The Sound of Silence

When I was a child I used to sit in our suburban basement and dig through my parents' old record collection. Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits was my favorite. Not to listen to- but to look at. I was captivated by the photographs on the front and back covers of the album and I must have spent hours silently imagining just who these guys were. They looked so cool, so confident- and a little dangerous. The photos seemed to speak a secret code which only my parents and the other grown-ups understood. To me, Simon and Garfunkel were my parents' old friends, fellow revolutionaries from a magical bygone era, and I was born too late to ever truly understand the sacred bond- the code of silence.

Yet these poor guys were now relegated to an old cardboard box in a damp corner of our basement never to be played again. Or had my parents intentionally left the records there for my siblings and me to discover? As I got older I began to play the records and Greatest Hits became one of my favorites- to listen to. Then years went by and I lost touch with this collection until a few years ago when I reconnected with it. Not only is it the definitive Simon & Garfunkel album but it really is a perfect album. If I had to choose one vinyl album to leave my children- including the artwork- then it would be Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. And that has to be worth something. Grade: A+

Listen to the playlist on Spotify...  

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