Paul Simon has shared a recent health update, having suffered a near-total hearing loss in his left ear last year.
This condition emerged whilst the ‘You Can Call Me Al’ hitmaker was working on his 15th solo album ‘Seven Psalms’, with doctors unable to get to the bottom of the problem.
Seven Psalms // New Record // Out Now
Listen here: https://t.co/Ltl4CVyeI4 pic.twitter.com/xaCkQr4juP— Paul Simon (@PaulSimonMusic) May 19, 2023
Simon had previously stated that he was determined to find a resolution to the problem, which has prevented him from touring recently. He had hoped that this problem would “repair itself”.
The music legend is the subject of a new two-part documentary titled, In Restless Dreams: The music of Paul Simon, directed by Alex Gibney.
“comfortably singing”
Speaking at a premiere for the documentary which was also moderated by Stephen Colbert, Paul Simon stated that his hearing has now come back “enough of a degree that I’m comfortably singing and playing guitar and playing a few other instruments”.
Simon continued, “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”.
Elsewhere in the chat, Paul Simon revealed that he once tried to stop music icon Frank Sinatra from recording his hit Mrs Robinson.
The song was originally released by Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1968, before Sinatra covered the track a year later.
It also served as the theme for the 1967 film, The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman.
“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]”, explained Simon.
He continued, “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.’ He said, ‘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”, he added.
“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”.
Paul Simon later revealed that he “fell in love” with Sinatra’s rendition of the song, adding that the music played after the concert was the cover version.
In Restless Dreams: The music of Paul Simon is to premiere on MGM+ tomorrow (March 17), with the second part arriving a week later (March 24).
