The album includes songs and fragments of songs that had been waiting for me, some for years. There were melodies, verses, and ideas written down and tucked away for some unknown future when I would have the time and attention to finish them.

Apparently, that future is now.

Working on the music gave shape to days that did not always have much shape. It gave me somewhere to go without having to leave the room. It reminded me that illness can change your life without becoming the whole of your life.

I do not consider Parkinson’s a gift or a blessing. It is neither. It is difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening. I am still learning how to live with it and how to accept it without feeling that I have surrendered something essential.

I am still writing, singing, imagining, laughing, worrying, remembering, and occasionally getting trapped in an overstuffed chair.

I am deeply grateful to my children, my family, my friends, my caregivers, and the medical professionals who have helped me through this. Their love and patience have carried me through days when my own reserves were not enough.

I wanted to share this now because so many people have reached out with genuine concern. I am touched by that concern, even when I have not known how to respond.

These days I move more slowly, I lean on others more than I once did, and I have learned to accept that every day will look a little different. But I am still very much here.

**

Unvarnished Vulnerability: How Carly Simon Rewrote the American Songbook

From overcoming a childhood stutter on the Upper West Side to defining the confessional pop era of the 1970s, the Grammy and Oscar-winning icon turned personal truth into pop perfection.

NEW YORK — Long before she became the undisputed queen of confessional pop, Carly Simon found her voice by necessity. Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the 1950s, the daughter of Simon & Schuster co-founder Richard Simon suffered from a severe childhood stammer. Her mother’s advice was simple: sing it instead.

What began as a therapeutic workaround eventually transformed American popular music. Over a career spanning five decades, Simon didn’t just sing her life—she laid bare the anxieties, desires, and contradictions of modern womanhood, crafting a blueprint for generations of singer-songwriters from Alanis Morissette to Taylor Swift.

The Spark of the Singer-Songwriter Era

After a brief, folk-infused stint performing with her sister Lucy as The Simon Sisters in the late 1960s, Simon stepped into the spotlight as a solo artist in 1971. Her self-titled debut immediately established her as a formidable lyricist. The hit single “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” was a daringly cynical critique of conventional marriage, released at a time when top 40 radio was still dominated by traditional love songs. The track earned her the Grammy for Best New Artist and signaled the arrival of an unfiltered new voice.

Yet, it was her third studio album, 1972’s No Secrets, that catapulted her into international superstardom. Anchored by “You’re So Vain,” a masterpiece of clever songwriting and irresistible swagger, the track held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for weeks. Featuring an uncredited backing vocal by Mick Jagger, the song sparked five decades of pop-culture sleuthing over its subject—a mystery Simon deftly weaponized to keep the public captivated for half a century.

Pop Royalty and Cultural Touchstones

Throughout the 1970s, Simon’s life resembled a glamorous, high-stakes rock soap opera, particularly during her high-profile marriage to fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor. Together, they were the golden couple of American music, seamlessly blending Laurel Canyon introspection with East Coast sophistication.

Simon possessed a rare versatility. She could transition effortlessly from intimate, guitar-driven folk to cinematic pop anthems. In 1977, she delivered “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme song for the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Composed by Marvin Hamlisch with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, the track became a global standard, universally regarded as one of the greatest film themes in cinema history.

Breaking Records and Making History

While many 1970s icons struggled to adapt to the changing landscape of the 1980s, Simon experienced a triumphant second act through cinema. Her masterpiece of the decade came in 1988 with “Let the River Run,” written for Mike Nichols’ hit film Working Girl.

An uplifting, gospel-infused anthem about ambition and New York City, the song made history. Simon became the first artist in history to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award for a single song composed, written, and performed entirely by a single person.

A Lasting Legacy

In November 2022, Simon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a long-overdue formal recognition of her impact on the canon of American music.

What sets Carly Simon apart isn’t merely her sharp melodic instincts or her smoky, unmistakable contralto—it is her brave commitment to emotional accuracy. She wrote about divorce, sexual desire, independence, and self-doubt with an intimacy that felt revolutionary for her time. By refusing to polish away the messy realities of life, Simon turned personal vulnerability into timeless American art.

Bloodlines & Melodies: Inside Carly Simon’s Musical Dynasty

From her upbringing as publishing royalty to her iconic marriage with James Taylor, the legend’s greatest composition remains the creative legacy passed down to her children.

NEW YORK — To understand Carly Simon, one must understand that music and high culture are coded directly into her DNA. Long before she conquered the Billboard charts, Simon was raised in a world defined by literature, intellect, and sound. Yet for all her commercial accolades, the chapter of her life she holds most dear is the one written alongside her family—and the talented generation that followed in her footsteps.

Born into Patrician Prominence

Simon was raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side as pop-culture royalty. Her father, Richard Simon, was the visionary co-founder of the publishing giant Simon & Schuster, while her mother, Andrea, was a civil rights activist and singer. Their home was a revolving door for world-class musicians, writers, and thinkers, where evenings often dissolved into family sing-alongs around a grand piano.

That upbringing instilled in Carly a deep respect for the written word and dynamic storytelling. But when she met fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor in the early 1970s, two distinct strains of American musical royalty merged.

Their 1972 marriage created pop music’s ultimate power couple: the sharp, sophisticated New Yorker and the brooding, soulful North Carolinian. Though their tumultuous eleven-year marriage ended in divorce in 1983 amid the pressures of superstardom and personal struggles, it yielded two children who would carry the family’s musical torch into the 21st century.

Sally & Ben: Walking the Musical Tightrope

Growing up on tour buses, in recording studios, and at the family estate in Martha’s Vineyard, Sally Taylor (born 1974) and Ben Taylor (born 1977) were raised on harmony. Carrying two of the most famous surnames in American music was both a gift and a daunting benchmark, yet both carved out distinct creative identities.

• Sally Taylor: Inheriting her mother’s expressive lyricism and her father’s acoustic fingerpicking, Sally launched an acclaimed career as an independent folk-rock singer-songwriter, releasing several indie albums throughout the late 1990s and 2000s. Moving beyond traditional music, she later founded Consenses, a groundbreaking global arts project designed to use multi-sensory artistic chain reactions to foster empathy and connection across cultures.

• Ben Taylor: Bearing an uncanny physical and vocal resemblance to his father, paired with his mother’s relaxed pop sensibility, Ben emerged as a talented artist in his own right. Albums like Famous Among the Barnacles demonstrated his warm, effortless baritone and sharp melodic instincts. Over the years, Ben has frequently performed and recorded alongside his mother, creating deeply moving multi-generational moments on stage.

Motherhood as the Ultimate Muse

For Simon, motherhood wasn’t a distraction from her art; it became its primary engine. Her children inspired a gentler, more introspective phase in her catalog, leading to children’s books, the family-centric album This Kind of Love, and various lullaby projects.

Through the highs of Grammy wins and the heartbreak of loss, Simon has repeatedly cited Sally, Ben, and her grandchildren as her proudest masterpiece. In the end, the Simon-Taylor lineage proved to be more than just a famous family tree—it remains a living, breathing musical conversation that continues to unfold.

10 Things We Learned From Carly Simon’s Revealing New Memoir

Veteran singer-songwriter recalls meeting Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, dishes on famous lovers

Twelve years later, Carly sang the theme song for the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, “Nobody Does It Better.” Even though Roger Moore starred in the movie, she was thinking of Connery the whole time, hoping that he would hear it and remember their ocean voyage together..

4. Bob Dylan tried to recruit her.
In 1966, the day before Simon turned 21, Bob Dylan called her up, encouraging her to sign up with Grosscourt, the management company that handled him. He wanted her to record “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” and was even willing to rewrite some of the lyrics for her. When she met Dylan, he mostly talked about how wonderful Nashville was (he had just finished recording Blonde on Blonde there). “Thank God, he was stoned, which meant I didn’t have to worry too much about making a good impression,” Simon writes.

5. Simon was leched on by Redd Foxx and Marvin Gaye.
When Simon’s career was slow to take off, she found jobs as a summer-camp counselor and as a secretary on a TV variety show. Her first day on the set, she had to go to the dressing room of comedian Redd Foxx, who promptly dropped his trademark red-fox fur coat, revealing that he was stark naked underneath. She quickly fled. Marvin Gaye, in his dressing room, was stripped only to the waist, but when he asked Simon to stick out her tongue, “Marvin lunged at my face, swept my tongue into his mouth, and began sucking on it. I extracted it without inflicting damage.”

6. She had a fling with Jack Nicholson.
When Jack Nicholson was making Carnal Knowledge with “Bugs, Artie the Garf, and Mike the Nick,” as he called them (Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel, and Mike Nichols), he spent a couple of nights at Simon’s New York apartment. The first night, he showed off his seduction technique after she made a pot of coffee: “We chatted for a few moments and then he said, offhandedly, ‘Do you ever drink coffee in your bedroom?’”

7. Her affair with Warren Beatty had a dramatic climax.
Simon succumbed to the advances of Warren Beatty, fully aware that he was a practiced Lothario, but finding him irresistible. His initial technique: pulling out a piece of paper with the “main loves of his life,” where she saw her name next to Catherine the Great and Marie Curie. After sex, Beatty always called the next day. “He remembered the names of my mother, sisters, brother, grandmother, old boyfriends, streets where I lived five years ago. With this groundbreaking memory, he seldom if ever got confused.”