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<\/p>\nWhen Carly Simon wrote the song You\u2019re So Vain, her career changed forever, and yet the song remains one of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u2019s biggest mysteries. Who is the person Simon is singing about?<\/p>\n
Well, Carly herself has revealed who the classic song is about.<\/p>\n
The 1970\u2019s sure was a time for great music. During the 1960\u2019s, bands like The Beatles had conquered the world, and now it was time for the likes of Bob Dylan and others to take over.<\/p>\n
One of those who did just that was Carly Simon. The wonderful singer\/songwriter became one of the most popular artists when her career began to grow in the early 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n
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Youtube\/Carly Simon Music<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all heard You\u2019re so Vain and various other classics from the New Yorker. But what about her life? And who was You\u2019re so Vain actually about? This is the story of the wonderful Carly Simon.<\/p>\n
Carly Simon was born on June 25, 1945, in New York City, the youngest daughter of an upper-class New York family. Her father Richard Simon was the co-founder of the Simon & Schuster publishing company.<\/p>\n
Now, Carly\u2019s childhood wasn\u2019t exactly perfect. As a third daughter, she often felt inadequate. Did her parents really want her?<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter two daughters he\u2019d been counting on a son, a male successor to be named Carl. When I was born, he and Mommy simply added a y to the word, like an accusing chromosome: Carly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When she was just 7 or 8 years old, Carly experienced a string of disturbing sexual encounters with a teenage boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t realize that I was being used,\u201d she said in an interview with USA Today. \u201cI thought of myself as being in love with him. I\u2019m sure a lot of girls go through the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a young girl, Carly got to see what the music industry was all about. But it would be some time before she would become the sensation she was.<\/p>\n
Simon split her time between her family\u2019s townhouse in Greenwich Village, New York and a wonderful estate in Stamford, Connecticut. The estate in Stamford saw the young girl surrounded by celebrities like Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt.<\/p>\n
The Simon family were also good friends of legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson, who soon would take Carly under his wing. Jackie Robinson and his family lived in the Stamford house while their own home was under construction.<\/p>\n
She got to sit in the dugout at the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn \u2013 home of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Soon, she became the unofficial mascot of the team.<\/p>\n
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\u201cJackie even taught me how to bat lefty, though it never took\u201d, Simon wrote in her memoir Boys in the Trees (2015).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always had the cutest look around the side of his mouth, as if he were thinking about what he was about to say before he said it.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the family would go through a tragedy. Simon\u2019s father was strong-armed out of his own company, and died in 1960, just before his daughter\u2019s 16th birthday.<\/p>\n
For her part, Carly showed an early interest in music. She started singing together with brother Joey \u2013 who later became a successful writer, writing the music for the Broadway show The Secret Garden \u2013 but later, it was her and her sister who would go on to pursue a career in the business.<\/p>\n
As Carly wrote on her website, she and sister Lucy taught themselves three chords on the guitar and hitch-hiked up to Provincetown, MA in the summer of 1964.<\/p>\n
The Simon Sisters \u2013 as they called themselves \u2013 sang at a local bar called The Moors, with a repertoar consisting of folk music, as well as some of their own songs.<\/p>\n
Carly Simon and Lucy were eventually signed to Kapp Records and played a couple of clubs in Greenwich Village, opening for early comedians Woody Allen and Dick Cavett, among others, and even played in the UK.
\nIn her memoir, Simon recalls the boat trip across the Atlantic heading home.<\/p>\n
They were on the same boat as Sean Connery, and Carly and her sister ended up spending the trip with the actor. At that point, of course, no one could realize or even imagine that Carly would write a Bond theme song 12 years later.<\/p>\n
The sister duo released three albums in the 1960s before Lucy left to get married.<\/p>\n
Carly Simon was on her own, but still determined to forge a career in the music industry. However, her career had a slow start. She started working as a summer-camp counselor and as a secretary on a TV show.<\/p>\n
In February of 1971, Simon released her debut album Carly Simon. The song That\u2019s the Way I\u2019ve Always Heard It Should Be \u2013 an anti-marriage-song \u2013 became her first hit, reaching No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 list.<\/p>\n
In October, later the same year, Simon released her second album, Anticipation. By now, things had really started to blow up. Her album went gold in two years and contained the smash hit Anticipation, which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard pop singles chart and also at No. 3 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in the United States.<\/p>\n
According to herself, Simon wrote the song in just 15 minutes while waiting for Cat Stevens at her place, whom she was dating at the time and had made dinner for. When he arrived, the song was ready, but the date only lasted a short while.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave me whispers and drawings of Blake poems,\u201d Carly Simon said. \u201cHe told me about his childhood, his mixed Greek and Swedish parents, and we made a connection that has lasted.\u201d<\/p>\n
With two successful albums in the span of only nine months, Simon soon found herself solidified as a famous and immensely popular singer\/songwriter. In 1971, she received a Grammy Award for Best New Artist of the Year, and additionally one nomination in the \u201cBest Pop Female Vocalist\u201d category.<\/p>\n
Carly Simon \u2013 \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain\u201d
\nIn November of 1972, Carly Simon released her third album, and it was intended to be her big commercial breakthrough. No Secrets spent five weeks at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart and quickly achieved gold status.<\/p>\n
It was a great album that spread all over the world, spending weeks and weeks on the top of the charts in countries like Norway, Australia and Canada. But it was one song in particular \u2013 the third on the album \u2013 that would change her life forever.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re So Vain was the song that most people reference when talking of Carly Simon. It was a smash-hit right away, and throughout the years, it\u2019s grown even bigger and bigger.<\/p>\n
The song is currently ranked at No. 92 on Billboard\u2018s Greatest Songs of All-Time list. In 2014, it was voted as number as no 216 when Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked the question of the best songs of the century. That same year, it was crowned as the ultimate song of the 1970\u2019s by the UK Official Charts Company.<\/p>\n
The album was recorded at the famous Trident Studios in London, England, where bands like The Beatles recorded The White Album and David Bowie made Space Oddity.<\/p>\n
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Youtube\/Carly Simon<\/p>\n
You\u2019re So Vain also held plenty of secrets when it was released, and for many years it was the subject of one of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u2019s biggest mysteries. But we\u2019ll get to that soon.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger is uncredited on the song, even though he sings on the chorus.<\/p>\n
At the time of the recording, several other famous artists were at the Trident Studios, and the likes of Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, legendary record producer George Martin, and Harry Nilsson watched her record. Actually, McCartney himself pitched in to guest star with background vocals.<\/p>\n
And then there was Mick Jagger. Carly Simon wrote in her memoir that he actually invited himself to the recording. Jagger had pursued her in London and called Trident Studios once he understood she was there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was shortly after midnight. Mick and I, we were close together \u2013 the same height, same coloring, same lips,\u201d Simon writes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt as if I was trying to stay within a pink gravity that was starting to loosen its silky grip on me. I was thrilled by the proximity, remembering all the times I had spent imitating him in front of my closet mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n
As mentioned, You\u2019re So Vain was a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll mystery. It\u2019s always fun to know the background story of a song, wether its about a certain event, a person, or if that one line is a reference for something special.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re So Vain \u2013 who is it about?
\nIn Carly Simon\u2019s case, no one knew who You\u2019re So Vain was about.<\/p>\n
Some guessed \u2013 and had conspiracy theories \u2013 that the song was about Mick Jagger. Sure, there was a pretty clear connection between the two, especially since he actually sang on the record.<\/p>\n
But no, it turns out the rumours were wrong. The truth is that You\u2019re So Vain \u2013 at least the second verse \u2013 is about one-time Hollywood lothario Warren Beatty, whom she dated briefly in the early 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n
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Youtube\/TayMon<\/p>\n
In her memoir, Carly revealed that the song was also about two other people, but she won\u2019t reveal who they were.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d she told People. \u201cAt least until they know it\u2019s about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably, if we were sitting over at dinner and I said: \u2018remember that time you walked into the party and\u2026\u2019 I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll do it. I never thought I would admit that it was more than one person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon dated Warren Beatty for a short while in the \u201970s, and described him as a \u201cglorious specimen\u201d who put all other men \u201cto shame, if looks and charm were what you were after.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what about Carly Simon\u2019s love life besides Warren? Well, she\u2019s been married once, to singer\/songwriter James Taylor.<\/p>\n
They had met briefly as children, and then again in her dressing room in 1971. She described the latter meeting in her book. Taylor was there together with his then-girlfriend Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe was barefoot, long-legged, long-footed \u2013 and is knees were bent,\u201d she wrote in her memoir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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