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Paul Simon was at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) over the weekend to premiere In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, a documentary by Alex Gibney. I know Gibney for his hard hitting docs like Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and The Crime of the Century (about the opioid crisis). But somehow I’ve missed that he’s also directed music documentaries on The Eagles, James Brown, and Frank Sinatra. And now, of course, Paul Simon. Simon and Gibney participated in a Q&A while at TIFF, where Simon spoke candidly about his hearing loss:

Paul Simon may not yet have come to terms with the hearing loss in his left ear, but he is “beginning to.” The 81-year-old singer-songwriter talked about his ailment and ability to continue performing at a post-screening Q&A for In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.

In the panel discussion alongside documentary director Alex Gibney, Simon told the audience “I haven’t accepted it entirely, but I’m beginning to,” when asked about his hearing loss.

“I play the guitar every day,” he added. “It’s the instrument that allows me to express myself creatively. But it’s also where I go for solace. If I’m feeling… ‘whatever.’ So it’s a very crucial thing to me. You know, something happens to you when you have some sort of disability that changes your awareness or changes how you interact with life.”

According to Simon there has been no improvement in his left ear, which has made a return to performing a challenge. “Usually when I finished an album I went out and toured with it, and then I have the opportunity to really investigate the piece. And then it evolves to another standard, and goes further,” he said. “Although a week from now I’m going to try and work with two guitarists who will play the parts that I played on the record, and see if I can sing the piece. I’m not sure how I can integrate my voice with the guitars.”

His ailment has not however kept Simon from composing new music. “I wrote a new song called ‘When I Learned to Play Guitar,’ but I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it,” he said at the TIFF premiere.

In May, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame artist, half of American folk duo Simon & Garfunkel, opened up about his hearing loss during an interview with the Times. Simon said his hearing loss happened while he was penning music for his new album, Seven Psalms. “Quite suddenly, I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it,” he said. “So everything became more difficult.”

[From Yahoo! Entertainment]

Hearing loss among musicians is so prevalent, for obvious reasons. In the last couple years Dave Grohl and Huey Lewis have shared their hearing loss experiences, each one with his own devastating details. I started out thinking that it must be even more heartbreaking for a performer to lose a sense so innately tied to their craft, given the odds stacked against anyone trying to make it in the arts. But I was wrong about that, it’s not being a performer that makes the loss more intense. It’s being anyone who absolutely loves what they do being forced to watch it slipping away. My father was not in the arts, he was an academic. When he had a stroke last winter, it was painful for all of us, including him, to see how his mind was altered. He knew he’d lost the capacity to continue his work, and I think that realization is what drove him to let go. It was a mentality of “who am I if I can’t work anymore?” We lost him two weeks ago, on his 81st birthday. I couldn’t write the day he died, but I came back the day after. (Don’t worry, I took more than a week off from my day job.) I love being sassy here with you, and I figure the best way I can honor my father is to keep working on what I love doing. It’s not his fault that that happens to be sarcasm and laughing at public displays of stupidity.

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