“The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel

"The Sound of Silence" (it began life as "The Sounds of Silence") is the Paul Simon song that made Simon & Garfunkel twice over. An audition with it won the duo their Columbia deal, and the first version was a hushed acoustic take, cut in March 1964 in New York for their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which sank on release that October.

Then radio stations in Boston and Florida started spinning it, and producer Tom Wilson responded by dubbing electric instruments and drums onto the old recording and putting it out as a single in September 1965, without telling either of them. That folk-rock jolt went to No. 1 in the first days of 1966, pulled the pair back together and sent them rushing to make a second album, which Columbia named Sounds of Silence. The Graduate then wrapped its opening and closing credits around it in 1967.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.