Carly Simon's "You're so Vain"

[hickman1937]

Supposedly a big mystery about who it is about. I clearly remember her saying, sometime in the late 70's that it wasn't about Mick Jagger, but about Cat Stevens. She was on somebody's yacht, and he stepped on with blond entourage, and she had to write a song. He had stood her up for a date just before this. It's either in an old People, or an old Rolling Stone. My memory is long. Hers on the other hand has shortened over the years. Oh well, the pseudo mystery keeps her fresh.

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. I always heard it was about George Hamilton

Or Warren Beatty. I get those two mixed up all the time. :silly:

Who owned a race horse that ran at Saratoga? That might reveal it.

[hickman1937]

7. I have no idea why I posted this.

Of all the things that piss me off these days, why this. Maybe because I remember her saying in an interview that it was Cat Stevens, and the interview was before he converted to Islam. Sometime in the late 80's it became a mystery.:puke:

[Liberal In Texas]

2. It was about me. And you'll never know who I am.

What can I say?

[ForrestGump]

3. No! It was about ME!!

And I am Spartacus!

[Liberal In Texas]

4. Er...No, you're Forest Gump. It is not about you.

Clue to who I am....

Zelig.

[hickman1937]

9. Well then congratulations.

Is she sharing the royalties?

[Kire]

5. I thought it was Warren Beatty

I never heard about Cat Stevens.

[hickman1937]

10. No one in the world thought Cat Stevens at the time.

He was gone from the scene. I clearly remember thinking when I read the interview, damn I remember him, what ever happened to him. A few of years later was when he resurfaced calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, and asking that everyone stop buying his rock records because they were evil.

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. Dick Ebersol knows.

He had the winning bid in some charity auction a couple years ago. I guess the prize was dinner with Carly Simon, and she would reveal the source.

[hfojvt]

8. I never understood that

the person is vain because they think the song is about them,
but isn't the song in fact about them? So how does believing that a song about me is about me evidence of my vanity?

[Kire]

11. because she never says who it was about

if you think it's about you without ever being told it's about you, then you are vain

[hfojvt]

15. In creative writing class

we were supposed to do a profile of someone in the class, saying what kind of furniture they are like, what kinda food, etc. One of the girls wrote one that sounded like it was about me. It seemed like it fit, and it turns out it was about me. Was I vain to think that description was about me? Another guy thought it was about him. Was he vain to think so? And how can it be vain if I think a song which basically says "you are an arrogant a$$hole" is about me. The song is clearly about a flawed person, so why would a vain person think they are flawed? Or how can a person who thinks they are flawed be "so vain"?

[Oeditpus Rex]

18. Someone that vain would think their vanity is justified (n.t)

[hfojvt]

19. exactly so, but they do not readily accept the label vain

"I am not vain, I really am that great" sorta the opposite of Ziggy and me "You don't have an inferiority complex, you really are inferior"

[hickman1937]

12. I think she sent it out there to screw with anyone she'd screwed.

She had someone in mind writing it but decided to smack everyone that had ever rejected her. Thus the obscure lyrics. I do remember her saying that he(Cat) had a white silk scarf on, and flipped it over his shoulder and that for some reason pissed her off.

[hfojvt]

13. well I think that would pi$$ anyone off

and why would anyone wanna reject Carly? :wtf:

[merh]

14. It was about Warren Beatty.

n/t

[ET Awful]

25. That's the most common theory.

And the one I'm most likely to believe.

[Liberal In Texas]

16. Off some website about me and some other guys:

The closest Simon has come to pinning down her source material was in an interview in 1989. She reportedly acknowledged that the song is partly about Beatty, but he was just part of a composite of three men she knew while living in Los Angeles. In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2000, Simon noted that, "Most songs are a composite," although she didn't elaborate on who the other two men might be.

In the end, Simon may be keeping mum about the man to preserve some mystery about her biggest hit. As she noted in a 2001 interview with Sunday Morning's Rita Braver: "I could never really solve it because, if I did, then no one would have anything to talk to me about." Although they could always ask what the lyrics "clouds in my coffee" are supposed to mean.

[hickman1937]

20. But of course. Revisionist history is always worth buck$.

And apparently the auction was worth a few. Funny thing that Dick Ebersol is an old friend of hers.

[Moosepoop]

21. What IS that "clouds in my coffee thing" about?

"I had a dream there were clouds in my coffee..."
That's bugged me for years... damned if I can make sense of it.

[Moosepoop]

22. oops, double post. n/t

[Liberal In Texas]

24. Double Vision. n/t

[AntiCoup2K4]

17. I never did believe it was about Mick Jagger.

Not that someone calling Mick "vain" would be strange, but getting him to sing on the song about his own vanity probably would have been.

[Tripper11]

23. Interesting....I had always heard it was about......

James Taylor.

[AussieDave]

26. Wasn't it about the Clenis ???

She must've had premonitions........