wordwatching

At the crossroads of language and culture

Dedicated to the study of language variation and change in American English, with special regard to the West, pop lyrics, and social media.

 

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"Silence" in pop music

January 22, 2016 by Lamont Antieau in music video essay

Had to take a bit of a break from blogging between my last post and this one, but it doesn't mean I wasn't thinking of the link between language and culture. In fact, one of the things that I considered was how often the concept of silence rears its head in pop music. Here I present eight videos of songs that placed in the Billboard year-end Top Ten (1951-2015) in which some form of the word silence appears. The songs are in reverse chronological order.

And as a bonus, a song that did not appear in the year-end Top Ten list (only reaching as high as #54 for 1966), but did top the Billboard charts in the last week of 1965: Simon and Garfunkel's classic (and first) hit, "The Sound of Silence":

January 22, 2016 /Lamont Antieau
silence in pop music
music video essay
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