It’s easy to miss what an interesting artist Carly Simon is. I’ve certainly been guilty of it; bar a few undeniable gems, it felt like her oeuvre was based in a 1970s white rock music retreat from the innovations of the previous decade – a footnote to The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Elton John’s mega-big building of a new conventionality. It didn’t help that contemporary reviews or cultural commentary tended to mention her almost entirely in gossipy terms about her glamour and social / romantic life – essentially through a prism of her relationship to famous men. As such I ignored her later music too.
A couple of things changed this. The first was reading Sheila Waller’s 2008 Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – and the Journey of a Generation. Its depiction of how the life and work of hree women from radically different places converged in Los Angeles provides fascinating insight on the sexual revolution and evolution of pop culture, and the understanding of Simon’s background in the bohemian aristocracy of Riverdale, Greenwich Village and Martha’s Vineyard spectacularly illuminates the urbanity and subtlety of her writing and performance.
The second was hearing Simon’s 2009 Never Been Gone album of stripped down recordings of songs from throughout her career. Her voice is a little cracked, the production strange and inventive: without the Seventies/Eighties sheen the personality of the songs – notably including newer ones – shines out. Now comes Comes in Waves. Simon is now 83, and this was written and recorded as she processed debilitation by arthritis and Parkinsons and facial surgery for a carcinoma; her voice rawer again, but her creative urges still as strong as ever.
As with her most famous work anything obviously autobiographical is veiled in hyper-literate writing, but the wistfulness of reflection in talking about evergreen themes of loss, love and memory is unmistakeable, as is a burning desire to be alive. Musically it is rooted heavily in torch song, hymns and vaudeville, but there is plenty of inventiveness to structure and production – the Eighties Talking Heads / Paul Simon groove of “Peaches” and Chinese instrumentation in the devastating hymnal “Slowly” are highlights. Sometimes the Broadway-ism can tip over in to schmaltz and the lyrics enter Facebook motivational post obviousness (the opener “Howl” is probably the weakest moment), but even that feels part of the whole; overall this is great on its own terms, and even better in the context of what I now realise is an extraordinary life and back catalogue.
Listen to "Peaches":
