{"id":4713,"date":"2023-09-20T07:02:15","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T12:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=4713"},"modified":"2023-09-20T07:03:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T12:03:42","slug":"paul-simon-unlikely-to-perform-live-again-due-to-sudden-hearing-loss-from-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/09\/20\/paul-simon-unlikely-to-perform-live-again-due-to-sudden-hearing-loss-from-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Simon unlikely to perform live again due to sudden hearing loss attributed to a severe case of COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Datebook<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Simon<\/a> says he suffered sudden hearing loss while recording his new album, making it unlikely that he will ever be able to tour or perform live again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 81-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician and co-founder of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel told the British newspaper the Times<\/a> that the hearing in his left ear deteriorated while he was in the studio working on \u201cSeven Psalms<\/a>,\u201d which came out May 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody has an explanation for it,\u201d Simon said. \u201cSo everything became more difficult. My reaction to that was frustration and annoyance \u2014 not quite anger yet, because I thought it would pass, it would repair itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon, who performed one of his last live shows at San Francisco\u2019s Outside Lands<\/a> festival in 2019, added that he recently survived a severe bout of COVID-19, which has been linked to sudden irreversible hearing loss<\/a> in some patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoy, have I been beaten up in these last couple of years,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I look good, right?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon performs at Outside Lands in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2019.Photo: Paul Kuroda\/Special to The Chronicle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though his hearing has yet to recover, Simon \u2014 who is best known for classics like \u201c50 Ways to Leave Your Lover<\/a>,\u201d \u201cMe and Julio Down by the Schoolyard<\/a>\u201d and \u201cYou Can Call Me Al<\/a>\u201d \u2014 said he felt a sense of relief in being able to step away from the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe songs of mine that I don\u2019t want to sing live, I don\u2019t sing them,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes there are songs that I like, and then at a certain point in a tour, I\u2019ll say, \u2018What the f\u2014 are you doing, Paul?\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cQuite often, that would come during \u2018You Can Call Me Al.\u2019 I\u2019d think, \u2018What are you doing? You\u2019re like a Paul Simon cover band. You should get off the road, go home.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon technically retired from the road following his 2018 \u201cHomeward Bound<\/a>\u201d farewell tour, but he took the Outside Lands headlining spot a year later with the intent of donating the net proceeds from his appearance to a pair of local environmental nonprofits, the San Francisco Parks Alliance and Friends of the Urban Forest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon performs onstage during Global Citizen: The World on Stage at NYU Skirball Center on Sept. 22, 2016, in New York City.Photo: Theo Wargo\/Getty Images for Global Citizen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeven Psalms,\u201d Simon\u2019s latest album, marks his first release in seven years. The 33-minute composition consists of seven movements inspired by the Psalms of King David. The album features notable musical contributions from the vocal ensemble Voces8, renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, various chamber musicians, and Simon\u2019s wife and fellow singer, Edie Brickell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon, who asks that fans listen to the album uninterrupted, said the song \u201cWait\u201d unintentionally forced him to contemplate his mortality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a spooky thing to be writing something and just be thinking, \u2018Oh, this is what the song needs,\u2019 \u201d Simon said, tearing up. \u201cAnd then it\u2019s, \u2018By the way, this is about you. You\u2019re actually the subject of this.\u2019 It\u2019s just the age we\u2019re at. Gordon Lightfoot just passed away; Jeff Beck<\/a>, too. My generation\u2019s time is up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Datebook Paul Simon says he suffered sudden hearing loss while recording his new album, making it unlikely that he will ever be able to tour or perform live again.  The 81-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician and co-founder of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel told the British newspaper the Times that the hearing in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coping-with-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screenshot-2023-09-20-at-08.01.38.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4713"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4717,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions\/4717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}