Simon married the singer Edie Brickell, known for her 1988 hit "
What I Am," in 1992. He was previously married to the actress Carrie Fisher from 1982-1983 and to Peggy Harper from 1969-1975.
Simon made a cameo as a Record Producer in the 1977 Woody Allen movie Annie Hall.
After his first Simon & Garfunkel album,
Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, Simon left for England and established himself as a folk artist. In 1966 he was called back to the US when their song "
The Sound of Silence" was released with electric instruments overdubbed over the original acoustics, and hit #1 in the US. Afterward, he created four more albums with Garfunkel:
The Sounds of Silence,
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,
Bookends and
Bridge Over Troubled Water.
He is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist and as a member of Simon & Garfunkel.
After high school, he studied English literature at Queens College. He wrote and recorded many songs during this time.
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He was very upset by the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. So much so that he left the country to live in England for a while. Simon stayed there for approximately two years, playing folk clubs that were typically rooms above pubs, with audiences of between 50 and 75 people. He described this period as where he learned "how to be an act," putting together a set, talking to a crowd, and reading the room.
By 2009, he had released three times as many solo albums (15) as Simon & Garfunkel albums (5).
Simon got his start in the music industry working for a song publishing company called E.B. Marks, where his job was to sell songs to record companies. When he got frustrated and left the company, he decided to self-publish any songs he wrote - a move that turned out to be very lucrative.
Simon has never written a memoir or participated in a biography. In 2016, Peter Carlin released a comprehensive novel about his life called
Homeward Bound that was years in the making. Carlin
told Songfacts: "You don't have to listen to much Paul Simon music to understand that they are the work of a complicated and sometimes troubled soul. Sometimes he does things that remind us of his darkness, but he has also created music and lyrics that remind us that no matter how dark things can seem, there's a beauty and generosity that exists around us, too."
He hosted the second-ever episode of Saturday Night Live, in which he staged a reunion with Art Garfunkel. Simon also starred in a taped comedy bit playing basketball against NBA great Connie Hawkins. The SNL cast, including John Belushi, got very little screentime and were not pleased with Simon, but the show went over very well and producer Lorne Michaels had him back on many times. He met his future wife Edie Brickell when she performed on the show in 1988.
Simon sang on BBC Radio for the first time in 1965 on the religious program 9:55. His song "A Church is Burning" outraged the broadcaster's head of religious broadcasting.
In 1970, Paul Simon taught a songwriting workshop at NYU that was lightly advertised. One of his students was Melissa Manchester, who went on to write hits for herself and others, including "
Midnight Blue" and "
Whenever I Call You 'Friend'."
"It was a beautifully run class,"
Manchester explained to Songfacts. "It was very touching. We met once a week for a couple of hours and everybody had to come in with either an idea or a verse or a finished song, including Paul Simon. He talked about the life of the professional singer-songwriter, and it was dazzling. We were all wannabes and here he was in the trenches teaching us about what he was seeing up ahead."
There's an interesting connection between Paul Simon and the British folk singer Martin Carthy. They both resided in the same Belsize Park flat in London, with Simon moving in after Carthy. Their paths crossed in a less harmonious way when Simon & Garfunkel's 1966 album
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme featured their adaptation of the traditional ballad "
Scarborough Fair." This adaptation was heavily influenced by Carthy's arrangement, but without any credit given. The resulting tension lingered for decades until 2000, when Simon finally bridged the gap by inviting Carthy on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo for a duet of the very song that caused the rift.
Simon has written all his songs on guitar bar one, which he wrote on piano. "I can barely play any piano," he told Uncut magazine. "I'm kinda ambidextrous – our left-handed for many things, but I play the guitar right-handed. With the piano, my left hand is stronger, so I can play chords on the left hand on the piano, and I can bang out some harmonic passage with my right hand. I only wrote one song on the piano: 'Nobody,' on my album One Trick Pony."
Simon embarked on a farewell tour in 2018, but like Elton John, Billy Joel, Cher and many others who
rescinded their send-offs, he didn't really retire from touring. In 2025 he announced the Quiet Celebration Tour, the title a reference to the stage setup modified to accommodate his hearing loss.
