So here we are, at last.
After 18 years, a whole new album of songs from Carly Simon, who ruled the airwaves in the 70s and 80s with one beautifully crafted hit after another. Simon wrote them, sang them, sometimes produced them.
They all went to the top of the charts, and she enormous respect as part of a trio — with Joni Mitchell and Carole King — of the women who helped invent the singer songwriter era.
It didn’t hurt, in Simon’s case, that she was also beautiful, had a highly publicized love life with A list men, and married a famous singer (James Taylor).
I first heard “Howl” five years ago when it was titled “Call Love a Liar.” You didn’t have to be Clive Davis to know it was a hit. How to get past the fury of love going bad, and still hoping to carry on — Lana del Rey, anyone? Billie Eilish. This is how they knew it could be done.
It took that time following the birth of “Howl” to push through massive loss and personal illness for Simon, now 83, to find her way back to an actual album. But she has, and it was worth the wait.
“Peaches” is a deceptive Latin cha cha cha that you won’t get out of your head. And then…Already gossip columns are blowing up with “Maybe I Never Loved You,” a personal taunt that makes Taylor Swift’s guess-who-this-is-about songs seem like child’s play. Skip to the end for “Do It Anyway,” an old demo Carly rescued and revived as an earwig. “Slowly” sneaks up on you like a slow gospel number. “Love Has No Ending” tempers “Maybe I Never Loved You,” almost taking it back.
And then there’s the sweet little gem you don’t expect: “The Father Daughter Dance” was written by Simon and Ernest Thompson, playwright of “On Golden Pond.” Thompson has been planning it for inclusion in new productions of his famous play. But knowing Simon’s story — her troubled father who created Simon & Schuster — gives the song a poignant new meaning.
Simon has a 55 year career with an enormous catalog. So her remaster of the 1971 song, “Share the End” — from the “Anticipation” album, written with Jacob Brackman — is spot on. Talk about political prescience in metaphor. Back then it was Nixon, now it’s you know who.
Grade: A+, the perfect gift for the dog days of summer. Bravo!
