performance in the link below:
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