Paul Simon has explained why he has chosen to retire his hit song, ‘You Can Call Me Al’.
The track was originally released by Simon via his ground-breaking album ‘Graceland’, in 1986, becoming one of his defining solo hits.
Having taken a step away from a lot of his hits, it is ‘You Can Call Me Al’ that he has fully retired from live shows.
Paul Simon On “reducing a lot of the choices”
As Simon explains, his decision to retire the song was based on necessity rather than desire. In recent times, Simon has battled hearing loss, admitting that he is almost completely deaf in his left ear.
“There’s only about six per cent [hearing] in my left ear”, explained Simon.
He also spoke about requiring the use of several monitors in order to hear properly at recent shows: “When the balance is right, I can hear well”.
Simon also added that this issue has forced him to be more selective when it comes to choosing what songs to perform on stage.
“I’m going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices I make to acoustic versions,” he revealed. “It’s all much quieter. It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ That’s gone. I can’t do that one”.
While he admitted finding the impairment frustrating to begin with, Paul Simon has stated that it has not impinged on his ability to be creative.
“I was very angry at first that this had happened… I guess what I’m most apprehensive about would be if I can’t hear well enough to really enjoy the act of making music”, he said.
“You know Matisse, when he was suffering at the end of his life, when he was in bed, he envisioned all these cut-outs and had a great creative period. So I don’t think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven’t experienced that. And I hope not to”.
Last month, Paul Simon did express his hopes of playing live shows, despite retiring from touring. More on this from Nova here.
