Silence Night

So let me see if I got this straight: Back in 1964, Simon and Garfunkel released their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which contained a spare little track called "The Sounds of Silence." The record stiffed, S&G went to England for a while, and, as everyone knows, Dylan producer Tom Wilson invented the remix by overdubbing a rock band onto the original acoustic track. This version became a hit, so much so that it became the title track of the next S&G album.

Well, almost. That album was called Sounds of Silence, with no The. That's not such a huge change, but still.... Can you think of any other albums that are almost named after the hit single? I can't.

But Paul Simon (I presume) wasn't done tinkering with the title. By the time of 1972's Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, the name of the song had been tweaked as well, and was now listed as "The Sound of Silence." It's also listed that way on the track listing for 1982's The Concert in Central Park. According to the official Simon and Garfunkel Web site, the phrase "sound of silence" is used three times in the song, while "sounds of silence" is used but once. So that would explain it.

I guess that's more or less the official title now. The single sleeve you see above is completely obsolete.