Simon and Garfunkel |
I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my
resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and
jest, still a man hears
what he wants to hear,
and disregards the
rest
When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the
company of strangers,
In the quiet of a railway station, running scared,
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know
Lai la lai, Lai la lai lai lai la lai,
Lai la lai, Lai la lai lai lai lai
lai, la la la la lai
Asking only workmens wages I come looking for a job,
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on seventh avenue,
I do declare there
were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
Lai la lai
Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
and wishing I was gone
Where
the New York city aren't bleeding me,
Leading me, going home.
In the clearing stands a boxer
and a fighter by his trade
and he
carries the reminders
of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till
he cried out,
In his anger and his pain,
`I am leaving, I am leaving',
but the fighter still remains,
Hello darkness my old friend,
I've come to talk to you again,
Because
a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while I was sleeping
And a
vision
that was planted in my brain
still remains,
within the sounds
of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone,
narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a pale street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and
damp,
when my eyes were stabbed
by the flash of neon light
that
split the night
and touched the sounds of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People
talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing
songs that voices never share
and no one dare
disturb the sound of
silence
`Fools' said I `You do not know,
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my
words that I might teach you,
take my arms that I might reach you,'
but
my words like silent rainbows fell
and echoed in the wells of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed
to the neon gods they'd made.
And the
sign flashed out its warning
in the words that it was forming.
And the
sign said `The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
and
tenement halls'
and whispered in the sound of silence
I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could
I surely
would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I could
I
surely would
Away, I'd rather sail away,
Like a swan that's here and
gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
he gives the world the saddest
sound
I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes I would, if I could
I surely would
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes I would, if I could
I surely would.