NYC’s Sid Simons channels betrayal’s lingering aftershock into cathartic release on “Under My Skin,” a blistering indie rock confession that aches with raw anger and the brutal vulnerability of letting the wrong person get too close.
Stream: “Under My Skin” – Sid Simons
Betrayal hits hardest when it knows exactly where to press.
Intimately bruised and achingly alive, Sid Simons’ “Under My Skin” tears into that vulnerable kind of damage: The anger that lingers after love curdles, the memories that keep crawling back, the cruel shock of realizing another person can still reach you long after they’ve left the room. Driven by churning guitars, raw-throated vocals, and a chorus that hurts as hard as it erupts, “Under My Skin” is a full-bodied indie rock confession – wounded, bitter, and ultimately human in its search for release.
Shaking off the damage distortion
But why does it take so long to clean
When I caught you dancing
With your pants down to your knees
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Under My Skin,” Sid Simons’ latest blistering and brooding eruption. A New York City-based singer and songwriter with roots stretching from Portland, Oregon to Sydney, Australia, to underground rock scenes in China and beyond, Simons writes with a well-traveled ear and a livewire sense of drama, pulling early-2000s indie rock grit into the melodic warmth of classic Americana.
The former frontman for Brooklyn-based folk rock band GIRL SKIN has enjoyed considerable success since embarking on a solo career in the early 2020s. After breaking through with 2023’s single “Wendy,” working with producer Gordon Raphael on his 2024 debut album Beneath the Brightest Smiles, and sharpening his voice and vision on 2025’s The Last American Valentine EP, Simons comes roaring back with a song built for sweat, catharsis, and poignant recognition – arriving ahead of his July 11 Bowery Ballroom headline show and a forthcoming full-length record due out this fall via Killphonic.
“I wrote this song a few years ago, and listening back to it now, I can hear every ounce of anger in my voice,” Simons tells Atwood Magazine.
“At the time, I was convinced I’d carry those feelings forever. Certain hurts feel permanent when you’re standing in the middle of them. A few months ago, I ran into the person the song was about for the first time in years. We talked, I invited her out with some friends, and we ended up spending the night dancing, laughing, and sharing stories.”
“It was one of those moments that quietly rearranges your perspective,” he continues. “The song reminds me that no feeling is as permanent as it seems. Life moves, people change, and time softens things you once thought would stay sharp forever. Everyone is living this life for the first time, stumbling through it the best they can. I think that’s reason enough to offer each other a little forgiveness whenever possible.”
You know how to cry
you use it on me all the time
Under my skin all the nights I let you in
Still I am surprised
after all this time
you could still look into my eyes
That forgiveness does not dull the song’s first blow. “Under My Skin” still arrives with clenched teeth: Guitars pressing forward, drums driving the confrontation, Simons singing like every buried feeling has finally forced its way into the room. The opening lines – “Shaking off the damage distortion, but why does it take so long to clean” – give the track its first bruise, turning aftermath into residue, a stain the body keeps trying to scrub away long after the relationship itself has ended.
From there, Simons writes betrayal as a series of sharp, almost cinematic flashes. “When I caught you dancing with your pants down to your knees” lands with ugly clarity, less interested in polish than in the instant when trust collapses and the mind starts replaying every incriminating detail. The chorus widens that hurt into a hook built for shouting: “You know how to cry, you use it on me all the time / Under my skin, all the nights I let you in.” It’s accusatory, exposed, and painfully self-aware, capturing the awful intimacy of knowing exactly how someone wounded you – and knowing you once gave them the access to do it.
What makes “Under My Skin” hit so hard is the way it refuses to stay neatly righteous.
Simons lets the song seethe, but he also lets it shake. His voice carries the sting of manipulation, the humiliation of still feeling attached, and the restless need to reclaim the story before it curdles into self-pity. By the time he repeats “I’m not singing for you,” his words have become a cathartic release valve: Part denial, part exorcism, part declaration of ownership over a song born from someone else’s damage.
Admitting you were right
To the noise of faceless futile flea bites
You wanna be picked up all the time
off bathroom floor when
your mother calls dinner time
You know how to cry you use it on me all the time
Under my skin all the nights I let you in
Still I am surprised after all this time
you could still look into my eyes
Years later, that anger has changed shape. The person who once lived under Simons’ skin no longer seems frozen there; the wound has become a record, a reminder, a reason to offer grace without pretending the hurt never happened. “Under My Skin” bleeds because it remembers, but it burns because it survived – a cathartic rock reckoning that turns betrayal’s aftershock into motion, noise, and hard-earned perspective.
This distance matters, because it does not soften the song’s emotional truth so much as it sharpens it. Heard against Simons’ current perspective, “Under My Skin” evokes the sound of authentic raw feelings caught at full temperature, preserved before time had the chance to cool them down. “Under My Skin” follows Simons’ February single “Secret Life,” a romantic, dreamlike song that traded direct confession for atmosphere, mystery, and the ache of a private world just out of reach. Where that track drifted through desire and imagined escape, “Under My Skin” crashes straight into the wound, making it all the more special: It captures Simons at his most immediate and unguarded, channeling old pain into a stirring surge of indie rock release.
Stream Sid Simons’ “Under My Skin” exclusively via Atwood Magazine, and catch up with the New York City singer/songwriter in our conversation below as he traces his new song from its early anger to hard-won forgiveness – opening up along the way about the music that shaped him, the songs carrying him forward, and the restless year still ahead.
Betrayal may know exactly where to press, but here, Simons presses back – louder, rawer, and achingly alive.
I’m not singing for you
I’m not singing for you
You know how to cry you use it
You know how to cry you use it on me
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:: connect with Sid Simons here ::
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Stream: “Under My Skin” – Sid Simons
A CONVERSATION WITH SID SIMONS
Atwood Magazine: Sid, hello and thank you for your time! For those who are just discovering you today through this writeup, what do you want them to know about you and your music?
Sid Simons: I hope they hear someone who’s trying to take something timeless and give it a new voice. Most of the music that changed my life was made decades before I was born, and I feel a responsibility to preserve some of that spirit while still making something that belongs to today.
Who are some of your musical north stars, and what are you most excited about the music you’re making today?
Sid Simons: I’ve always been obsessed with Cohen and Bowie. Those are two big ones for me. Im moving in a new direction at the moment pulling from even older references. Im excited for whats next.
“Under My Skin” is such a full-bodied, aching song – it has that big cathartic rock release, but it’s also really intimate at its core. What were you trying to capture in this track - and what’s the story behind this song?
Sid Simons: I was angry when I wrote this song. A relationship of mine suddenly ended and I was upset and it all came out in this song. It’s funny looking back on lyrics sometimes, especially when you’re in a completely different headspace than you were in. Songs are like time capsules or old photo albums, it’s beautiful.
The chorus hits hard: “you know how to cry, you use it on me all the time / under my skin, all the nights I let you in.”
Sid Simons: It does.
What did that image of someone getting under your skin mean to you while writing this song?
Sid Simons: Manipulation, they knew what they were doing and they knew how to get it.
Later on, you repeat “I’m not singing for you” until it starts to feel like its own kind of mantra. What did that line unlock for you, and how did you want it to build emotionally as the song goes on?
Sid Simons: That line just came out of me while playing it with the band at a rehearsal and I couldn’t stop singing it over and over. It felt good and still feels good to sing.
“Secret Life” also came out this year and became a quick favorite for me. This track feels romantic, dreamlike, and even a little haunted. What did that song open up for you at the start of this new chapter?
Sid Simons: It did two things for me. I really experimented with the production, I did things I hadn’t done before. I programmed drums alongside analog drums and added synths alongside electric guitars. And lyrically I wrote from a different place this time, I wrote from more of a place of feeling than a specific story.
In “Secret Life,” you sing, “In our secret life we pressed against the sea / There is no ocean left for a scavenger like me.” I've been curious ever since I first heard those words, what were you reaching for in that image?
Sid Simons: I don’t own a flotation device and it makes it very hard to tread water while swimming.
How do “Secret Life” and “Under My Skin” speak to each other for you?
Sid Simons: They almost feel a bit like book ends in a way. “Under My Skin” is the beginning, the angry, energetic youthful child and then “Secret Life” is this more mature, confident adult. I wouldn’t say “Secret Life” is exactly the end of the chapter per se, but it’s closing in on it.
You’re also headlining Bowery Ballroom on July 11th. How does it feel to bring this new music to the stage right now?
Sid Simons: We’ve been playing a pretty similar live set for the past year, so it’s going to bring a whole new energy to the stage. Big band this time around, eight people on stage.
What do you hope listeners take away from “Under My Skin,” and what have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?
Sid Simons: I can never really say what people are going to take away from my songs. Everyone brings their own experiences to them, and I think that’s part of what makes music so special. I can only really speak to what it meant to me.
I hate to use the word because it gets thrown around so much, but finishing this song genuinely felt healing. I’d been carrying certain things around for a long time and bottling a lot of them up. Writing and finishing this song felt like finally putting them somewhere else. It didn’t necessarily solve everything, but it gave those feelings somewhere to live outside of me, and there was a real sense of peace in that.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who are you listening to these days that you’d recommend to our readers?
Sid Simons: Pastor T.L Barrett, The Waterboys, Prince, Westside Cowboy.
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