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 “Best Pop Female Vocalist” category.
Carly Simon – “You’re So Vain”
In 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.
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 – the third on the album – that would change her life forever.
You’re 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’s grown even bigger and bigger.
The song is currently ranked at No. 92 on Billboard‘s 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’s by the UK Official Charts Company.
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.
You’re So Vain – recording
You’re So Vain also held plenty of secrets when it was released, and for many years it was the subject of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest mysteries. But we’ll get to that soon.
Firstly, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger is uncredited on the song, even though he sings on the chorus.
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.
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.
“It was shortly after midnight. Mick and I, we were close together – the same height, same coloring, same lips,” Simon writes.
“I 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.”
As mentioned, You’re So Vain was a rock ‘n’ roll mystery. It’s 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.
You’re So Vain – who is it about?
In Carly Simon’s case, no one knew who You’re So Vain was about.
Some guessed – and had conspiracy theories – 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.
But no, it turns out the rumours were wrong. The truth is that You’re So Vain – at least the second verse – is about one-time Hollywood lothario Warren Beatty, whom she dated briefly in the early 1970’s.
“You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive.
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair.
And that you would never leave.
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me.
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.
Clouds in my coffee”.
In her memoir, Carly revealed that the song was also about two other people, but she won’t reveal who they were.
“I don’t think so,” she told People. “At least until they know it’s about them.”
“Probably, if we were sitting over at dinner and I said: ‘remember that time you walked into the party and…’ I don’t know if I’ll do it. I never thought I would admit that it was more than one person.”
Simon dated Warren Beatty for a short while in the ’70s, and described him as a “glorious specimen” who put all other men “to shame, if looks and charm were what you were after.”
Carly Simon – James Taylor
So what about Carly Simon’s love life besides Warren? Well, she’s been married once, to singer/songwriter James Taylor.
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.
“He was barefoot, long-legged, long-footed – and is knees were bent,” she wrote in her memoir.
”He wore dark red, loose, wide-wale corduroys and a long-sleeved Henley with one button open, his right hand clutching a self-rule cigarette. His hair, simultaneously shiny and disheveled, fell evenly on both sides of his head, and he wore a scruffy, understated mustache, the kind so fashionable back in the yearly 1970s. He seemed both kempt and unkempt. Even sprawled out on the floor, everything about him communicated that he was, in fact, the center of something – the core of an apple, the center of a note.”
Carly Simon and James Taylor started dating later the same year and tied the knot in November of 1972. 11 years later, the couple divorced, but it wasn’t just because they didn’t have the same love for each other anymore.
Carly Simon – children
Simon explained that it mostly had to do with drugs. They had two children, now grown up and working in the music business. Daughter Sally Taylor is 46 years old and Ben Taylor’s 43.
Her memoir Boys in the Trees pretty much ends with her marriage to James Taylor. Her son hasn’t read the book. But her daughter has.
“I think he would feel more conflicted than Sally did,” Simon told ABC in 2016. “I had told her almost everything, but when she read it all together, she was just so amazed. She said, ‘I’m so proud of you for being able to tell it like it is for you.’”
Carly Simon was later engaged to musician Russ Kunkel in 1985. She married writer James Hart in December 1987, but the couple divorced in 2007.
Carly Simon, now 75 years of age, continued making music for many years to come. And, as a by-product, continued to win several awards for her trophy cabinet.
Her 1977 worldwide hit Nobody Does It Better was the theme song of the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. It’s considered by many to be one of the greatest Bond anthems of all time.
Hall of Fame entry
In 1988, she released the song Let The River Run, first featured in the 1988 movie Working Girl. With the song, she became the first singer ever to win three major awards for a single track: an Academy Award, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.
Six years later, in 1994, Carly was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Carly Simon lived a happy life during the 1960s and 1970s. She sure is a legendary singer with a legacy that will live on forever.
Thank you for all the wonderful music, Carly, and we hope to hear more in the future.
Please, share this story with friends and family!
When Carly Simon wrote the song You’re So Vain, her career changed forever, and yet the song remains one of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest mysteries. Who is the person Simon is singing about?
Well, Carly herself has revealed who the classic song is about.
The 1970’s sure was a time for great music. During the 1960’s, bands like The Beatles had conquered the world, and now it was time for the likes of Bob Dylan and others to take over.
Carly Simon – singer/songwriter
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’s.
We’ve all heard You’re so Vain and various other classics from the New Yorker. But what about her life? And who was You’re so Vain actually about? This is the story of the wonderful Carly Simon.
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.
Carly Simon – childhood
Now, Carly’s childhood wasn’t exactly perfect. As a third daughter, she often felt inadequate. Did her parents really want her?
“After two daughters he’d 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,” she said.
When she was just 7 or 8 years old, Carly experienced a string of disturbing sexual encounters with a teenage boy.
“I didn’t realize that I was being used,” she said in an interview with USA Today. “I thought of myself as being in love with him. I’m sure a lot of girls go through the same thing.”
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.
Simon split her time between her family’s 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.
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.
Befriended Jackie Robinson
She got to sit in the dugout at the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn – home of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Soon, she became the unofficial mascot of the team.
“Jackie even taught me how to bat lefty, though it never took”, Simon wrote in her memoir Boys in the Trees (2015).
“He 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.”
However, the family would go through a tragedy. Simon’s father was strong-armed out of his own company, and died in 1960, just before his daughter’s 16th birthday.
For her part, Carly showed an early interest in music. She started singing together with brother Joey – who later became a successful writer, writing the music for the Broadway show The Secret Garden – but later, it was her and her sister who would go on to pursue a career in the business.
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.
The Simon Sisters – as they called themselves – sang at a local bar called The Moors, with a repertoar consisting of folk music, as well as some of their own songs.
Touring with sister Lucy
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.
In her memoir, Simon recalls the boat trip across the Atlantic heading home.
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.
The sister duo released three albums in the 1960s before Lucy left to get married.
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.
Carly’s career
In February of 1971, Simon released her debut album Carly Simon. The song That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be – an anti-marriage-song – became her first hit, reaching No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
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.
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.
“He gave me whispers and drawings of Blake poems,” Carly Simon said. “He told me about his childhood, his mixed Greek and Swedish parents, and we made a connection that has lasted.”
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 “Best Pop Female Vocalist” category.
Carly Simon – “You’re So Vain”
In 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.
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 – the third on the album – that would change her life forever.
You’re 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’s grown even bigger and bigger.
The song is currently ranked at No. 92 on Billboard‘s 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’s by the UK Official Charts Company.
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.
You’re So Vain – recording
You’re So Vain also held plenty of secrets when it was released, and for many years it was the subject of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest mysteries. But we’ll get to that soon.
Firstly, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger is uncredited on the song, even though he sings on the chorus.
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.
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.
“It was shortly after midnight. Mick and I, we were close together – the same height, same coloring, same lips,” Simon writes.
“I 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.”
As mentioned, You’re So Vain was a rock ‘n’ roll mystery. It’s 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.
You’re So Vain – who is it about?
In Carly Simon’s case, no one knew who You’re So Vain was about.
Some guessed – and had conspiracy theories – 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.
But no, it turns out the rumours were wrong. The truth is that You’re So Vain – at least the second verse – is about one-time Hollywood lothario Warren Beatty, whom she dated briefly in the early 1970’s.
“You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive.
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair.
And that you would never leave.
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me.
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.
Clouds in my coffee”.
In her memoir, Carly revealed that the song was also about two other people, but she won’t reveal who they were.
“I don’t think so,” she told People. “At least until they know it’s about them.”
“Probably, if we were sitting over at dinner and I said: ‘remember that time you walked into the party and…’ I don’t know if I’ll do it. I never thought I would admit that it was more than one person.”
Simon dated Warren Beatty for a short while in the ’70s, and described him as a “glorious specimen” who put all other men “to shame, if looks and charm were what you were after.”
Carly Simon – James Taylor
So what about Carly Simon’s love life besides Warren? Well, she’s been married once, to singer/songwriter James Taylor.
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.
“He was barefoot, long-legged, long-footed – and is knees were bent,” she wrote in her memoir.
”He wore dark red, loose, wide-wale corduroys and a long-sleeved Henley with one button open, his right hand clutching a self-rule cigarette. His hair, simultaneously shiny and disheveled, fell evenly on both sides of his head, and he wore a scruffy, understated mustache, the kind so fashionable back in the yearly 1970s. He seemed both kempt and unkempt. Even sprawled out on the floor, everything about him communicated that he was, in fact, the center of something – the core of an apple, the center of a note.”
Carly Simon and James Taylor started dating later the same year and tied the knot in November of 1972. 11 years later, the couple divorced, but it wasn’t just because they didn’t have the same love for each other anymore.
Carly Simon – children
Simon explained that it mostly had to do with drugs. They had two children, now grown up and working in the music business. Daughter Sally Taylor is 46 years old and Ben Taylor’s 43.
Her memoir Boys in the Trees pretty much ends with her marriage to James Taylor. Her son hasn’t read the book. But her daughter has.
“I think he would feel more conflicted than Sally did,” Simon told ABC in 2016. “I had told her almost everything, but when she read it all together, she was just so amazed. She said, ‘I’m so proud of you for being able to tell it like it is for you.’”
Carly Simon was later engaged to musician Russ Kunkel in 1985. She married writer James Hart in December 1987, but the couple divorced in 2007.
Carly Simon, now 75 years of age, continued making music for many years to come. And, as a by-product, continued to win several awards for her trophy cabinet.
Her 1977 worldwide hit Nobody Does It Better was the theme song of the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. It’s considered by many to be one of the greatest Bond anthems of all time.
Hall of Fame entry
In 1988, she released the song Let The River Run, first featured in the 1988 movie Working Girl. With the song, she became the first singer ever to win three major awards for a single track: an Academy Award, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.
Six years later, in 1994, Carly was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Carly Simon lived a happy life during the 1960s and 1970s. She sure is a legendary singer with a legacy that will live on forever.
Thank you for all the wonderful music, Carly, and we hope to hear more in the future.
Please, share this story with friends and family!
Boy Runs into Huge Box on Doorstep in the Winter Cold, Hears Loud Cry from Inside — Story of the Day
A little boy stops in his tracks when he answers the doorbell and discovers a box on the doorstep with a crying baby inside – but who had mercilessly abandoned the child out there in the cold, let alone in a box?
When Kevin Anderson turned 6, he asked his parents to give him something that left them awestruck. “Mommy! Daddy!” he said. “Do you promise me that you will get me what I want for my birthday?”
“Sure, honey,” his mother, Caroline, said. “What exactly do you want?”
“Well, I think I know it,” his father, Andrew, guessed. “Isn’t it the latest Transformers collection? I know Kevin wants that!”
“No, Daddy!” Kevin giggled. “I want a little baby! Paul told me that when his sister was born, his parents said she was a gift from God. Can you please ask God to give me a little sister too? Even a little brother is okay.”
His parents exchanged a quick look, their faces flushed with embarrassment. Caroline and Andrew had decided to expand their family once they had a larger house, but when Kevin suggested having a younger sibling, they couldn’t help but smile shyly at the boy. “All right, Kevin,” his father said. “You know there is a way by which God can answer your wishes.”
“Really?”
“Yes, honey. All you need to do is write a letter to him. Maybe ask Santa for a little help? He’s quite close with God.”
To little Kevin, it sounded pretty convincing, and he was relieved that his father’s idea would work. So that year, at Christmas, Kevin wrote his first letter to Santa to help him convince God to send him a little sister or brother soon. Little did the boy know that God would answer his prayers far too soon…
Kevin wrote a letter to Santa to ask for a sibling | Photo: Pexels
One wintry evening, Kevin was about to leave the house to play with his friends when his doorbell rang. “Andrew, could you please check who’s there?” Caroline asked from the kitchen where she was baking cookies.
Andrew, who was busy looking for something in his closet, asked Kevin to check the door. “Kevin, can you please check the door, honey? Daddy will be there in a minute.”
“Okay, daddy,” the boy replied, running to the door, but when he answered it, he was baffled. There wasn’t anyone standing at their doorstep, but there was a huge brown box. He tried lifting it to bring it inside, but as he shook it a little, a loud crying sound came from within it.
Kevin took a step back from the box, terrified, but the crying continued. When he finally opened it, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a baby inside, wrapped in a thin rag.
He dashed to his parents with the baby in his arms. “Mommy! Daddy! God answered my prayer! Look, it’s a baby.”
Kevin found a baby inside a box | Photo: Pexels
Having just entered the living room, Andrew froze in place when he saw the child in Kevin’s arms. Caroline, too, wondered about the crying sound from the living room and gasped when she arrived and saw Kevin holding a baby.
“Where did you find the baby, honey?” she asked, worried.
“There was a box on our doorstep, mommy. I am so happy that God sent me a sibling! Yay!”
Andrew took the baby from Kevin and rushed to the door, where the box was lying. He looked around to see if the person who’d left the box and the baby was still there. But all he saw was thick snow that had enclosed the entire area.
“There’s no one there,” he said when he returned. “What should we do now?”
Caroline took the baby in her arms, and as she rocked the child to stop the crying, she sensed the little one was running a temperature. “Honey,” she told Andrew. “I think we should take the child to a hospital. We need to get the baby checked.”
With that, Andrew and Caroline decided to visit the hospital and asked their neighbor, Mrs. Clemmens, to look after Kevin while they were away.
Caroline noticed the baby was running a temperature | Photo: Pexels
The doctors said the baby had a fever because of being left in the cold, and they would keep her under observation for a while. “Your daughter will be here for a while, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. Before we admit her, please complete the formalities at the reception desk.”
Andrew and Caroline looked at each other. They couldn’t just write it in the form that they were the child’s parents. They needed to inform the cops about it, so they did. The CPS and police were informed, and it was decided that after the baby girl was discharged, she would be placed in the hospital’s orphanage while the cops searched for her parents.
Back at home, Andrew and Caroline had to lie to Kevin that the baby was sick and would be hospitalized for a long time. However, after nearly a month passed with no news of anyone showing up as the baby’s parents, she was officially admitted to the orphanage. And it was at that point that Andrew and Caroline considered adopting her.
They decided to embrace her and raise her as her own and thought that Kevin would love to have her as a younger sibling. So they filed for her adoption, and two months later, when it was finalized and the baby came home, Andrew and Caroline felt like their family was finally complete.
But everything changed one fateful afternoon when a woman appeared on Andrew and Caroline’s doorstep, claiming to be the baby’s biological mother…
Caroline and Andrew adopted the baby | Photo: Pexels
One year later…
“Hi there, lady, my name is Laura. And the baby you’re holding in your arms is my daughter. I shouldn’t have left her in that stupid box! Give her back,” the woman said rudely as Caroline answered the door. Her demeanor was stiff and stern, and her tone was anything but sweet. Caroline was taken aback by her sight, to say the least.
“What? What did you just say? Your daughter?!” A fit of sudden anger gripped Caroline. “She’s mine, and I’m not going to give her to you! We officially adopted her a year ago, and you have no legal right to her!”
Laura smirked. “We’ll see about that in court, lady! Here,” she said, handing Caroline a document. “I’ve filed for custody of my daughter, and I’ll get her back at any cost! After all, I am the biological mother,” she said before walking away.
That night, Caroline and Andrew were very worried. The first court hearing was a week later, and they had no idea what would happen. What if they lost? What if their daughter was taken away? They knew the chances of that happening were minimal, but they were scared.
Laura challenged Caroline for the baby’s custody | Photo: Pexels
Thankfully, after hearing from both parties, the judge ruled in Andrew and Caroline’s favor. Laura’s parental rights were terminated because she abandoned her child a year ago and never bothered to look after her, and if she wanted them restored, she would have to adhere to a specific timeframe as described by the law and provide additional proof that she could care for her child better than her adoptive parents.
Laura knew she couldn’t do that. She lived in a small house and had very little money. After her husband had died, she decided to abandon the baby on the Andersons’ doorstep and focus on her new boyfriend.
However, when she discovered that her late husband had left all of his money to their daughter rather than her, she left her boyfriend so that she wouldn’t have to share all of the money and decided to take her daughter back. But it was too late. She was merely a waitress at a pub, and her living conditions would never persuade the court that she was capable of caring for her child.
So, in the end, Andrew and Caroline won the case. And years later, they also bought a new house and welcomed another beautiful baby girl. Kevin was overjoyed when he found out he had another younger sister.
What can we learn from this story?
- Love is what makes a family and not necessarily biology. Andrew and Caroline adopted Laura’s child and raised her as their own.
- Greed will lead you nowhere. Laura first abandoned her baby to enjoy life with her new boyfriend, and later, to obtain all of her husband’s money, she left her boyfriend. In the end, she ended up with nothing.
If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a young widow who heard her late husband knock from inside his coffin at his funeral.
This account is inspired by our reader’s story and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life.
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