You're So Vain

You probably think this thread is about you.

Heard it on the radio today and was thinking about how much of a 180 I've done on it--more than any other song of its era. I didn't like it as a 12-year-old, when it was on the radio. Most of the songs I loved then, I still do to one degree or another: Al Green's and Badfinger's and the Spinners' and Todd Rundgren's hits, the Harvest singles, "Mother and Child Reunion," "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." They all shared a kind of deep melodicism, or something I can't describe--whatever it was, "You're So Vain" doesn't have that. It's almost more of a gimmicky K-Tel novelty, and its gimmick is what made it famous.

Something happened at some point, though--10 or 15 years ago I started hearing it differently--and now I'm amazed at how good it is. The lyrical details kill me: the bit about Nova Scotia and the eclipse, the apricot scarf, the "wife of a close friend," etc. I wonder if the dream about clouds in her coffee is a Godard reference--if anybody's going have that in a pop song, an educated rich kid would. Anyway, the lyrics are as inventive as Dylan, and the whole thing feels like it could be Liz Phair. The music gets me too now, or the lyrics would be wasted.

I too have grown to like it as I've gotten older. The confidence of her cadences, I think.

The confidence is mid-'60s Dylan too--she just eviscerates this guy in a way that is unanswerable.

For years I said "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" showed Simon at her best; now it sounds too studied, too perfect, not lived-in.

This song sucks

You're saying that now...

No really, it’s not worth your time

I still love "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" and "Anticipation"; they're both in line with those other songs I mentioned.

The confidence is mid-'60s Dylan too--she just eviscerates this guy in a way that is unanswerable.

I don't really agree with this. The detailed descriptions of him don't seem terribly unflattering to me and it doesn't especially seem like he's fallen from grace, ready to be kicked while down like Miss Lonely in "Like a Rolling Stone". If anything, what has changed is that he "gave away" the speaker, that her dreams have become whatever clouds in one's coffee are supposed to be.

the “clouds in your coffee” line was some throwaway thing someone said to her while in an airplane I think

iirc

Simon said the line "clouds in my coffee" came "from an airplane flight that I took with Billy Mernit, who was my friend and piano player at the time. As I got my coffee, there were clouds outside the window of the airplane and you could see the reflection in the cup of coffee. Billy said to me, 'Look at the clouds in your coffee'."

this song rules

Fantastic song, one of my go-to karaoke joints. Chord structure is p clever.

Yeah, I do love the song.

Good background on clouds-in-my-coffee--Godard popped into my mind, but I figured it was a longshot.

She's not vicious like the Dylan of "Positively 4th Street" or "Like a Rolling Stone," but I think she does render the guy as quite ridiculous, a globe-trotting phony (or who may be a Holly Golightly-type phony, in that he believes his charade). She seems more amused than angry.

I like it so much that I checked out the parent album, No Secrets, recently. I found it bland adult-contemporary - 'You're So Vain' towers above the rest.

I think I may remember that album cover.

came around on it with the climactic scene of the Watergate comedy film Dick

I was raised to hate this song but at some point realized I loved it. I love how she throws in that aaaand before the chorus so that there's no pause between the verse and the chorus, it all just flows together.

I had some dreams, there were clouds in my coffee
clouds in my coffee aaaand you're so vain

I feel like this tune and "Maggie May" share some kind of weird 1971-72 zeitgeist vibe in terms of the sonics and overall feel

The question of who it's about is by far the most interesting thing about this song.

pfft, see outic's notes on the cool chord structure above

songs like this were so huge that they were still a massive part of the cultural landscape up to a decade later

The question of who it's about is by far the most interesting thing about this song.

kinda surprised by all the "I learned to hate this song at a young age" reactions...? Like, why? It doesn't seem all that different or hateworthy than any other mid-70s adult-contemporary easy listening AM gold (Carpenters, Jim Croce, Dan Fogelberg, etc.), at least on the surface. But even as a kid, apart from the ingeniously catchy compositional tricks, what caught my attention the most was all the oddly specific details littered throughout the lyrics: an apricot scarf, the clouds in the coffee (tears? swirls of cream? a reflection?), wtf is a gavotte, Nova Scotia? It really paints a picture.

The opening 15 seconds or so of this song has a kind of cool bass 'tuning up' sound that reminds me a little bit of the opening of Rikki Don't Lose That Number

really incredible opening line in this song, "you walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht." you immediately know that guy

I'm stunned by the indifference. If anything, its continued ubiquity has doubled my appreciation.

and as stated upthread, the chords, the odd shape of the chorus, uuuugh the topshelf songcraft on display xp

The opening 15 seconds or so of this song has a kind of cool bass 'tuning up' sound that reminds me a little bit of the opening of Rikki Don't Lose That Number

oh god, THAT guy

again from Wiki

The distinctive bass guitar intro is played by Klaus Voormann. When Simon says "Son of a gun" after the distinctive bass riff, it is in response[...]

really incredible opening line in this song, "you walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht." you immediately know that guy

Yeah if you've seen a lot of people walking onto yachts.

I grew up in Missouri and didn't see anybody walking onto a yacht until I was 20

and the yacht's name? Bob Marley.

i've never seen anyone walking onto a yacht! that's the power of imagination

Never saw it but knew exactly what she was talking about.

IrRegardless of who the song may be about, a better, more cool drawn portrait of male vanity I have yet to see, although I haven’t read as many Dawn Powell novels as Alfred has.

the line's worthy of Powell for sure

anyway, it's not an album, but that time i was sitting in my brother's gremlin, either his first or his second gremlin, and yer so vain by carly came on the radio and he sez to me "you do know that mick jagger sings on this song, right?" and i listened and HOLY FUCK i had never heard mick and now everytime i hear it ALL I CAN HEAR IS MICK!! freaked me the fuck out.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, April 1, 2006 11:01 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

kinda surprised by all the "I learned to hate this song at a young age" reactions...? Like, why?

I think it was presented to me as kind of a gimmicky joke song, because of the chorus. Like, You're so vain, you prob'ly think this song is about you - "What a dumb joke! It doesn't even make sense!" It took me a while to get past that and realize how awesome the song was.

Whoops, meant to put that first line in italics.

kinda surprised by all the "I learned to hate this song at a young age" reactions...?

I never gave a second's thought at 12 as to why I liked or didn't like something (very few 12-year-olds do, I suspect). It was only when I was older that I began to get some sense of why Al Green and Badfinger and Harvest (and the Carpenters too--loved them then, still do) were over here, and "You're So Vain" was over there. Which is not to say that, even now, I could explain that distinction very well.

I think she got somewhat specific a couple of years ago as to who she was writing about. It was so anti-climactic, I can't remember now what she said. (I did try to get my grade 3/4 class interested in this great revelation--didn't take.)

One thing that really interest me now about the song is how central it is to pop music's early-'70s move into celebrity culture, the world of Warhol and Capote and movie stars. That had started a bit in the '60s--Dylan visits Warhol's studio, Mia Farrow accompanies the Beatles to India--but the yardstick I use is Capote's big party in 1966; there are zero pop stars there, whereas today something similar (if that's even possible) would have them crawling all over the place. Something happened around '71, '72. The Exile on Main Street tour is a big part of that--you can see Capote wander backstage in Cocksucker Blues--and "You're So Vain" feels like it is too. (Rod Stewart, in "You Wear It Well," still feels like he's on the outside looking in when he name-drops Madame Onassis--but he wants in badly, and he'll be there soon in a big way).

no mention of the Jack Klugman-Tony Randall cover yet

my 2 cents: this song is about Warren Beatty

but honestly I think the "mystery" that is traditionally sold as this song's hook (*who* is it actually about?!) is pretty irrelevant to it's greatness

Agree it doesn't matter, but Mick Jagger has a healthy sense of self-parody, so it wouldn't surprise me if he happily volunteered to sing backup on a song he deduced was about him.

yeah Mick probably thinks the song is about him

tbf he probably thinks that about every song

I said a couple of years ago--closer to four:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-carly-simon-youre-so-vain-about-warren-beatty-partially-20151118-story.html

There's a new tune in the political song wars. Mitt Romney's critics are increasingly guffawing over "You're So Bain," a YouTube parody of Carly Simon's 1972 hit "You're So Vain." The Bain version, released earlier this year, features a Simon-esque voice crooning: "You're so Bain, you think that you can buy the White House," and "you're so Bain, you think you can avoid all your taxes."

song suffers from this poorly formed joek

From the L.A. Times piece: "...it hadn’t reached, you know, the populations of small countries"--she's still got it!

Lol. I’ve read- and heard!- some stuff about him that I won’t bother to tell you here since you’re all probably familiar with the gist of it.

She's not vicious like the Dylan of "Positively 4th Street" or "Like a Rolling Stone," but I think she does render the guy as quite ridiculous, a globe-trotting phony (or who may be a Holly Golightly-type phony, in that he believes his charade). She seems more amused than angry.

I think it feels a little 'protest too much' to me. She doesn't strike me as over it. Your reading is probably the intended one, though.

(But that pathos is part of what I like about it!)

I hear that too--she's mocking, but she's also a little rueful. She's a whole bunch of things at once; anger doesn't come through, though.

Yeah, totally.

there's scorn, but it's alternately wounded and playful

this must be the interview question for consulting on Inside Out 2 script rewrites.

I feel like this tune and "Maggie May" share some kind of weird 1971-72 zeitgeist vibe in terms of the sonics and overall feel

― sleeve, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 05:36 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

think they're both pretty bad in quite different ways rly

what the fuck is wrong with "Maggie May"

she looks old in bad lighting iirc

Both of these tunes are great, he crazy.

This song is about David Geffen issnt?

I like how the song nearly comes to a standstill before the pre-chorus (and i find pre-choruses an intriguing musical element to begin with)

Guitar solo almost seems to have talk box on it.

Yeah, like that standstill as well.

Wake up, darraghmac, I think I've got something to say to you.

iirc she auctioned disclosure of the subject's name for charity (?) and Dick Ebersol won, after which she whispered it in his ear, and then he revealed somewhere that it's an amalgam of Geffen and Nick Nolte

Yes. And we’ve also heard that it’s partially about Warren Beatty. Hence, my theory that it’s about every guy.

maybe she’s taking to more than one dude

To dude #1: “you’re so vain”
To dude #2: “[you too,] you probably think this song is about you”