Paul Simon.
(Image credit: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)

There must be 50 ways to leave a career, and Paul Simon has finally narrowed it down to one.

The musician and former Art Garfunkel partner has promised he won't write any more songs, he told NPR's All Songs Considered in an interview aired Wednesday. He'll wrap up a farewell tour later this month, and he affirmed in the Wednesday interview that the last album he'd write was the 2016 record Stranger to Stranger. Now, you can just call him retired.

Simon has another album slated for release this Friday, titled In the Blue Light. But the record is a "reimagining" of 10 previously written songs Simon wanted to "revisit," NPR explains, rather than a cache of new material. In fact, Simon told NPR, he hasn't "written a new song in a couple of years" because when he finished Stranger to Stranger, he "literally felt like a switch clicked" and realized he was "finished" with writing entirely.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

So after all these years — 62, to be exact — Simon opted to end a career that produced 14 solo albums and another five with Garfunkel. He's also won 16 Grammys, penned a Broadway musical, and wrote and starred in a film.

Looks like a post-retirement trip to Graceland is in order.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.