Paul Simon Comes Out of Retirement for Intimate Tour

Paul Simon announced Tuesday that he is coming out of retirement for his first tour since his 2018 farewell run and will be opting for a series of more "intimate" performances.

The "Quiet Celebration Tour" will comprise a series of performances in mid-sized venues featuring music from his latest album, "Seven Psalms," along with other classics, Variety reported.

Kicking off on April 4 in New Orleans, the tour will hit 20 cities in all, for a total of 50 shows, and will wrap up in Seattle on Aug. 3. Highlights include multiple-night stops at New York's Beacon Theater, L.A.'s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, and other iconic venues.

Since his 2018 farewell tour, Simon has revealed that he has been dealing with hearing loss. Speaking with the UK's The Times last year, he explained that it happened "quite suddenly," noting that "nobody has an explanation for it."

"My reaction to that was frustration and annoyance; not quite anger yet, because I thought it would pass, it would repair itself," he said at the time.

In an interview with CBS News last year, Simon said his hearing loss was "upsetting."

"I can still hear well enough to play guitar and write," he said. "But I can't hear well enough to play with five or six musicians. Maybe that's fine. Maybe there's something to be learned from that?"

The hearing loss has since forced Simon to retire his hit "You Can Call Me Al," a 1986 track released from his album "Graceland."

"There's only about 6% [hearing] in my left ear," he said in a recent interview with CBS Mornings, revealing that he has been using multiple monitors at shows in order to hear properly. "When the balance is right, I can hear well."

The condition, Simon added, has forced him to be more selective in what songs appear on his setlists these days.

"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, initially, he struggled to come to terms with his hearing impairment, which he found "incredibly frustrating."

"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.

However, the hearing loss has not affected his creativity.

"You know Matisse, when he was suffering at the end of his life, when he was in bed, he envisioned all these cutouts and had a great creative period," Simon noted. "So I don't think creativity stops with disability. So far, I haven't experienced that. And I hope not to."

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