Sounds of Silence

The album cover photo features the duo on a trail looking back towards the camera. It was shot at Franklin Canyon Park in Los Angeles, California. The secondary school scarves they are wearing were from The Campion School, Hornchurch, UK. This school was attended by the boys of the Brentwood family, where Paul lodged during his time in the UK. The back of the LP has candid shots of the duo and quotes a few lyrics from each song.

There are three variations of the original LP's artwork. The first issue lists the duo's names' fully capitalized on one line, the album title fully capitalized on another, and no song titles. The second issue capitalizes only the first letter of each word, and features the tracklist. The third has the same front cover as the second, but the back cover airbrushes out the copies of Tiger Beat magazine Garfunkel is holding in the photos.

The original LP label mistakenly spells "Anji" as "Angie" and credits it to Bert Jansch, who had recorded it for his 1965 debut album. The back cover of the original LP sleeve properly credits Davey Graham as composer but retains the "Angie" misspelling. Both errors were corrected for subsequent reissues.

On older LP and CD issues of the album, "The Sound of Silence" is titled as "The Sounds of Silence" on both the cover and label, and "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" is titled "We've Got a Groovey Thing Goin'".

• Paul Simon – lead vocals, guitar
• Art Garfunkel – lead vocals
• Fred Carter Jr., Glen Campbell, Joe South – guitar
• Larry Knechtel – keyboards
• Joe Osborn – bass guitar
• Hal Blaine – drums
• Bob Johnston – producer

Sounds of Silence was recorded in April, June and December 1965 at CBS Studios in New York City, New York and Los Angeles, California.

"The Sound of Silence" (electric overdubs) personnel

• Al Gorgoni, Vinnie Bell – guitar
• Joe Mack – bass guitar[6]
• Bobby Gregg – drums

"The Sound of Silence" overdubs were recorded at Columbia's "Studio A" at 799 Seventh Avenue near 52nd Street by Columbia Records staff producer Tom Wilson on June 15, 1965. Neither Paul Simon nor Art Garfunkel were aware of the session or the plan to release an electric remix of the song until after the overdubs had been recorded.[3][4]

• English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg lifted the opening lines of "Leaves That Are Green" ("I was 21 years when I wrote this song/I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long") for his song "A New England", which appeared on Bragg's 1983 EP Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy. These same lyrics can be found in the Kirsty MacColl version of this song. Released as a cover in 1984, the song was MacColl's biggest solo hit—reaching #7 in the UK and #8 in Ireland.
• The Tremeloes' recording of "Blessed" became their 1966 "solo debut" single (without Brian Poole).
• Them recorded "Richard Cory" as a single in 1966. Wings (with Denny Laine on lead vocals) covered "Richard Cory" on their 1976 live triple album Wings over America.
• Nancy Wilson (of Heart) performs a cover of "Kathy's Song" on her 1999 album Live from McCabe's Guitar Shop.
• Eva Cassidy covered "Kathy's Song" on her 2000 CD Time After Time, released four years after her death.
• "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" is essentially a reworking of the title track of the duo's first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. It was recorded along with "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" a few months before producer Tom Wilson dubbed electric instruments on "Sounds of Silence". The recurring descending bass line in the track as well as its introductory guitar riff were borrowed from Davey Graham's acoustic guitar piece "Anji", a cover of which follows on the album. (The melody line of the chorus in "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" shows a similarity to a riff heard within the Bert Jansch version of Graham's piece, as well as the Sounds of Silence version; the line is similar to the theme in "Work Song" by Nat Adderley.)
• The song "Richard Cory" was based on a poem with the same title by Edwin Arlington Robinson. The chorus, however, is entirely of Simon's composition.
• The song "April Come She Will" bears structural resemblance to a traditional English rhyme, "Cuckoo, cuckoo, what do you do?", a phenology of the common cuckoo from April through September.

• Charlesworth, Chris, The Complete Guide to the Music of Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel, Omnibus Press 1996
• Maclauchlan, Paul, "Paul Simon Discography 1955 to 1999 : Simon & Garfunkel – 1964 to 1971"
• Williams, Paul, "Sounds of Silence: Simon & Garfunkel", Crawdaddy! magazine, first issue, January 30, 1966; reprinted in The Crawdaddy! book : writings (and images) from the magazine of rock, by Paul Williams, Milwaukee, WI : Hal Leonard Corp., 2002.

• Sony Music