Legendary singer Paul Simon has said he is 鈥渙ptimistic鈥 about being able to return to performing live after losing most of his hearing in his left ear.
In an , published Friday, the singer-songwriter said that, while his hearing loss hinders his ability to perform with a full band, he is 鈥渉oping to eventually be able to do a full-length concert.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 optimistic,鈥 Simon said. 鈥淪ix months ago I was pessimistic.鈥
Simon first discussed his hearing loss in an interview with Britain鈥檚 newspaper back in May 2023, saying that 鈥渜uite suddenly I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it. So everything became more difficult.鈥
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.
鈥淚 never said I was going to retire,鈥 Simon said in his latest interview. 鈥淚 said I was going to stop, which I did. I thought that with that band and the repertoire we were doing, we鈥檇 developed it as far as we could. It was enjoyable, but I wanted to find out what happens when you stop.鈥
When he stopped, he went traveling with his wife. Then, he said, he had a dream, and 鈥渆verything changed back to a new version of reality.鈥
According to The Guardian, that dream instructed Simon to work on a piece called 鈥.鈥 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, 鈥淚n Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.鈥
鈥淪even Psalms is an example of the whole piece coming to me in a unique way,鈥 Simon told The Guardian. 鈥淚 think there鈥檚 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 鈥 until my hearing loss threw me off.鈥
Simon recently played alongside two guitarists at a fundraiser for the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss, his longest performance in five years.
鈥淚n Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,鈥 which premiered in March in the United States, is set for release in UK cinemas on October 13, Simon鈥檚 83rd birthday.