Still Crazy After All These Years

He's been at it for decades. Paul Simon comes along with the right song at the right time.

"It's outrageous to line your pocket off the misery of the poor. Outrageous the crime some human beings must endure," Simon sings in a song aptly titled "Outrageous."

So for us Simon fans it does seem outrageous that we've had to wait six years since his last recording, quips CBS Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.

Simon's old enough for social security, but secure enough to have plenty to say.

Simon tells Smith he is 64-years-old. "I know that because on my 64th birthday Paul McCartney called me up and sang 'When I'm 64.' So I know it's a fact," Simon jokes.

At the time of the interview, Simon was preparing for a show at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The set includes some new stuff and some of the old.

"Part of the issue with people who get to be, ah, my age and have had a long history of hits is that you're carrying those hits, you're really lugging them along with you, you know," Simon says.

"Ah, and so you have to keep playing them because people want to hear them. They're not really familiar with what you're thinking at the moment. So you have to make a case for all of it to be interesting."

Paul Simon is a legend who's more concerned with today and tomorrow than yesterday.

Simon believes his creativity has not slowed in his older age.

"I'm very grateful for that, that my musical thinking is, I'm still very interested in it," Simon says. "I ask myself this question when I begin, every time I begin work on a new record, I say, 'Is it, are you sure you want to do this? Are you still interested in this?'"

The answer, Simon says, "I am."

Even more noticeable than Simon's creative mind is his radiating happiness.

"You know, I mean I had a very happy childhood. By the time I was almost 16 I made my first record. And that was a kind of a hit. A big enough hit that I was really famous in high school with my buddy Garfunkel, you know," Simon explains.

Simon's buddy, Art Garfunkel was a high school pal from Queens.

"Hey Schoolgirl" went to number 49 on the pop charts in 1957 and earned them an appearance on American Bandstand. In 1964, the duo got an audition with Columbia records, which signed them and let them use their real names.

"The Sound of Silence" became the first of many number one songs.

Over the next five years, their music with its poetic lyrics and beautiful harmony became an essential part of the culture.

"That was a magical time for me. We were just kids. We were known all over the world, everywhere. And we had a great ride," Simon says of his early years with Garfunkel.

But eventually that ride ended.

"I was writing all the songs, as well as playing and singing. But we had to be balanced. It wasn't -- I wasn't the boss of the, the partnership. I didn't tell him what to do. He didn't tell me what to do. There had to be some kind of agreement. That was pretty hard to come by, you know," Simon says.

"So, while, while it happened, it was really exciting. And when it was over, I think we were both relieved," he says.

It all seemed so tragic way back when. But, there have been reunions and even tours since.

"And we were friends since we were 11, you know. Then we had like famous falling outs. But they were nothing really. We made it up in the last time that we were around. We'll be you know, we're going down to the end together," Simon says.

And people, the fans, well, they never forget.

"Somebody stopped me on the street yesterday, and here's what they said: 'I know you. You're famous. Neil Simon? No, Garfinkel,'" Simon jokes.

For Simon going solo was a necessary artistic risk. And he'd take other risks, like acting…with Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in "Annie Hall."

In 1985, Simon went to South Africa to perform and record with groups like Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

The groundbreaking collaboration resulted in the album "Graceland" -- considered by many to be a masterpiece.

Simon's musical journey then took him to Brazil. The outcome: "Rhythm of the Saints."

Back home in New York in 1991, Simon performed in Central Park. The crowd: 750,000.

The following year Simon married singer Edie Brickell. They live in Connecticut with their three kids.

Simon it seemed could do no wrong until he went to Broadway where critics ravaged his 1998 musical "The Capeman." It closed after three months, losing an estimated 11 million dollars.

Simon, though, would not be silenced. He's been back in the studio. His new recording is called "Surprise."

One song on the album is titled "War Time Prayers." Simon says he wrote the song before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"I simply wanted to say, people who, people who are suffering in these wars -- not just this war that's about to come -- but all of these wars all over the world. The suffering that goes on," Simon pauses, then adds, "it's a great case that there's almost no reason to go to war."

The song's the thing. Not the fame. Not the glory. For Paul Simon, It's the song.

"If I write a song, and I really like that song, it's so great, Simon says.

"It's like ecstasy," he adds. "I'm sure something's going on in my brain, that some chemical is flooding my brain. And my brain says, 'Well, when are we gonna do this again?'"