In 1964, the American music duo Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel released a song titled The Sound of Silence. Garfunkel, one half of the duo and co-writer of the famous song, summed up the meaning of this song by stating, “this is a song about the inability of people to communicate with each other” (Patton, 2023).

"The Sound of Silence" (originally "The Sounds of Silence") is a song by the American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon.

Simon had started writing “The Sound of Silence” late in 1963, possibly as a response to the assassination of John F Kennedy, a hero of his, on November 22. He took his guitar into the bathroom where he liked the acoustics and, as was his habit, turned off the light and sat there playing.

“We were really best friends up until Bridge Over Troubled Water,” he shares, according to People. “[Afterward], it didn't have the harmony of the friendship … that was broken.” Simon contends that Garfunkel accepting a role in the 1970 film Catch-22 played a major role in the divide between them.