Silence is golden

it is? i'd always thought of silence as more of a state than a colour or a shiny glowing sort of stuff. i am also quite sure that i've never experienced complete silence. to me, silence is simply less than human voice or racing thought or the trickle of a stream in the middle of a quiet forest (yes, yes, typical, i know). it has never, for me, taken on or thrown me into the nothing that i'd once thought it might. (although, from time to time, the falling snow would seem to be the quietest sort of thing in the universe..)

it is rare that i find even the sort of silence my mind has created for me, but when i do, it still isn't golden. it's bluish or clear, so clear penetrating. sometimes, though, it is the sort of golden that the title really suggests, and those times, life's little interruptions are generally followed by a sigh.. and a sort of complacence. it's not as if the world is meant to be *so* quiet, anyway.

The B-side to The Four Seasons' "Rag Doll" (1964, both songs, IIRC, written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, who were the behind-the-scenes maestros), it became a full-fledged hit three years later, in the hands of The Tremeloes (the former beat group Brian Poole and the Tremeloes -- the band that Decca signed in 1962 when they passed on The Beatles). There's no hint of Mersey here -- the Tremeloes stay fairly faithful to the original in their hit, tapping "old" (in the internet time of pop music fashion) American sources, in the Four Seasons harmonies, with a soupçon of Beach Boys, still, apparently, potent stuff in the 1967 marketplace despite the upheavals of the British Invasion that caused their original styles to wane in popularity -- Frankie Valli was, by then, giving his falsetto an occasional rest from flying on top of the harmonies, while the Beach Boys... well, you could write a book.

This is pretty stuff, not the calculated (and puke-inducing) cheesy "prettiness" of the usual setting-out-to-be-pretty pop recording; it's almost like a lab experiment in its aural sincerity.

But then again, I was dropped on my head in those days.

The phrase "Silence is golden" is actually only half of an old proverb: Silence is golden, eloquence is silver.

At the time that this proverb was in popular use, silver was more valuable than gold in some parts of the world, including Europe. This phrase was quite also popular in Japan, where there is great value placed on communication without meaningless chatter. It was the duty of the individual to ensure that what they said was to the point, and accurately reflected their opinions and beliefs.

I much prefer the older phrase, where there is an implication of a social responsibility to discuss, debate, and learn, instead of urging inquisitive children to just keep quiet.