After a decade-long hiatus from music, singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd returns with her most compelling work yet in “Wild Again” – a hauntingly beautiful folk-rock ballad inspired by the real-life story of Keiko, the orca who starred in Free Willy. The track marks a bold new direction for Lloyd following her acclaimed 2024 comeback album ‘Carnival’, trading autobiographical storytelling for profound narrative songwriting that asks: Can we ever truly return to our wild selves?
Produced by Todd Wright (Butch Walker, Lucy Woodward), “Wild Again” pairs Lloyd’s warm, weathered vocals – reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s storytelling and Brandi Carlile’s raw delivery – with sparse, melancholic instrumentation. The lyrics cut deep, particularly the refrain “train him to be wild again”, borrowed from the NY Times podcast about attempts to rehabilitate Keiko. It’s a brilliant metaphor for Lloyd’s own journey: a musician who walked away from the industry in 2007, survived divorce and pandemic isolation, and has now reemerged with hard-won creative clarity.
What makes “Wild Again” exceptional is its universal ache – this isn’t just a song about a whale, but about anyone who’s ever felt tamed by life’s circumstances. The production mirrors this tension: gentle acoustic strums and piano notes create space for Lloyd’s voice to soar with quiet defiance. It’s a masterclass in less-is-more songwriting that proves her 20+ year career–spanning jazz (All Dressed Up), piano-pop (Leave the Light On), and Americana (High Road) – has led to this moment of artistic self-actualization.
As Lloyd prepares for her first UK tour in July 2025, “Wild Again” stands as both a standalone triumph and a promising preview of her next chapter. For an artist who once bristled at being compared to Norah Jones, she’s now crafting work that defies comparison altogether.
With ‘Wild Again,’ Juliet Lloyd doesn’t just return—she reclaims. It’s a stunning meditation on freedom, fragility, and the fight to reconnect with who we were before life tamed us
