At 83, Paul Simon Names The Six Singers He Wanted To Sleep With | HO

NEW YORK — In a career spanning more than six decades, Paul Simon has been many things: folk-rock icon, lyrical sage, restless innovator, and cultural touchstone. But as the legendary songwriter turns 83, he’s decided to break with tradition and offer a confessional unlike any before. In a candid new interview, Simon names the six women whose voices, artistry, and presence not only shaped his music—but whom he admits he wished he could have been closer to, in every sense.

Simon’s frankness is not about salacious gossip, but about the profound impact that these six singers had on his life, creativity, and emotional world. “They weren’t just voices in my ear,” Simon says. “They were elemental tremors in my bloodstream.” For a man whose lyrics have often tiptoed around longing, regret, and the mysteries of intimacy, this revelation is both explosive and deeply human.

A Life in Music, A Legacy of Longing

Born in 1941, Paul Simon grew up in the golden age of American popular music. His father was a musician, and Simon’s earliest memories are of big bands and sophisticated arrangements echoing through family gatherings. By the early 1960s, Simon & Garfunkel had become a defining voice of the folk revival, with hits like “The Sound of Silence” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Simon’s solo career that followed was marked by constant reinvention, from the South African rhythms of “Graceland” to the introspective ballads of “Still Crazy After All These Years.”

Yet for all his success, Simon has always been a private man, his lyrics hinting at heartbreaks and secret yearnings, but rarely laying them bare. That changed this week, as Simon sat down with Rolling Stone to reflect on the women who “rewrote his soul.” The conversation, at times playful and at others deeply vulnerable, revealed a list of six singers who, Simon says, “pulled me from solitude and set my soul ablaze.”

Joni Mitchell: The Sunlit Sorceress

The first name on Simon’s list is Joni Mitchell, whom he calls “the cosmic wanderer.” Mitchell’s influence on Simon is well-documented, but he describes their connection as more than musical: “Her melodies broke over my soul like sunrise on a frozen sea,” Simon recalls. He credits Mitchell’s classic “Both Sides Now” as the song that first illuminated the emotional depths he’d buried beneath clever turns of phrase.

“Joni’s words were liquid starlight,” Simon says. “She exposed raw fractures and secret yearnings I’d long masked.” For Simon, Mitchell’s artistry was a lesson in vulnerability—not as weakness, but as a transformative surrender. “If I could have been closer to her, I think I would have learned even more about the beauty of being open,” he admits.

Patti Smith: The Punk Priestess

Next is Patti Smith, whose entrance into Simon’s life was nothing short of a baptism by fire. He first encountered Smith in a smoke-drenched Manhattan loft, her voice “cracking the air with sermon-like fervor.” Simon describes Smith as a “wildfire unleashed,” her poetry a blazing arrow that struck him with searing force.

“Patti’s fierce abandon taught me that true song must tremble with risk, bleed with honesty, and roar with conviction,” Simon says. Their brief, intense collaboration left Simon “hollowed and transformed.” He confesses, “If I could have slept with Patti, maybe some of her fire would have stayed with me longer.”

Stevie Nicks: The Moonlit Enchantress

Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s mystical frontwoman, is the third muse Simon names. He recalls first glimpsing her amid the roar of amplifiers, “a spectral vision crowned in chiffon.” Nicks’s duality—soft as moonlight, sharp as obsidian—captivated Simon. “Her harmonies were velvet shadows, her crescendos hurricane tides,” he says.

Simon credits Nicks with teaching him that “beauty need not be gentle to be profound.” He describes a longing to connect with her beyond the stage: “There was a magic to Stevie that made you want to step into her world and never leave,” Simon confides. “If I’d had the chance, I would have surrendered to that enchantment.”

Chrissie Hynde: The Defiant Vanguard

The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde is next, described by Simon as “the vanguard of defiance.” Their impromptu coffee rendezvous in a rain-lashed Paris café became a confessional tempest, with Hynde’s sardonic laughter “cracking the veneer of my composure.” Simon admired her ability to fuse rebellion and elegance, teaching him that “true beauty was born in unrest.”

“She dared me to drench my lyrics in raw color and bleed the grit of real life into every melodic line,” Simon says. “If I could have been closer to Chrissie, I think I would have found the courage to shred my own comforts and embrace the jagged edges of my story.”

Debbie Harry: The Incandescent Siren

Debbie Harry, Blondie’s iconic frontwoman, is the fifth singer on Simon’s list. He recalls spotting her beneath a thunderhead-lit marquee, her voice “equal parts velvet caress and razor-sharp incantation.” Simon says Harry’s charisma was a paradox—“a warrior princess cloaked in vulnerability.”

Their brief backstage encounter became a crucible of confession, with Harry sharing dreams lost to the spotlight’s glare and victories hollowed by loss. “Debbie taught me that art’s most potent power lies in the tension between light and shadow,” Simon says. “If I could have slept with her, it would have been an embrace of both the dazzling spark and the slow burn of grief.”

PJ Harvey: The Tempest-Born Poetess

Finally, Simon names PJ Harvey, whose voice he describes as “lightning strike and lullaby of devastation.” Their fleeting collaboration felt like “standing at the edge of creation and destruction.” Harvey’s primal intensity forced Simon to “relinquish safe harmonies and dive headfirst into the abyss of unfiltered emotion.”

“PJ’s echo lingered in my veins long after she left,” Simon says. “She showed me the boundless potential of vulnerability.” He admits, “If I could have been with PJ, I think I would have learned how to shatter convention and sculpt new worlds from the shards of the old.”

Why These Six? Why Now?

Simon’s revelations come at a time when the musician is reflecting on his own legacy and mortality. “My odyssey has been one of whispered soliloquies and hidden crossroads,” he says. “But it was these women who splintered my silence and set my soul ablaze.” For Simon, the list is not simply about attraction, but about transformation.

“They were not just muses,” Simon explains. “They were mirrors and reckoning. Through their fierce harmonies and haunting silences, I discovered that music’s truest alchemy lies in vulnerability’s fire—the bravery to bleed lyric into the world, to embrace every facet of the human heart.”

Simon’s confessions have sparked a wave of reactions across the music world. Fans and fellow musicians alike have praised his honesty, with many seeing the list as a tribute to the power of female artistry. Music critic Amanda Petrus notes, “Simon’s choices are not just about desire—they’re about admiration for women who broke boundaries and remade the rules.”

A Final Reflection

As Paul Simon steps back from the spotlight, he carries the thunder and whispers of these six women within every chord. “To sing is to live,” Simon says. “And to live is to surrender wholly to the song.” At 83, the legendary songwriter has given the world one last verse—a testament to the power of longing, vulnerability, and the women who taught him how to truly feel.

Whether these confessions are read as romantic, artistic, or simply human, one thing is clear: the echoes of Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, and PJ Harvey will resound in Simon’s music—and in the hearts of listeners—for generations to come.