Carly Simon howls like the wind on “Howl,” the lead single to her upcoming album, Comes in Waves. The song’s lyrics are a letter to a friend whose lover has just left them. With a big, catchy chorus, Simon advises the friend to get it out of their system: “Howl like the wind/Roar like the river/Wail like the rain/Cry, shout, and shiver,” all leading to the ultimate catharsis, “Call love a liar.” The song is gentle and powerful, and it portends more good songs for the rest of the album, which will be Simon’s first in nearly two decades when it comes out on Aug. 14.
“‘Howl’ lives in that space between betrayal and forgiveness, where anger has to be voiced before it can be released,” Simon said in a statement. “It’s about letting the frustration out, so it doesn’t sit and simmer. The song begins in anger, but it moves toward forgiveness and speaks to any situation where trust has been broken.”
Simon, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, wrote and recorded “Howl” and the rest of Comes in Waves at her studio in Martha’s Vineyard. The record contains nine new original songs and a couple of songs the artist, 82, wrote earlier in her life and decided to revisit. She plucked the album title from “Slowly,” another song on the album about resetting oneself, which her label says is the theme that runs through the record. The musicians on the album include John Forté (the Refugee Camp All-Stars member who died in January) and Simon’s children, son Ben Taylor and daughter Sally Taylor; Sally created the album art.
Producer Paul Samwell-Smith, who worked with Simon in the Seventies, oversaw the project. Simon also credits producer and engineer Frank Filipetti, who has worked with Simon over several decades, with helping her find the direction of the album.
The artist’s last album, Never Been Gone, came out in 2009. In 2023, the anthology album, These Are the Good Old Days: The Carly Simon and Jac Holzman Story, included Simon singing a previously unreleased rendition of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” which was released as a single.
Comes in Waves Track List
1. “Howl”
2. “Maybe I Never Loved You”
3. “Peaches”
4. “Love Has No Ending”
5. “Mother of Pearl”
6. “Slowly”
7. “Four in the Morning”
8. “The More I Look for You”
9. “Love the Way I Do”
10. “The Father Daughter Dance”
11. “Share the End”
12. “Do It Anyway”
