MrPizzazz702 November 27th, 2005 12:29PM  
To me this song seems to be about someone that just feels like an outsider. Or at least someone that wants themself to think that way. If one is all alone there is no need for emotion, or so thinks this person. And a rock feels no pain. An island never cries.

anonymous March 9th, 2006 02:30AM  
Also--a rock feels no pain and an island never cries...solitude shields us from pain but it is not living.

anonymous May 23rd, 2007 10:07PM  
I feel this song is about a guy who was dumped, and he's trying to prove that he actually feels really bad although he might appear to be fine.

Rock=the outer appearance and rocks are very common; thus this is what most people see
Island=inner self; islands are hidden and you have to swim or take a boat or wait until the right season to get to it

I think a lot of the song is sarcastic:
ex. "It's laughter and it's loving I disdain"

I love this song =D

anonymous August 25th, 2007 07:50AM  
I think it's about a man who's love has just left him.

He doesn't show his feelings.
(A rock or an island is always looking the same, if you are not very close to it)

He has no good feelings ("A winter’s day") and his mood is bad ("deep and dark december")
He thinks he has noone ("I am alone")
He finds nothing to do, he's lamed "Gazing from my window",
(maybe literally)
It's not long ago ("freshly fallen")
and he has not seen it comming ("silent shroud of snow")

He don't want to be her fiend, because friendship only "causes pain" to him.

He can not laugh and he can not love ("laughter and it’s loving I disdain.")

I am a rock,
I am an island.

He doesn't want to talk about that love he had.
Because he has swamp out the feelings

He tries to occupy himself by reading
books or reading/writing poetry

He doesn't want to go out ("Hiding in my room")
And he hides his feelings from others
"I touch no one and no one touches me."

anonymous July 14th, 2008 09:27PM  
Obviously he's been hurt, but this song comes across to me as pure denial. He goes on and on about how secure and strong he is, but it's presented in such a sad and somber tone. He declares his strength, but it's pure facade.

bea00134 January 16th, 2009 01:37AM  
To understand this song you MUST read John Donne's Mediatation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occations. The main reference is in the middle of the work. "No man is an island, entire of itself". Donne was very ill at the time of this writing and thought he was dieing. This work also contains the familiar quote, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee". "A winter's day in deep and dark December" refers to death and "shroud" also is a reference to this.

Also the "books" and "poetry" are interesting parallels. Meditation XVII refers also to a book. "...all mankind is of one author and is one volumn..." also Donne wrote some of the most beautifully sensual love poetry in the English language. (See Elegy XIX - "To His Mistress Going to Bed".)

Donne ends this writing with a thought on pain. "...[A]ffliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God..." The change in mode of the song's last two lines reflects this maturing from a juvenile selfish "me" to a realization of a mature interconnected "us."

And talk about pain and isolation. Donne went to Fleet Prison for secretly marrying his love.

Or ... Paul could have just been pissed at getting dumped!

Peace

anonymous May 10th, 2009 02:41PM  
I think this song is a complete satire about a person who gets hurt and decides to shut off the rest of the world because it's just not worth the pain. But I think Paul Simon is mimicking people who live this way. In fact, I think the message behind the song is to understand that you're going to get hurt but that love and laughter are worth it. I love the song, it's really great to scream to if you're upset. I'm actually going to get "I am a rock" tattooed on me.

anonymous May 25th, 2009 10:09AM  
it is a goood song that expresses a hurt mans' feelings, i think that he got hurt by a woman because he speaks of love, or maybe he got hurt by a true friend.... i know what that feels like... i can relate

anonymous June 6th, 2009 03:58PM  
Look at John Donne's No Man is an Island, there's a contrast between the two

anonymous June 26th, 2009 09:19AM  
The song points out the emotional cost of living, no matter what you do: If you trust and open yourself up to others, you expose yourself to the cost of being hurt If you want to avoid that by withdrawing, hiding behind your defenses, and alienating yourself, then the cost will be loneliness and sadness, because in the end we need others to validate our worth From this perspective, you can't win: winter, dark, alone, silence, shroud, pain. What a bummer... The morale? While others can and will hurt us, that's better than the alternative