Credit: Far Out / Album Cover
Mon 14 September 2026 20:00, UK
One of the worst things that can happen to musicians, and that likely strikes fear into the heart of people like Paul Simon, is hitting a creative wall.
When you’ve had a successful career writing songs and putting together exciting records, the idea of one day heading into a recording studio, or sitting near an open pad of paper and having no ideas come to mind, must feel like a mini disaster. Luckily, this hasn’t happened to Paul Simon that much; however, another disaster did befall the singer, one which was more physical than mental.
You hear quite a lot of stories about musicians losing their ability to play whatever instrument they’re an expert in because of an accident. For instance, Django Reinhardt was on his way to becoming one of the greatest guitarists on the planet, but he came up against a severe roadblock when he was caught up in a caravan fire that seriously burned his hand. There were a lot of people who thought he might never play again, but he retaught himself and learned how to solo and perform despite these new issues.
A similar thing happened to Tony Iommi, the Black Sabbath guitarist, when he was working in a sheet metal factory and had a machine slice off the tips of his string pressing fingers. Once again, there were a lot of people who thought that the brummy guitarist might never play again because of these injuries, but he fashioned plastic tips, loosened his strings, and still managed to find a way to play.
“I sat in the hospital with my hand in this bag and I thought, ‘that’s it – I’m finished’,” recalled Sabbath’s six-string specialist. “But eventually I thought, ‘I’m not going to accept that. There must be a way I can play’.”
Well, it turns out, something similar(ish) happened to Paul Simon. It wasn’t quite as extreme as burning off fingers in a caravan fire or losing them in a sheet metal factory, but once, when he was talking about the song ‘Peace Like A River’, he said it was one of his final greatest performances because he couldn’t play guitar in the same way afterwards, following an injury to his hand. He often thought about playing the song during live shows, but wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to pull it off.
“You know, I was thinking of doing ‘Peace Like A River’ when I go back out on tour,” he said, “It’s not a very well-known song. It was on my first solo album [released in the US Paul Simon] and it comes from a conga drum rhythm. I guess it was the last time that I was really sharp as an acoustic guitar player, because somewhere after that, when I hurt my hand, it never really healed again.”
Further reading: From The Vault
So, what was the rock ‘n’ roll way in which Simon lost some of his guitar-playing ability? We’ve already had examples of fires and factory problems, but Simon’s issue was a lot less extreme. It was just one of those issues that often come with both age and an active lifestyle, as one too many games of squash really took their toll on the folk singer.
“I’m not really sure how I hurt it,” he said, “But I’m ambidextrous; I play guitar right-handed, so that means my left hand is the hand I’m using to bar chords with – but I’m a left-handed athlete. I was playing a lot of squash and then doing a lot of recording, that I bruised the first finger of my left hand, the joint on the first finger.”
