“And the people bowed and prayed / To the neon god they made / And the sign flashed out its warning / In the words that it was forming / And the signs said, The words of the prophets / are written on the subway walls / And tenement halls / And whisper’d in the sounds of silence” —Simon & Garfunkel
From a recent interview with Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd):
God, that takes me back. I used to travel on the tube from Goldhawk Road to Paddington a lot, back in the late ’60s when I lived in Shepherd’s Bush. And there was this terrific piece of art I passed every day, graffitied on this very long kind of concrete wall. So as you pulled out of Goldhawk Road tube station and headed for the darkness, while you’re still up in the light, somebody had written, “same thing day after day.” It was about 30 yards long. The whole thing read something like, “Have a cup of coffee, go down to the station, get on the train, go to work, come home, watch tv, go to bed - same thing day after day.”. And it was repeated again and again, going faster and faster as you accelerated into the blackness of the tunnel. And I was thinking, “Who did that?” This was 1968 or whatever. In fact there was an advert in the tube around the same time – and I don’t think I’ve ever shared this before – not sure what it was advertising, a bank or building society or something, and it said GET A GOOD JOB WITH MORE PAY – though there were no vowels, only consonants. And I remember connecting those two images from the underground – one was art and one was commerce – and they sort of married in my mind. And that’s where the lyrics for the song Money came from. —Roger Waters
“Father mckenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear / No one comes near.” —The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby
“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 dared / Disturb the sound of silence.” —Simon & Garfunkel, The Sounds of Silence
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