Paul Simon on why he retired ‘You Can Call Me Al’

Paul Simon has opened up about his decision to retire hit song ‘You Can Call Me Al’.

The Simon and Garfunkel singer-songwriter has grown distant from some of his most iconic songs over the years. However, of all the hits he has taken a step back from, it is ‘You Can Call Me Al’ that he has fully retired from his live shows.

It was released back in 1986 from his groundbreaking album ‘Graceland’, and soon went on to become one of the defining tracks from his solo career. According to a new interview though, the singer said the decision to move on from the song has come from necessity rather than desire.

Talking with CBS Mornings, Simon said that his battle with hearing loss has left him unable to perform like he used to, and interfered massively with his relationship with music.

“There’s only about six per cent [hearing] in my left ear,” he told the outlet, also recalling how he has been forced to use multiple monitors in order to hear properly during recent shows. “When the balance is right, I can hear well.”

He also added that the condition has forced him to be much more selective when choosing setlists. “I’m going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices I make to acoustic versions,” he explained. “It’s all much quieter. It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ That’s gone. I can’t do that one.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Simon admitted that he found impairment “incredibly frustrating” at first. “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.

That being said, he also added the hearing loss hasn’t affected his creativity just yet: “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,” he said. “So I don’t think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven’t experienced that. And I hope not to.”

Earlier this year, Simon also gave a hopeful update on performing with hearing loss during the premiere of two-part documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon [via People]. At the time, he recalled how his hearing had come back to “enough of a degree that I’m comfortably singing and playing guitar and playing a few other instruments”.

More recently, he told The Guardian that he was “optimistic” about returning to perform live, and “hoping to eventually be able to do a full-length concert”. Former bandmate Art Garfunkel also reflected on a recent reunion with Simon, saying: “I was crying at a certain point because I felt that I had hurt him”.