Carly Simon has revealed that she is living with Parkinson’s disease.
The 83-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer disclosed her health challenges in a new open letter to fans ahead of the release of her new studio album, Comes in Waves. “Some days I’m so tired I can’t get the day moving at all,” she said of her condition. “On others, it gives me a little more room to move, think, work, and feel like myself.”
Discussing the illness more broadly, Simon wrote that “Parkinson’s is usually associated with movement, tremors, and balance, but it can affect much more than the body. It can bring anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and apathy.”
“The apathy is particularly strange,” she continued. “You can find yourself lying there like a starfish drying in the sun, arms pointing in all directions, while nothing inside is telling you to get up, read, watch, write, sing, call someone, or do much of anything at all.”
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“That has been one of the hardest things to explain,” Simon added. “It is not simply sadness or laziness. It is as though the part of the brain that sends out invitations to participate in life has temporarily misplaced the guest list.”
Simon also revealed that, while battling Parkinson’s, she was treated for basal cell carcinoma on her face. “The cancer was removed, but the surgery affected my appearance and made me more self-conscious about being seen in public,” she explained. “I have always been more critical of my appearance than anyone else could possibly imagine (check out the irony of having written ‘You’re So Vain’), and this gave my inner critic quite a lot of new material.”
“Between my mobility issues, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional effects of it all, withdrawing from public view was the most palatable reaction,” Simon wrote. “If a person is allowed to hibernate during both winter and summer, then I have become an all-season bear.”
And yet, Simon said she has “not stopped living, and I have not stopped working,” adding that making her new album “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.”
Comes In Waves, marking Simon’s first new studio album of original songs since 2008, is due out on August 14th. It also features contributions from her children Ben and Sally Taylor, longtime collaborators Paul Samwell-Smith and Frank Filipetti, and includes one of the final recorded appearances from John Forté. Pr
