"I Am a Rock," Simon and Garfunkel
This month, January 2026, marks the sixtieth anniversary of the release of Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence album. Although it's a spotty LP, recorded somewhat quickly with a good deal of filler (including an unnecessary rewrite of the title song of their debut LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.), it did feature the newly reworked title song, with an electric band overdubbed onto it, as well as Paul Sion's latest composition, "I Am a Rock."
Simon had originally recorded "I Am a Rock" for a solo album released in Britain only, The Paul Simon Songbook, as a solo acoustic number. When Simon and Garfunkel's record company, Columbia, released "The Sounds of Silence" with an electric rock band overdubbed onto the original acoustic recording from Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel realized that they had to get an LP out right away, and "I Am a Rock" was a song chosen for the record. The new recording featured noted studio session players Hal Blaine on drums and Carol Kate on bass, along with Joe South "the guy who wrote "Rose Garden," which was covered by Lynn Anderson) on electric guitar.
"I Am a Rock would be released as a single some time after it first appeared on Sounds of Silence, and though it topped out at number three on the Billboard singles chart, Paul Simon was never really enamored with the song, which celebrated loneliness at the expense of everything else. Simon called his most "unquestionably" neurotic song.
This clip of Simon and Garfunkel, my Music Video Of the Week, shows the duo performing the song live but with the record overdubbed onto it. Enjoy.
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