What I feel this summer..............

KLEM FM

Link in case the video doesn't load

That's the original 1964 version which languished until a producer added (without Simon's or Garfunkel's knowledge)* faux "live applause," electric guitar and bass, and drums. But those changes got the public's attention and the immortal song climbed the charts 50 years ago.

The original version above has a sort of underlying purity; it's not an "unplugged" version of "Sound of Silence." The popular version was a studio creation -- much the same way that The Rolling Stones put together "It's Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)." link  
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*Paul Simon was horrified when he first heard the remixed version after its release. The problem was that the original recording's tempo was uneven, and the studio musicians had to impose one. There's a point in the remixed song -- right about at the line "and the people bowed and prayed" where the drummer sort of stutters and resets the tempo. I find this whole story ironic in view of Columbia Records using the same studio musicians for the overdub that they used for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" (sans Al Kooper). It was Kooper who famously couldn't keep the tempo in that song, forever giving it that characteristic "leading from behind" organ signature.