Paul Simon at 85: the timeless art of a songwriting legend

Born on October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, Paul Simon celebrates today his 85th birthday with a legacy that reaches far beyond the familiar melodies of The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson and Bridge Over Troubled Water. One of the most accomplished songwriters of his generation, he has built a career defined by an extraordinary combination of lyrical precision, melodic instinct and a restless curiosity that has continually taken him beyond the boundaries of folk and rock.

His musical journey began long before international fame.
As a teenager, he met Art Garfunkel, a childhood friend from Queens, New York, with whom he would eventually form one of the most celebrated duos in popular music. Initially performing under the name Tom & Jerry, the pair scored an early hit in 1957 with Hey, Schoolgirl. Their partnership would later evolve into Simon & Garfunkel, whose delicate vocal harmonies and Simon’s increasingly sophisticated songwriting helped define the sound of the 1960s.

Their breakthrough came in 1965, when The Sound of Silence unexpectedly became a hit after producer Tom Wilson added electric instrumentation to an earlier acoustic recording. The song’s success transformed the duo’s fortunes and opened the door to a remarkable run of albums and singles. Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and Bookends established their reputation, while songs such as Homeward Bound, America, Scarborough Fair/Canticle and Mrs. Robinson demonstrated Simon’s ability to combine intimate observations with a broader sense of uncertainty, nostalgia and social change.
Released in 1970, Bridge Over Troubled Water became the crowning achievement of their partnership. The album topped charts around the world, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and produced a title track that remains one of the most enduring recordings in American popular music. Yet success could not resolve the creative differences between the two musicians. Simon & Garfunkel went their separate ways that year, although their music and occasional reunions would ensure that their story was never entirely over.

For Simon, the end of the duo marked the beginning of an equally fascinating chapter. His self-titled solo album, released in 1972, revealed an artist unwilling to settle for the formula that had brought him fame. Mother and Child Reunion, recorded with Jamaican musicians and featuring reggae influences, offered an early indication of his willingness to explore sounds beyond the traditional American singer-songwriter repertoire. Further successes followed with There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years, the latter winning the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1976.
Simon could write about loneliness, relationships and the passing of time without sacrificing wit or musical sophistication. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover became one of his biggest solo hits, while Still Crazy After All These Years and American Tune revealed a more reflective side to his writing. His songs often sounded deceptively simple: beneath their accessible melodies lay carefully constructed narratives, unusual rhythms and an acute understanding of the contradictions of everyday life.
Then came Graceland, the 1986 album that demonstrated just how far his curiosity could take him. Inspired in part by South African music, Simon travelled to Johannesburg in 1985 and worked with South African musicians, including members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The resulting record brought together American songwriting and a rich mixture of South African musical traditions, creating a sound that was both immediately accessible and strikingly unconventional for mainstream pop at the time.
Tracks such as You Can Call Me Al, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes and The Boy in the Bubble became landmarks in his catalogue. Graceland won the Grammy for Album of the Year, while its international success brought South African musical traditions to a much wider audience. The project also generated controversy over cultural boycotts of apartheid-era South Africa, making Simon’s achievement inseparable from a wider debate about artistic collaboration, politics and cultural responsibility.

Rather than repeat the formula, Simon continued to experiment. The Rhythm of the Saints explored Brazilian influences, while later projects moved between acoustic songwriting, electronic textures, orchestral arrangements and theatrical storytelling. His Broadway musical The Capeman, released as an album in 1997 before its 1998 stage production, was a commercial and critical disappointment, but it reflected the same willingness to take creative risks that had characterised his most successful work.
Recognition followed throughout the decades. Simon was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Garfunkel in 1990 and entered it again as a solo artist in 2001. In 2007, he became the first recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, an honour recognising his contribution to American music. His career has also brought him multiple Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins across his work with Garfunkel and his solo recordings.

In 2018, Simon announced his retirement from large-scale touring with the Homeward Bound – The Farewell Tour, bringing an emotional close to a career spent travelling the world with his songs. Retirement, however, did not mean the end of his creative life. In 2023, he released Seven Psalms, a continuous, seven-part, 33-minute composition inspired in part by a dream. Quiet, contemplative and concerned with spirituality, mortality and the human condition, it stood in striking contrast to the rhythmic exuberance of Graceland while revealing the same desire to follow an idea wherever it might lead.
That late-career chapter has continued to evolve.
In 2026, Simon returned to the stage with the A Quiet Celebration performances, bringing Seven Psalms together with selections from his extensive catalogue. The concerts offered a reminder that his music has never depended solely on nostalgia: even after decades of acclaim, he remains an artist interested in what a song can still discover.

At 85, Paul Simon’s achievement lies not simply in the number of classics he has written, nor in the extraordinary success of Simon & Garfunkel. It lies in the distance he has travelled without losing the unmistakable qualities of his songwriting: precision, curiosity, humanity and an instinct for finding universal meaning in the smallest details.

From the fragile intimacy of The Sound of Silence to the spiritual searching of Seven Psalms, his music has continually changed while retaining its own distinctive voice. Few songwriters have managed to make such a long career feel like an ongoing conversation rather than a retrospective. And few have left behind a catalogue in which so many different generations can find something that speaks directly to them.