Paul Simon opens up about hearing loss and not performing “You Can Call Me Al”

Paul Simon retired from touring in 2018, though he's continued to do select live performances in the years since. However, he now revealed in a interview with the UK's The Times that he lost most of the hearing in his left ear while writing his new album Seven Psalms, and it may impact his ability to perform in the future:

“Quite suddenly I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it. So everything became more difficult. My reaction to that was frustration and annoyance; not quite anger yet, because I thought it would pass, it would repair itself.”

It has yet to do so, which makes any prospect of a return to live performance extremely dim. Perhaps, Simon muses, that’s no bad thing. “The songs of mine that I don’t want to sing live, I don’t sing them. Sometimes there are songs that I like and then at a certain point in a tour, I’ll say, ‘What the f*** 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.’”

According to Setlist.fm, he last performed "You Can Call Me Al" in 2019, and has stuck to other material at the brief performances he's done since then. Read more at The Times.

Stream Paul's new album--which is presented as one 33-minute, seven-piece track--here: