Paul Simon's Wife Edie Brickell Picked Him Up in a 'Yellow 1972 Pickup Truck' for Their First Date

Mar. 15, 2025

Paul Simon and Edie Brickell in New York City in March 2016.Photo:Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

Paul SimonandEdie Brickellhave been riding in style since the beginning of their relationship.

In part two of the new documentaryIn Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, the 82-year-old singer says that for his “first big date” with his now wife Edie Brickell — to whom he has been married for over 30 years — he made his way to Dallas to see her. “I got off the plane, and there she was in this yellow 1972 pickup truck,” Simon says in an interview for the documentary. “I guess that was our first big date.”

While Brickell, 58, did not meet Simon until she was 22, the “What I Am” singer says her now husband first caught her eye when she was 16. “I had an older friend, and I was flipping through her albums, and I came across this beautiful face,” Brickell recalls in the documentary. “And I had shivers down the back of my neck, and I said, ‘Look at this guy,’ and she said, ‘You don’t know Paul Simon? You’ll love his music too.'"

Edie Brickell and Paul Simon in New York City in May 1999.Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Online USA, Inc./Getty

Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Online USA, Inc./Getty

The duo officially met in 1988 when Brickell’s band, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, performed onSaturday Night Live. (He was 47 at the time; she was 22.) Simon, who is a longtime friend ofSNLcreatorLorne Michaels, was standing behind one of the cameras, and as soon as Brickell saw him she says she felt the same feelings that she did when she was 16. “I did, he shocked me,” she says about seeing him for the first time.

“I was all prepared because we’d been playing that song for two years. They said just follow the red dots on the camera, when you see the red light come on, look at that camera. I’m doing all of this, feeling pretty confident getting through it, and then I look at the center camera red light, and there’s Paul Simon standing right next to it. And everyone else has recessed in the shadows, and he is standing out like a hologram. It was like being awakened from a dream into another dream.”

TheSimon & Garfunkelsinger responds to the story with a laugh, saying “I didn’t mean to distract her, nor did I think for a moment that she would be paying any attention to me at all."

Edie Brickel and Paul Simon perform during the 2015 Gershwin Prize ceremony honoring Willie Nelson in Washington, D.C. in November 2015.Kris Connor/Getty

Kris Connor/Getty

While the duo hit it off, figuring out they had a 25-year age gap “‘shocked” them. “I don’t know who asked first ‘How old are you?’ The both of us were shocked at the answers," Simon says. “It was like a moment where we thought, ‘Well, there goes a good idea.' But then she said, ‘I am coming back to New York in a few weeks to play a club, and I said, ‘Oh, I’ll come down!’ and she said, ‘Oh great,’ so I did. Then I went down to visit her in Dallas.”

Brickell adds, “We hit it off! There was a sweet attraction.”

Three decades andthree kids later, Simon and Brickell’s marriage is just as strong. “Paul inspires you to think and feel things for yourself,” Brickell says. “He opens his palms and says, ‘What are we going to do?’”

Edie Brickell and Paul Simon in Los Angeles in October 2017.Ryan Miller/Shutterstock

Simon, who was previously married to Peggy Harper (with whom he shares a son) andStar WarsactressCarrie Fisher, responds: “I never met anybody like Edie. She’s very interested in the mystery — the big mystery about life. You can never solve the mystery, and that’s what’s so great about it. You don’t want to solve it. But you try to plug into it, and I follow what she’s thinking. I follow her instincts.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simonis available to stream on MGM+.

source: people.com