Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile has shared a beautiful new song Returning to Myself which is filled with a folk vibe.
Earlier this year Carlile teamed up with Sir Elton John for a collaborative album, but now she’s back with her own solo effort. This is the title track from her upcoming eighth album, the follow up to 2021’s In These Silent Days.
The new album will arrive on 24th October and sees her working with Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver.
Watt worked with Carlile and Elton John on their recent album, and has previously worked with everyone from Lady Gaga to Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam, Calvin Harris and The Rolling Stones.
Dessner is best known as a member of The National, and for his work on several Taylor Swift albums including Folklore, Evermore, and The Tortured Poets Department, while Vernon records a Bon Iver, and has been a member of Gayngs, Volcano Choir and Big Red Machine, and collaborated with Kanye West, Mouse on Mars, and Taylor Swift.
For this new record Carlile is on a new label with the album coming out on Interscope and the revived Lost Highway label, both of them are part of the Universal Music Group.
Carlile says the song is partly about returning to her own music career after supporting others including Elton John, Joni Mitchell and country star Tanya Tucker.
“I think people are going to hear that song in different ways,” she told Variety. “Some are going to hear it as a call to return to themselves. Some are going to hear it as a justification not to. And I love that about it because it is a deeply conflicting feeling. There is no a-ha moment in that song. It’s just a contemplation of, ‘Is enlightenment aloneness or is enlightenment learning togetherness and sacrificial love?’”
On the new album Carlile has a track about Joni Mitchell, who she’s worked closely with in recent years, plus she’s recorded a solo version of You Without Me, one of the tunes from her collaboration with Elton John.
