EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Paul Simon: losing my hearing — and why I’m writing songs again

In a poignant interview at home on his ranch, the musician, 81, reflects on mortality, Art Garfunkel and the inspiration for his remarkable new album

Homeward bound: Simon is making plans for more new music
Homeward bound: Simon is making plans for more new music
FRANK OCKENFELS
The Sunday Times

Just occasionally a snippet of information can catch you unawares. Like this one: Paul Simon — a musician synonymous with the bustle of the New York suburbs, where he grew up in the Fifties, the baseball-mad son of Hungarian-Jewish parents — lives on a ranch in Texas.

Which is where we are today. That this east coast liberal has swapped city life, which inspired so much of his writing, for the wide open spaces of the Lone Star State seems bewildering. Yet there are reasons for his splendid isolation in this place where the only sound, bar the birdsong, is of silence.

Not least the calamitous event of a kind that all musicians dread. During our conversation Simon reveals to me the sudden loss of