Sarah McLachlan - back and high on passion

McLachlan playing at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

When last we heard new material from Sarah McLachlan, she was working out some difficult personal issues: U Want Me 2 and Don't Give Up On Us, the two new songs on 2008's greatest hits release Closer, dealt with the break-up of her marriage.

With her new single, McLachlan's heart is boldly back on her sleeve, but it appears to be all patched up, and then some. She sounds positively blissful in the upbeat, definitely-not-a-ballad Loving You Is Easy. "I'm alive and I'm on fire," she belts out.

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McLachlan says the song marks a decidedly different up-tempo mood her music has not shown before - and it is autobiographical.

"It's been a roller coaster these last few years for sure," McLachlan said. "A lot of emotional highs and lows. I did get a taste of finding love again, which is certainly what this song is all about. The delirious, overwhelming flush of new possibilities. That being said, I am happily single these days and better from the whole experience."

The multi-Grammy winner performed the song publicly last September, at a star-studded fundraising concert in West Vancouver, where she lives. At the time, she called it "a happy song."

But it addresses that dark period of her life, too: "I've been down a long road / I've become a stranger to myself," she sings. And later: "Nothing came from wanting / And I became so small and insecure."

Loving You Is Easy is the first single from The Laws of Illusion, McLachlan's first full studio album of new material in seven years. The album will be released June 15, shortly before she takes her Lilith tour out on the road (after an 11-year hiatus) along with a caravan of other female musicians, and her two daughters.

"I'm facing all that is ahead with enthusiasm and certainly a bit of trepidation," she admits, about heading full-on back into the spotlight. "I love the new songs and I'm very excited to play them live and to do Lilith again. My girls are both great travellers so this will be one big adventure to them. It's going to be a great summer."