#Adele releases soaring ‘Easy on Me’ single after 6 long years

The voice is back.

From the moment Adele’s unmistakable instrument — smoky, sensual and oh-so-soulful — soars into the chorus of her comeback single “Easy on Me,” it’s like the return of an old friend that you didn’t realize just how much you missed: “Go easy on me, baby/I was still a child/Didn’t get the chance to/Feel the world around me/I had no time to choose/What I chose to do/So go easy on me.”

The way she slides up to “easy” alone is enough to separate her from every other singer out there. It’s the kind of phrasing choice, perfectly executed with just the slightest hint of imperfection that comes from the real, raw emotion for which she is famous.

Musically, “Easy on Me” doesn’t break any new ground for the singer. But the familiarity is warmly comforting after the last two years.

Don’t go changing on us, Adele.

Up until now, the hardest part of being an Adele fan is how long she makes you wait for new music.

But, finally, the pop superstar is making it easy on us.

Six excruciatingly long years after we last had new tunes from the 15-time Grammy winner, Adele had mercy on her legions of fans by releasing her new single. In fact, as a welcome surprise, the song dropped on Thursday night, a few hours ahead of its originally scheduled release at midnight on Friday.

The piano ballad — did you really expect her to come back with a headbanging rocker? — fits in nicely with “Someone Like You,” “Hello” and other slow, sad-eyed songs that have been Adele’s bread and butter.

But the lyrics reveal a woman who is now a divorced, single mother who has earned more of life’s bruises that have had us rolling in the deep with her since she first arrived on the scene with “Chasing Pavements” in 2008

The video for the hotly anticipated track was simultaneously dropped with the single. Starting off in black-and-white, with a cheeky reference to her “Hello” clip — there’s more phone service trouble, to which Adele responds, “Well, here we go again” — it eventually gives way to color as we give way to all the feels we’ve been missing in Adele’s absence.

“Easy on Me” clearly addresses the 33-year-old Adele’s divorce from Simon Konecki, the father of her 8-year-old son Angelo, which was finalized earlier this year after the couple split in 2019: “You can’t deny how hard I have tried/I changed who I was to put you both first/But now I give up.”

And there is surely more drama where that came from on “30,” Adele’s upcoming album — which, after 2008’s “19,” 2011’s “21” and 2015’s “25,” continues her streak of age-themed titles. The singer announced earlier this week that her much-anticipated fourth studio album — for which “Easy on Me” was the first song she wrote — would be released on Nov. 19.

In an interview for the November issue of British Vogue that was released last week, Adele said, “It’s not like anyone’s having a go at me, but it’s like, I left the marriage. Be kind to me as well.”

But her new music isn’t as much about the breakup as you might expect: “I assumed it would be about my divorce but it’s kind of not,” she told the publication.

Indeed, those expecting a fair amount of ex-bashing from Adele may be surprised.

“I have to really address myself now. Instead of being like, ‘You effing…’ ” Adele told the publication. “I feel like this album is self-destruction, then self-reflection and then sort of self-redemption.

“But I feel ready. I really want people to hear my side of the story this time,” she added.