“The Sounds of Silence” as you’ve never heard it before

Dominique Simon April 18, 2022

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Sound of Silence Performance, The Voice French

Think you can only love Paul Simon’s original? Don’t be too sure.

For some of us, the song will always evoke the feeling that arose the first time we heard it: that sudden, thrilling sense of a greater mystery to life, latent both within ourselves and in our connection with others. A feeling more complex than either pain or joy. A yearning that can’t ever be brought into the daylight—at least any more fully than by Paul Simon’s 1964 classic.

Given Simon & Garfunkel’s masterful original, it’s a daring artist who covers “The Sounds of Silence.” Eleven-year-old Jadyn Rylee arguably knocked it out of the park in 2017. A year later, the metal group Disturbed released a vivid but decidedly more controversial recording (and earned a message of praise from Simon himself).

And now there’s this new, transcendently beautiful version to enjoy. Thomas—that’s all we know of him, thanks to the blind audition rules on France’s talent show The Voice—stands up alone and delivers a “Sounds of Silence” to reckon with. Like every great performance, it’s a welding together of raw talent, respect for the material, and heart. And to judge by the expressions on the judges’ faces, it blew them away.

Dominique Simon

Dominique launched Allies in Recovery in 2003. Her work has been featured on HBO and NPR. She is a facilitator and a trained speaker on issues of addiction and the family. She has worked extensively developing and evaluating federally-funded substance abuse programs for organizations and clinics throughout Massachusetts and New York. With an interest in recovery and substance abuse that spans 20 years, she sees a huge need to help families develop the skills to help a loved one recover fully in a supportive, whole, and lasting way in their families and in their communities. Her mission is to have Allies in Recovery fill that gap.

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Think you can only love Paul Simon’s original? Don’t be too sure.

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