Paul Simon has been talking about his experience of living – and making music – with what is now almost total hearing loss.
Simon was first diagnosed during the making of his most recent album, 2023’s Seven Psalms, and has only about 6% of his hearing hearing left in his left ear. He told CBS Mornings that he has found the experience “incredibly frustrating”.
“I was very angry at first that this had happened,” a visibly frail Simon admitted. “I guess what I’m most apprehensive about would be if I can’t hear well enough to really enjoy the act of making music.”
The segment shows Simon soundchecking for a rare performance at the Soho Sessions in New York and the adjustments he has to make to hear what he’s playing – he has to use larger speakers, strategically placing them around him. He explains he was “going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices that I make to acoustic versions. It’s all much quieter. It’s not You Can Call Me Al. That’s gone. I can’t do that one.”
Simon has not retired and still feels he has creativity left in him. "You know Matisse, when he was suffering at the end of his life, when he was in bed, he envisioned all these cut-outs and had a great creative period," Simon said. "So I don't think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven't experienced that. And I hope not to."
Earlier this year, Simon seemed hopeful about returning to performing large gigs. He told the People that his hearing had come back to “enough of a degree that I’m comfortably singing and playing guitar and playing a few other instruments”.
“I can hear my voice the way I want it in the context of the music,” he continued. “If there’s a drum or an electric guitar, it’s too loud and I can’t hear my voice. But when I first lost the hearing, I couldn’t get, it threw me off. Everything was coming from this side.”
Meanwhile, speaking to the Guardian last month he said: “optimistic” about returning to perform live, saying he was “hoping to eventually be able to do a full-length concert”.
