Paul Simon is adamant that he has no desire to write a memoir. He was intrigued, however, when the writer Malcolm Gladwell approached him with a different idea: to record an audiobook exploring his creative process as one of the world’s most popular and prolific singer-songwriters. “The idea of discussing my music in an audio forum was attractive because I had never done that before,” Mr. Simon, 80, said in a recent phone interview. “It’s always in prose, which never captures what’s going on in my musical thinking. The audio gives me the opportunity to demonstrate what I’m thinking, what influenced me, the choices that...

Paul Simon is adamant that he has no desire to write a memoir. He was intrigued, however, when the writer Malcolm Gladwell approached him with a different idea: to record an audiobook exploring his creative process as one of the world’s most popular and prolific singer-songwriters. “The idea of discussing my music in an audio forum was attractive because I had never done that before,” Mr. Simon, 80, said in a recent phone interview. “It’s always in prose, which never captures what’s going on in my musical thinking. The audio gives me the opportunity to demonstrate what I’m thinking, what influenced me, the choices that I make.”

The result of Mr. Simon’s collaboration with Mr. Gladwell and co-author Bruce Headlam is “Miracle and Wonder: Conversations With Paul Simon,” released last month by Pushkin Industries. It was recorded in nine lengthy sessions at Mr. Simon’s home in Connecticut and a studio in Hawaii, during which he was often holding a guitar, playing songs like “Mrs. Robinson, “The Boxer” and “Slip Slidin’ Away” in offhand but gripping solo acoustic renditions.

Mr. Simon’s memories of how he created songs almost 60 years ago are astoundingly meticulous. He demonstrates how “The Boxer” grew out of Travis picking, a style of guitar playing at the heart of countless folk and blues songs. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” started with a Bach guitar exercise that shifted into gospel mode, inspired by a line—“I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name”—in “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep,” a gospel classic sung by Claude Jeter with the Swan Silvertones.

“‘This is a musical biography: conversations with Paul Simon with some rumination added.’ ”

— Malcolm Gladwell

The singer provides many similar insights in interviews with Mr. Headlam, a guitarist who handles much of the musical questioning, and Mr. Gladwell, who serves as the book’s narrator. That makes “Miracle and Wonder” quite revealing even though it is “not a biography, where you expect a reasonably complete picture of someone’s life,” says Mr. Gladwell. For instance, there is no discussion of Mr. Simon’s three marriages, including his current 29-year union with singer Edie Brickell, or his four children. As Mr. Gladwell puts it, “This is a musical biography: conversations with Paul Simon with some rumination added.”

One relationship that Mr. Simon does examine is with his father Louis, a professional bassist who bought Paul his first guitar when he was 13 and taught him a handful of chords. It would remain a key songwriting tool: “I always start with the music, with the guitar,” he told me. “The words come as sounds first. I improvise melody over the guitar and then I sing sounds starting with oohs and ahhs and las. They become words, and sometimes the words are interesting and I keep them....Gradually, almost like a skin transplant, a piece starts to take a form. Somewhere around the two-thirds point in the writing, I say, ‘Ah, I see what the song is about.’”

Paul Simon (right) and Art Garfunkel, 1965.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Around the same time he got the guitar, Mr. Simon became friends with Art Garfunkel, who was known in their Queens, N.Y., neighborhood for his golden singing voice. In 1957, under the stage name Tom and Jerry, they released the original song “Hey Schoolgirl,” which was a big enough hit to get them on “American Bandstand.” They couldn’t replicate that success, however, and Mr. Simon enrolled at Queens College to study English literature. After class, he would take the subway to midtown Manhattan to write songs for a music publisher, recording demos in which he imitated popular singers like Frankie Avalon. His recording partner was Carole King, then still using her real last name, Klein.

When Mr. Simon wrote “The Sound of Silence” in 1964, he knew it was the best thing he had ever done and decided to quit his job and keep the song for himself. It helped get him and Mr. Garfunkel signed by Columbia Records, but the original acoustic recording flopped, and Mr. Simon went to London to lick his wounds. After the Byrds had a hit with a gentle rock version of Bob Dylan’s acoustic “Mr. Tambourine Man,” producer Tom Wilson released a new version of “The Sound of Silence” with band backing added, without telling the artists. The new version became a number one hit, turning Simon and Garfunkel into one of the biggest acts of the ‘60s.

After the duo split up in 1970, Mr. Simon launched a solo career that has produced hits like “Still Crazy After all These Years,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “Something So Right,” “Kodachrome,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Loves Me Like A Rock” and “Graceland.” ”Miracle and Wonder” traces Mr. Simon’s development as an omnivorous listener and experimenter, illustrating how he worked by “trial and error” to incorporate different influences into his work: gospel, doo wop, folk guitar, Bach, New Orleans Mardi Gras chants, Brazilian rhythms, African pop.

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Mr. Simon notes in the audiobook that one type of song he’s rarely written is the love song. “When I begin most songs, they’re very negative or angry. And I slowly peel that away because I don’t think there’s much pleasure in hearing a song that’s critical of something or somebody,” he says. “I don’t think that’s who I am, really, at the core.”

Mr. Simon’s last full-scale concert was in 2019 in Hawaii. He says that he will no longer perform big concerts, but he remains creatively vital and continues to enjoy performing small, intimate shows, usually with just one other guitarist, and usually for charity. That minimalist approach is featured on “The Seven Psalms,” the new album he is working on now and hopes to release early next year.

“There’s something about the simplicity of recording like that which takes you back to the core of what the song is about or the emotion it holds,” he says. “I used the year of lockdown to continue writing. It was a quiet time, no pressure. And I think that writing is probably what makes me really happy.”

In “Miracle and Wonder,” Mr. Simon says the title “The Seven Psalms” came to him in a dream on the anniversary of his father’s death. But he rejects the idea that the album is a eulogy for his father. “That could be a subtext,” he says. “But the thing about the subtext that you’re not aware of is it’s good that you’re not aware of it.”

Corrections & Amplifications
Paul Simon’s last full-scale concert was in 2019 in Hawaii. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was in 2018, at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens. (Corrected on Dec. 10.)