Inside Carly Simon’s First Original Album In 18 Years: Stories Behind the Songs & Which One She Plays ‘Whenever I Need To Cry’

The legendary singer-songwriter has released her first album in nearly 20 years. 8/17/2026 Carly Simon Sally Taylor On Aug. 14, Carly Simon released, Comes in Waves, her first album of original material since 2008’s This Kind of Love. Written and recorded largely at her home on Martha’s Vineyard, the album showcases Simon’s still instantly recognizable throaty, sultry vocals on many of the 12 songs, including the stately “Maybe I Never Loved You” (rumored to be about ex, James Taylor) and uplifting album closer, “Do It Anyway.” The Oscar and Grammy-winning Simon, famous for such hits as “Nobody Does It Better,” “Anticipation,” “Let the River Run” and “You Belong To Me,” has been an influence on women singers for decades, including Olivia Rodrigo, who performed “You’re So Vain” in Simon’s honor at her 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. In July, Simon announced she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and treated for skin cancer. “It has taken me some time to understand the diagnosis, to adjust to it, and to decide how much I wanted to say about it publicly,” she said in a statement. “Parkinson’s is different for everyone, and it can be unpredictable. Some days I’m so tired I can’t get the day moving at all. On others, it gives me a little more room to move, think, work, and feel like myself.” Recording new music has been a salve. “Working on the music gave shape to days that did not always have much shape. It gave me somewhere to go without having to leave the room,” she continued. “It reminded me that illness can change your life without becoming the whole of your life.” Simon’s illness precluded her from doing interviews for the project, but Simon provided Billboard with an exclusive, written look behind 11 of the album’s 12 songs, sharing the often intimate stories behind their creations. Simon wrote five of the songs by herself, penning the remaining with numbers of collaborators, including her son Ben Taylor, who also helped produce the set. “Comes in Waves” The name of this album floats in from [another] song on this album, “Slowly”: What comes in waves? Everything, including happiness, melancholy, love, anger, pain, despair, hunger, relief. We even call what’s happening now the “current” moment, as if a tide is lapping at our consciousness. “Slowly” is about those times when we feel we just can’t make it through the day, life is too painful, or too sad, or too frustrating. But we do. Over and over. It’s the cycle of life, a lesson in patience, and hope, a tribute to our own guileless heart. “Howl” A good friend’s boyfriend, who will remain nameless, had just walked out on her, and I wrote this song, hoping to exorcise the fury I was feeling about their breakup. The songs is straightforward: love has no rules, it’s raw, impolite, a rebel with no cause — so why do we insist on containing and organizing it? “Howl” is about letting the frustration out, so it doesn’t keep boiling on the back burner. And if love lets us down, why shouldn’t we go temporarily nuts, purge our emotions — feel ourselves back into life again? I especially love the color illustration that goes along with this song, drawn by my daughter Sally, who’s a wonderful artist, and the way she captures and combines the clouds and the water. “Maybe I Never Loved You” When you’re in a love affair, it can be extremely hard to see yourself or your partner clearly. Then, when it ends, it’s as if a fog has blown off out to sea, allowing you to discern outlines and shapes and patterns you were too in love to notice. Did I really love you — or did I make the whole thing up? Some questions you can never put to rest. “Peaches” In the early 2000s, I’d just finished working on Piglet’s Big Movie. I was fiddling around with the AAP Machine I kept around, despite not knowing how to work it. One day, I turned on the drum function and improvised “Peaches” on the spot — which is the opposite way I usually compose music, the lesson here maybe being that underthinking a song can sometimes guide you down a strange, fearless road. “Peaches,” and its perspective, literally came out of nowhere. It’s about getting what you always wanted — peaches, dancing, an alluring face — and realizing you’d rather be home under the covers dreaming about these things. “Love Has No Ending” I was probably introduced to W.H. Auden, the English poet, during the one year I spent at Sarah Lawrence College. Auden’s original poem is titled, “As I Walked out One Evening,” and I’ve always loved it, especially the message that love is as limitless as water rushing, and can never be measured, that love is forever in a state of readiness, a pre-bloom that can slowly give way to exaltation. “Mother of Pearl” Sally is my firstborn, my golden daughter, but in some ways, I’ve always thought of her as a maternal figure. Just as when we’re growing up, we’re slightly scared of our parents (they know us better than anyone), our own children can be just as formidable. Sally, like her brother Ben, inspires and protects me, she’s every polished stone and jewel combined, she’s my gift, my lasting light. “Slowly” I had invited the wonderful Swiss harpist, Andres Vollenweider, to join me on the Vineyard, along with Teese Gohl, my musical arranger for almost two decades, the goal being to come together and see what music we could come up with. I had the melody for “Slowly” lying around. That week, in my barn, the lyrics came to life. I love this song. Whenever I need to cry, but can’t, I put on “Slowly.” Your stride will come back to you — that always bursts the dam. The promise that whatever happens, you’ll come back, you’ll be okay, you’ve got this. “Four In the Morning” A year and a half ago, Judy Belushi, a longtime Vineyarder, neighbor, and close friend, was bedbound, finishing up a four-year battle with endometrial cancer. Ben and I visited her regularly, sitting by her bedside and writing songs with her. Judy had completed the lyrics for “Four in the Morning,” and I composed the melody, then recorded it. It’s a song about walking out, walking away, walking toward yourself. Judy — I wish you were still here and could hear your own words. “Love the Way I Do” David Saw, who’s an incredible musician, was staying with us on the island, and one day he came up with this melody when I came up behind him and began singing the words. Pity the poor man who never knew love the way I do — it can’t be more straightforward. Ben and Natasha Beddingfield were there too, and contributing to the finished product. “Share the End” “Share The End” always felt like a hidden gem — quiet but powerful. Today, in a time of war, real and phony despots, division, and dishonesty across the globe, it sometimes feels to me the world is still “going up in flames” — five decades after I first recorded this song. “Do It Anyway” I wrote “Do It Anyway” in the mid-1980s. It’s about picking yourself up, and getting back into whatever the game was that just knocked you out of commission. It’s based on advice I remember giving a friend who was down in the dumps, and I remember recording the song in my New York City bedroom. Who was the friend to whom I was offering such peppy counsel? Oh, it was probably me, songs are funny that way. And near the end I patched in a recording made by my giddy, beloved, most favorite relative growing up — my wonderful Uncle Peter. Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox Sign Up