HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND

A Beautiful Story Behind a Great Song

One of the best-loved songs of all time, Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence", with the poignant opening lines "Hello darkness my old friend", was inspired by a college roommate who went blind. The song topped the US charts and went platinum in the UK. It was named among the 20 most performed songs of the 20th century, was listed among the 500 greatest songs of all time and provided the unforgettable soundtrack to the 1967 movie classic "The Graduate". But to one man this song means much more than all that.

Sanford "Sandy" Greenberg is Art Garfunkel's best friend and reveals in a moving memoir that the song was a touching tribute to their undying bond, and the singer's sacrifice that saved Sandy's life when he unexpectedly lost his sight. "He lifted me out of the grave", says Sandy, aged 79, who recounts his plunge into sudden blindness, and how Art's selfless devotion gave him reason to live again.

Sandy and Arthur, as Art was then known, met during their first week as students at Columbia University in New York. They became roommates, bonding over a shared taste in books, poetry and music. "Every night Arthur and I would sing, he would play his guitar. The air was always filled with music."

Still teenagers, they made a pact to always be there for each other in times of trouble. They had no idea their promise would be tested so soon. Just months later, Sandy recalls: "I was at a baseball game and suddenly my eyes became cloudy and my vision became unhinged. Shortly after that darkness descended." Doctors diagnosed conjunctivitis, assuring Sandy it would pass. But days later Sandy went blind, and doctors realised that glaucoma has destroyed his optic nerves.

Sandy was the son of a rag-and-bone man. His family, Jewish immigrants in Buffalo, New York, had no money to help him. He dropped out of college, gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer, and plunged into depression. "I wouldn't see anyone, I just refused to talk to anybody," says Sandy. "And then unexpectedly Arthur flew in, saying he had to talk to me. He said, 'You're gonna come back, aren't you?' I said, 'No. There's no conceivable way.' He was pretty insistent, and finally said, 'I need you back there. That's the pact we made together: we would be there for each other in times of crises. I will help you.' "

Together they returned to Columbia University, where Sandy became dependent on Arthur's support. Art would walk Sandy to class, bandage his wounds when he fell, even fill out his graduate school applications. Art Garfunkel called himself "Darkness" in a show of empathy. He explained: "I was saying, 'I want to be together where you are, in the black.' "Sandy recalls: "He would come in and say, 'Darkness is going to read to you now'. Then he would take me to class and back. He would take me around the city. He altered his entire life so that it would accommodate me."

Garfunkel would talk about Sandy with his high school friend, Paul Simon, from Queens, New York, as the folk-rock duo struggled to launch their musical careers, performing at local parties and clubs. Though Simon wrote the song, the lyrics to "The Sounds of Silence" are infused with Garfunkel's compassion as Darkness, Sandy's old friend.

Guiding Sandy through New York one day, as they stood in the vast forecourt of bustling Grand Central Station, Art said that he had to leave for an assignment, abandoning his blind friend alone in the rush-hour crowd, terrified, stumbling and falling. "I cut my forehead," says Sandy. "I cut my shins. My socks were bloodied. I started running forward, knocking over coffee cups and briefcases, and finally I got to the local train to Columbia University. It was the worst couple of hours in my life."

Back on campus, Sandy bumped into Arthur, who apologised. "For a moment I was enraged, and then I understood what happened: that his colossally insightful, brilliant yet wildly risky strategy had worked," says Sandy. Arthur had not abandoned Sandy at the station, but had followed him the entire way home, watching over him. "Arthur knew it was only when I could prove to myself I could do it that I would have real independence. And it worked, because after that I felt I could do anything."

"That moment was the spark that caused me to live a completely different life, without fear, without doubt. For that I am tremendously grateful to my friend." Sandy not only graduated, but went on to study for a Masters degree at Harvard and Oxford.

While in Britain Sandy received a call from his friend. Arthur wanted to drop out of architecture school and record his first album with Paul Simon, but he needed $400 to get started. For Sandy, this request was the first time he had been able to live up to his half of the friends' solemn pact.

The 1964 album, "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM", was a critical and commercial flop. But one of the tracks was "The Sounds of Silence", which was released as a single the following year and went to number 1 across the world. Says Sandy: "The 'Sounds of Silence' meant a lot, because it started out with the words 'Hello Darkness' and this was Darkness singing, the guy who read to me after I returned to Columbia blind."

Simon and Garfunkel went on to have four smash albums, with numerous hit songs. Sandy went on to extraordinary success as an inventor, entrepreneur, investor, presidential advisor and philanthropist. The father of three, who launched a $3million prize to find a cure for blindness, has always refused to use a white cane or guide dog. "I don't want to be 'the blind guy,'" he says. "I wanted to be Sandy Greenberg, the human being."

Six decades later the two men remain best friends, and Art Garfunkel credits Sandy with transforming his life. "With Sandy, I became a better guy in my own eyes and began to see who I was – somebody who gives to a friend."