Posted on 08/01/2003 5:29:14 PM PDT by Pokey78
It is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 1970s, along with the identity of the Watergate source Deep Throat, but now Carly Simon is to reveal who You're So Vain was about.
For 31 years the song has taunted listeners with the chorus: "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you."
Rock writers have put forward many celebrities who might be the target of the lyric. They include former lovers of Simon, such as Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger (who sang backing vocals), Cat Stevens and Kris Kristofferson.
Simon, now 58, has only ever ruled out her then husband, James Taylor.
She will disclose the identity next week to the highest bidder at a charity auction in Martha's Vineyard, the Massachusetts island where she lives. But there is a catch.
The successful bidder will have to sign a confidentiality clause and can never pass on the information. The Daily Telegraph's rock critic, Neil McCormick, thought Simon could be making a tactical mistake.
"Once one person knows, I'm sure it will become public," he said.
"But maybe we'd be better not knowing. What if it's some guy we've never heard of? Carly's had ample opportunity to make it public in the past, so I suspect she's after a bit of publicity."
Simon joked recently that she feared that if she gave away the secret "no one would have anything to talk to me about".
In 1983, she told an interviewer: "It certainly sounds like it was about Warren Beatty. He certainly thought it was about him - he called me and said, 'Thanks for the song'."
She has teased interviewers mercilessly, at one point hinting it might be based on a composite of three men from her time as a young woman in Los Angeles.
According to the lyrics, the vain man wore a tilted hat and apricot-coloured scarf, went to horse racing in Saratoga and took a private Lear jet to watch a solar eclipse in Nova Scotia. He also spent time with a spy and the wife of a close friend.
After that hit song, Simon had a second huge seller, with the James Bond theme Nobody Does It Better. In recent years her appeal has, in rock parlance, become more selective.
Her latest songs feature on the soundtrack to the children's cartoon Piglet's Big Picture.
Of the same vintage, who was Roberta Flack singing about in "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face?"
You stormed into the White House like you thought you had just bought the place
When Secret Service would get too close to you, you swore at them in their face
You had planned this whole thing years ago…the White House you would debase
Given the chance you’d kill our Constitution, our Constitution
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
You’re profane…you have a plan for freedom’s destruction…don’t you, don’t you?
You stood by while Bill would plan assaults…on women he’d launch attacks
He’d be turning to you to clean up the mess…you did it with White House hacks
After he created victims, you’d be stabbing them in their backs
Given the chance you’d kill our Constitution, our Constitution
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
You’re profane…you have a plan for freedom’s destruction…don’t you, don’t you?
I had a dream you killed those who opposed you…those who opposed you
The travel staff you had wanted gone, especially Billy Dale
Just to lose his job wasn’t good enough…you tried to put him in jail
There is not a thing that you won’t do so that you’ll finally prevail
And I had a dream you killed those who opposed you…those who opposed you
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
You’re profane…you have a plan for freedom’s destruction…don’t you, don’t you?
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
You’re profane…an evil tyrant bent on destruction
The songwriter (not Flack) wrote it after seeing a Don McLean show.
Your girlfriend got a little confused. The truth is that David Bowie's wife walked in on her husband and Mick Jagger in bed together.
I don't think that instantaneously vomit-inducing incident had anything to do with this song though.
To wit: "I'm so vain/did you know that this song is about me?"
Wasn't that Angie . . . . . . . . . AAAAANNNNGIE.
That whole sixties/seventies rock scene was nothing but an incestual circle-jerk.
I mean, Harrison's wife went to Clapton, Angie's husband went to Mick, Mick's wife went to Torricelli, Torricelli's job went to Lautenberg...
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