{"id":405,"date":"2012-10-26T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T09:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2012-10-24T15:36:08","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T14:36:08","slug":"song-of-the-week-coming-around-again-by-carly-simon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Coming Around Again&#8221; by Carly Simon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a live performance by Carly Simon of her 1987 hit, &#8220;Coming Around Again&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t_xqI8NSlkA\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Carly recorded this song for the film <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0091188\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Heartburn<\/em><\/a>, which I saw on an airplane when I was far too young to have any idea what was going on.\u00a0 Why were Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson being so mean to each other?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Coming Around Again&#8221; is a devastating portrait of a disintegrating marriage.\u00a0 The verses present a series of domestic images that range from mundane to fragile to outright hostile, and Carly Simon delivers them in a small range of notes that suggests a weariness or ennui on the part of the narrator.\u00a0 The chorus, switches to the first person, opens the possibility for reconciliation, but tinged with the sadness of emotional scars, as well as the offer of a heart that has more space because it&#8217;s been broken.\u00a0 On the second time through the chorus adds a further note of heartbreak: despite the disappointment,\u00a0 frustration and violence, I still believe in love, and what else can I do? I&#8217;m still in love with you.\u00a0 On this live performance, Carly and her band also reinvent the nursery rhyme, &#8220;Itsy Bitsy Spider&#8221; as they sing it against the &#8220;I believe in love&#8221; refrain.\u00a0 This juxtaposition of image and straight-out statement, as well as the connotations that the nursery rhyme bring with it, exemplifies what gives this song its emotional power: just as Carly sings, &#8220;Nothing stays the same,&#8221; none of the images or sentiments here remains stable, so that the song doesn&#8217;t <em>tell<\/em> you about heartbreak, but rather <em>embodies<\/em> its emotional and physical violence, as well as its confusion.<\/p>\n<p>Musically the song is intelligently understated, playing within a few simple themes that do nothing flashy, but come together&#8211;along with the lyrics&#8211; to create a real atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Coming Around Again&#8221; is one of the saddest songs I know.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Coming%20Around%20Again%22%20by%20Carly%20Simon\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. Here&#8217;s a live performance by Carly Simon of her 1987 hit, &#8220;Coming Around Again&#8221;: Carly recorded this song for the film Heartburn, which I saw on an airplane when I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Coming%20Around%20Again%22%20by%20Carly%20Simon\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}