By the mid-1980s, singer-songwriter Carly Simon — one of the defining voices of the ’70s — was having trouble finding an ’80s audience. Then an opportunity to write a song for a Meryl Streep film turned into one of the biggest hits of Simon’s career and a lasting anthem about resilience, second chances and finding your way back.
Learning to start over and rebuild after disappointment, heartbreak or a setback is a very relatable human experience. That’s one reason Simon’s song “Coming Around Again” connected so deeply with listeners. Her lyrics so aptly say, “I know nothing stays the same / But if you’re willing to play the game / It’s coming around again.” Little did Simon know that the song’s message of perseverance would end up mirroring her own career revival.
Simon’s 1980 hit “Jesse” reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the next six years passed without another major chart breakthrough. “Coming Around Again” would change that.
Simon wrote “Coming Around Again” for the 1986 film Heartburn, which was attached to many high-profile names in Hollywood. The screenplay by writer Nora Ephron was adapted from her semi-autobiographical 1983 novel about the breakdown of her marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein. The film starred Streep and Jack Nicholson, and the song’s prominent placement in the film helped introduce it to a wide audience and set it up for success.
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Although the song returned Simon to the charts, she never viewed it as a comeback. Simon told the Chicago Tribune, ”I don’t perceive this as a comeback although it could be perceived that way by people who have not followed my career through the years where there hasn’t necessarily been a hit off of an album. But it certainly isn’t to me; I didn’t drop out at any time.”
More than anything, the song stood as a testament to Simon’s staying power amid the natural highs and lows of a long and evolving musical career.
In fact, as the B-side of the single, Simon included a rendition of the nursery rhyme “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” doubling down on her A-Side message of resilience with the metaphor of the spider climbing back up again and again, despite being washed down.
Heartburn opened in theaters on July 25, 1986, and “Coming Around Again” was released as a single. By November 1986, the track was No. 5 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and by January 1987, it peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100. Simon later released the song on her 13th studio album Coming Around Again in April 1987.
In an interview with NPR, journalist Scott Simon (no relation) called out the lyrics, “Don’t mind if I fall apart / There’s more room in a broken heart” as a favorite line. To which, Carly responded, “You know, that’s so much a part of life, being able to embrace the broken heart, not just cast it off as having no meaning or trying to get rid of it.”
The track not only became one of Simon’s biggest hits but also one of her most enduring. On Ranker, fans have upvoted it to No. 1 among the “Best Carly Simon Songs of All Time,” and the song has more than 180 million streams on Spotify, to date. Nearly 40 years later, “Coming Around Again” remains a reminder that setbacks aren’t permanent — and that reinvention is often closer than it seems.
Watch the official video of “Coming Around Again” by Carly Simon, which features clips Simon as a baby and young child with her parents:
Watch Carly Simon perform “Coming Around Again” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” during her 1987 Live From Martha’s Vineyard concert:
Check out this montage from the movie Heartburn set to Carly Simon’s song:
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