Sound Up! with Mark Goodman and Alan Light
Aug 4, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 19 segments
As we look back at some of our favorite episodes from the Sound Up! archive during the month of August, we honor the recent passing of beloved singer-songwriter Glen Hansard with a replay of a show…
Alan LightHost
Mark GoodmanHost
Glenn HansardGuest
Marketa IrglovaGuestRoger ColettiHost
Should I start things here? A little relatively quiet week this week, but I did go to see Paul Simon for the first of four nights that he played at the Beacon Theater.
And of course, this is all still very strange because I went to the last show that the end of touring for Paul Simon, a triumphant show in Queens in 2018, I believe, maybe 2019.
But we got the news a few months back that Paul Simon was going back on tour and has been playing around our nation a series of shows.
And I guess he was the first, when they reopened the Beacon Theater, he was the first artist to play that stage, somebody said, which was a nice touch for, you know, the local kid.
And he plays that through in fall without a break as sort of the first act of the show.
Then he comes back and plays songs from the catalog, which are definitely not all hits.
And I think the big question all around was what was going to be the state of Paul's voice? Because we know when he stepped aside, he said he can't hear himself sing on stage.
Some of the TV appearances have seemed kind of diminished, let's say, that we've seen in recent months.
Because these are songs written for this voice, and sort of this version of Paul Simon.
Can you explain what that means, written for this voice? Because, as you say, that is the question.
Yeah, these are new compositions that if people watched the documentary, watched Alex Gibney's documentary, that's largely in addition to a retrospective of the career, is a lot of footage of these sessions.
Making this album, he was already struggling with his hearing and with a sense of, you know, sort of racing the clock to get this thing done while he still felt capable of doing it.
Should I start things here? A little relatively quiet week this week, but I did go to see Paul Simon for the first of four nights that he played at the Beacon Theater.
And of course, this is all still very strange because I went to the last show that the end of touring for Paul Simon, a triumphant show in Queens in 2018, I believe, maybe 2019.
But we got the news a few months back that Paul Simon was going back on tour and has been playing around our nation a series of shows.
And I guess he was the first, when they reopened the Beacon Theater, he was the first artist to play that stage, somebody said, which was a nice touch for, you know, the local kid.
And he plays that through in fall without a break as sort of the first act of the show.
Then he comes back and plays songs from the catalog, which are definitely not all hits.
And I think the big question all around was what was going to be the state of Paul's voice? Because we know when he stepped aside, he said he can't hear himself sing on stage.
Some of the TV appearances have seemed kind of diminished, let's say, that we've seen in recent months.
Because these are songs written for this voice, and sort of this version of Paul Simon.
Can you explain what that means, written for this voice? Because, as you say, that is the question.
Yeah, these are new compositions that if people watched the documentary, watched Alex Gibney's documentary, that's largely in addition to a retrospective of the career, is a lot of footage of these sessions.
Making this album, he was already struggling with his hearing and with a sense of, you know, sort of racing the clock to get this thing done while he still felt capable of doing it.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.