Paul Simon offers positive update on hearing loss: "I can hear my voice the way I want it"

18 March 2024, 13:40

He almost completely lost his hearing.

Last year, Paul Simon revealed that he had suffered a near-total loss of hearing in his left ear which made performing live a near impossibility.

Having explained that rehearsals with his band didn't go according to plan due to his lack of hearing, the veteran singer-songwriter wasn't ready to pack it in.

"I haven't figured out how to perform with the hearing loss," he said back in July. "I've tried to rehearse with the guys in my touring band, to see if I could manage it. I can't so far."

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Even though it was becoming more of an improbability, Simon admitted that he hadn't "accepted" his hearing loss and was attempting to find solutions that would enable his return to the stage.

Now, in a hopeful update on his situation, Paul Simon has revealed there has been a degree of progress in terms of performance.

"I can hear my voice the way I want it in the context of the music," said Simon at a recent Q&A.

Attending the MGM+ premiere for the new two-part docu-series, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, he was asked about losing his hearing whilst in the studio making his 15th solo album, Seven Psalms.

"That's come back to enough of a degree that I'm comfortable singing and playing guitar and playing a few other instruments," he said.

"I can hear my voice the way I want it in the context of the music. 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," Simon added.

So for long-time fans of the mind behind the majority of Simon & Garfunkel's greatest hits, there may still be an opportunity to see him perform before he calls it a day.

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, the new Alex Gibney-directed documentary premiered on MGM+ on 17th March, with the second part arriving on the streaming platform on 24th March.

Elsewhere in the Q&A, Paul Simon revealed to host Stephen Colbert that he was not a fan of Frank Sinatra's cover version of 'Mrs. Robinson'.

"I met him once. It was very interesting too, because he made a cover record of my song 'Mrs. Robinson.' And he changed the lyric[s]."

Mrs. Robinson

"They were fantastic, but when I first heard it, it was like, 'man, ring a ding, ding you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more,' and this is in the sixties, and I said, 'He can't do that'."

"I said, 'I'm stopping the record.' Simon revealed. "'You can't stop a Frank record.' I said, 'I am stopping it. Nobody asked me to change and I'm not giving permission. I don't care.'"

"And so a guy from Warner Brothers called me up and said, 'Please don't do this. It's my fault I did it. Please don't do this to me.' So I said, 'Okay'," he added.

"And then later I fell in love with that record. And when you play music after the concert is over, that's the first song."