Listening to the Sound of Silence
I’ve been a fan of Simon and Garfunkel for many years now. And all this while, I’ve owned only one album: The Best of Simon and Garfunkel, which includes their 20 greatest hits. Suffice it to say that I love listening to their slow melodic tunes. And let’s not get started with how much I adore the lyrics.
Recently, on a homeward bound bus, I heard the entire album again, concentrating on each word—so much that it brought a tear to my eye. On reaching home, I got The Complete Studio Album Collection of Simon and Garfunkel, thinking, ‘What more gems would I find?’
I’ve been listening to the complete collection for a while now, but the truth is I usually gravitate to those best 20 songs. Not that the other songs are not good, I’ve found a few new favourites, but somehow those 20 songs are in a league of their own. Maybe it’s because I’m comfortable with them, or maybe…
…every artist out there produces so much content, be it musicians, painters or writers. Not all their work is the best, some are decent, some are half-way good, while some are dreadful. And sometimes, if you’ve been producing half-way decent work for a while, you might just end up producing something that you can call your best. And if you keep at it for long enough, you might just create a collection of your best work, much like Simon and Garfunkel’s 20 best songs.
The trick is to keep at it, keep creating, and to never give up. And one day, maybe, your memory will skip while you look over manuscripts of unpublished rhymes, too.
Fun fact: The song that got me teary eyed on the bus was: Old Friends, Bookends.
