Paul Simon is just days away from kicking off an extensive world tour in Prague that will keep him on the road until mid-July. But before departing for the Czech Republic, he stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for an interview segment and a performance of the There Goes Rhymin’ Simon deep cut “Something So Right,” which he last played in 1993 during his Concert of a Lifetime residency at the Paramount Theater in New York City.
During the interview, Simon looked back at his time as a folk singer in England in the Sixties, prior to the breakthrough success of Simon and Garfunkel. “It had a tremendous effect on my music,” he said. “That culture, the English/Celtic…I love that music, fell in love with that music. Here I would have heard it in the sounds of the Everly Brothers, but there you hear the origins of it.”
Simon moved back to America in 1965 once the “Sounds of Silence” started to climb the charts thanks to a new folk-rock rendition that Columbia producer Tom Wilson put together the very day he recorded “Like a Rolling Stone” with Bob Dylan. As Simon explained to Colbert, he heard from Art Garfunkel that the song had entered the very bottom of the Cashbox singles chart. A couple of weeks later, Simon grabbed the newest issue of Cashbox while in Copenhagen for a show.
“I said, ‘I just can’t bear to look at it,’” Simon said. “I knew if it came in anywhere between 100 and 80, you’re not going to have a hit. I quickly go, ‘Good, it’s not there. Now, 80 to 70, not there. Okay, that could be good.’ Now I go one at a time 70, 69. 68… And I go, ‘Oh my God.’ There it is at 59. I said, I’ll never forget this, ‘My Life is irrevocably changed.’”
He was correct. And over 60 years later, “The Sounds of Silence” remains a key part of his live show. It was the final encore most every night of his 2025 A Quiet Celebration tour, which was his first outing since 2018’s Homeward Bound – The Farewell tour. If he sticks to the script from last year for the upcoming dates, he’ll perform his 2023 LP Seven Psalms straight through prior to a second set of hits and rarities, including “Homeward Bound,” “Train in the Distance,” “Graceland,” and “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard.”
The U.S. leg of the tour begins June 4 in Palo Alto, California, and wraps up July 18 in Highland Park, Illinois. Along the way, he’s playing two nights at Forest Hills Stadium in New York City, just a few minutes away from his childhood home in Kew Gardens, Queens.
