["The Sounds of Silence"] is not one of Simon's best, being a bit laden with heavy images. And the theme—man's inability to communicate with man—is hardly virgin territory. Yet for a million-selling single in 1965 it was spectacular, curiously similar to [The Byrds's] "Mr. Tambourine Man" as a bearer of impressionistic images strongly expressed. Within a few years, Simon and Garfunkel became one of the most popular ensembles in the world, and Paul Simon was considered a ranking composer of songs and lyrics of high caliber. (p. 168)

Hardly the stuff of which a pop hit is made, ["The Dangling Conversation"] represents songwriter Simon at a particularly pretentious point, dangling his English Lit credits in front of the college audience like a dry fly before a trout. In the song, the woman reads Emily Dickinson, the man Robert Frost, and they don't talk to each other. A protest...