The 1960s classic Paul Simon thinks “will last 100 years”
Mick Jagger. Bob Dylan. Paul Simon. What do they all have in common? They were all at the peak of their powers during the 1960s, which was now 60 years ago.
While it’s not an infantilising suggestion that we should start wrapping any of them up in bubble wrap just yet, it does put into perspective just how much time has marched on since that heady, swinging era – to many, the ’60s were the halcyon days of endless possibilities that still appear as if they were yesterday.
However, the reality is that now, you’d actually have to travel back a fair journey in your mind to get there, never mind the artists who were responsible for binding its very musical fabric. Without making too blunt a point, that’s a heavy responsibility to bear, but it’s one that Simon himself has clearly had the time to ponder over.
Indeed, for a man who was one half of one of the most indisputably seismic groups of the decade, he could be forgiven for choosing his entire songbook as a defining anthem. But alas, he only picked one, yet it was for a very good reason. Some songs are good, but making one that is completely timeless is a much harder feat to come by.
Having said that, Simon never realised the true gravitas of the moment after he’d just finished writing ‘The Sound of Silence’ in a bathroom stall, of all places. The year was 1964, he was just 22 years old, and he simply liked the echo created in the acoustic chamber of the toilet in shaping his most haunting hit.
At least at that time, Simon could have had no concept of what he’d just made: he was too young to understand the concept of transcendent decades for starters, and besides, he needed to wash his hands coming out of the bathroom. Yet the virtue of time has now thankfully granted him a sense of perspective he never had before.
With all his 84 years behind him, Simon now realises that what he created on that day 62 years ago was not only a definitive classic, but something that will truly stand the test of time beyond his life, or even any of ours. “It was way beyond where I was as a songwriter,” he said humbly in a recent interview.
Yet in the same breath, he correctly admitted to the truth: “I have a feeling that if any of my songs last 100 years, ‘The Sound of Silence’ has the best chance.” Well, considering the fact that he’s already over three-fifths of the way there, we can almost pretty much guarantee that that one is going to be set in stone.
Sadly, whether we like it or not, we have reached a point in time where we will slowly have to start considering the mortality of some of the 1960s’ greatest icons. This is not to say that anyone’s days are quite yet numbered, but despite the bleak future that awaits, there is some comfort in knowing that the music will live on – and on, and on, and on.
