Paul Simon is ‘optimistic’ about returning to live performance after partially losing hearing

By Catherine Nicholls, CNN

(CNN) — Legendary singer Paul Simon has said he is “optimistic” about being able to return to performing live after losing most of his hearing in his left ear.

In an interview with The Guardian, published Friday, the singer-songwriter said that, while his hearing loss hinders his ability to perform with a full band, he is “hoping to eventually be able to do a full-length concert.”

“I’m optimistic,” Simon said. “Six months ago I was pessimistic.”

Simon first discussed his hearing loss in an interview with Britain’s The Times newspaper back in May 2023, saying that “quite suddenly I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it. So everything became more difficult.”

Even before he announced the loss of his hearing, Simon toured for the last time in 2018, after which he said he was ending his touring career.

“I never said I was going to retire,” Simon said in his latest interview. “I said I was going to stop, which I did. I thought that with that band and the repertoire we were doing, we’d developed it as far as we could. It was enjoyable, but I wanted to find out what happens when you stop.”

When he stopped, he went traveling with his wife. Then, he said, he had a dream, and “everything changed back to a new version of reality.”

According to The Guardian, that dream instructed Simon to work on a piece called “Seven Psalms.” The lyrics came to him in dreams over weeks and months, he said. The result was a 33-minute acoustic album, released in 2023. And as the album came together, Simon was joined in the studio by veteran film-maker Alex Gibney, who documented its creation in a 3.5-hour feature, “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.”

“Seven Psalms is an example of the whole piece coming to me in a unique way,” Simon told The Guardian. “I think there’s a connection between who I was as a kid, and my subconscious, and who I am now. It was very interesting and really quite pleasurable for a long time – until my hearing loss threw me off.”

Simon recently played alongside two guitarists at a fundraiser for the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss, his longest performance in five years.

“In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” which premiered in March in the United States, is set for release in UK cinemas on October 13, Simon’s 83rd birthday.

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