Paul Simon is opening up about the struggles of trying to perform with hearing loss. In May 2023, Simon announced that he was suffering from hearing loss. Now he says that despite his best attempts, it’s a challenge trying to play music with his band. “I’ve tried to rehearse with the guys in my touring band, to see if I could manage it. I can’t so far,” he told Mojo magazine in a recent interview (quote via NME).
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Simon retired from touring in 2018 with Homeward Bound – The Farewell Tour, which concluded in September 2018 with a show in Queens, New York. He returned to the stage with a performance at a Golden Gate Park event in August 2019 in San Francisco, California. In May 2023, the songwriting prodigy released Seven Psalms, one of a seven-part series featuring all acoustic songs. It debuted inside the Top 30 on the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart.
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Simon says that music has been his saving grace while battling hearing loss and is in the process of working on the follow-up to Seven Psalms. “I have three songs in motion. One of them is finished. It feels like a half-step beyond what Seven Psalms is, evolving into something else. And that’s literally a lifesaver because I haven’t figured out how to perform with the hearing loss,” he continues. “This is at least an outlet for thinking musically.”
Around the time of Seven Psalms’ release, Simon shared with The Times that he “suddenly” lost “most” of his hearing in his left ear and doctors haven’t been able to explain the cause. He added that he hoped the situation would “repair itself,” but it remain unchanged.
“The songs of mine that I don’t want to sing live, I don’t sing them,” he said at the time about performing live. “Sometimes there are songs I like, and then at a certain point in a tour, I’ll say, ‘What the fuck are you doing, Paul?’ Quite often, that would come during ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ I’d think, ‘What are you doing? You’re like a Paul Simon cover band. You should get off the road, go home.’”
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