Kory Grow
Contact Kory Grow on X View all posts by Kory Grow June 11, 2026
Carly Simon Sally Taylor* 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.
