I like every single Carly Simon song I've ever heard

Seven minute WHY 12" = Best song ever?

― piscesx, Thursday, January 1, 2009 8:55 PM (2 years ago)

Seven minute WHY 12" = Best song ever?

― piscesx, Thursday, January 1, 2009 8:55 PM (2 years ago)

― The Brainwasher, Wednesday, June 22, 2011 7:40 AM (2 months ago)

I heard "You're So Vain" in K-Mart today and it reminded me of the fairly pointless critique the poet Jonathan Williams did of the lyrics (I think it was some sort of 70s "people tell me that pop lyrics are today's poetry, so I will now make a travesty of some pop lyrics"), and I have to admit I was amused at vaguely remembering something like: how many eyes does this person have?

But who wants to read Jonathan Williams's boring, often quasi-concretist poetry anyway? I'd much rather listen to at least a handful of Carly Simon songs.

(Worthy of more acclaim as a publisher though.)

Naturally the Carly Simon thread is hilarious and awesome.

Just hearing "why" for the first time via this Daft punk spotify playlist, really nice. Is this song about James Taylor?

I got to work with her in my studio-rat days and she was a sweet lady. Didn't know until then she was of the Simon & Schuster (sp?) Simons.

"Why" is nice but I don't think Simon's voice and Rodgers-Edwards were a snug fit.

Mick Jagger is great on 'You're So Vain'

Just breaking- second verse is about Warren Beatty.

Anti-climactic, but a good story nonetheless (that I plan to walk my class through sometime this week). "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you"--that's a tautology, right?

Think so but perhaps there is a rhetorical term that more closely captures what is going on.

That's what I was thinking, that there might be some other name for that. It's not at all a paradox, but tautology doesn't quite seem right either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKaaF757mIw

i like her song with chic

song is catchy, but this video (or more to the point, carly's moves within it) is embarrassing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8UnXzP3ms

also, she seems such an unlikely sex symbol to me, but that was the 1970s i guess (or in this case, the early 1980s)

"You Belong to Me" and "Jesse" are better songs, but I'm resigned to muttering these opinions to my fellow supermarket shoppers as we hum along in the cereal aisle.

How do we feel about when Carly tackles the standards?

I have a love/hate thing with her version of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" (Cole Porter), which a certain NYC radio host uses as his sign-off song every week. On first listen it sounded awkward to me, both the singing and the cheesy production, but with constant repetition it's become somewhat endearing

My favourite Carly Simon revelation is the one about her liking to be spanked before she goes onstage.

Wow, had never seen the video for Why before. I guess my main question with that is... why?!

I don't think the question about rhetorical device in "Vain" should go unanswered, hivemind to thread plz

I don't think it's a tautology, that would be more like "You're so vain because you're so vain" or "according to this song you're vain ergo you're vain"

Phrased as a paradox would be more like "You're so vain you can't imagine this song is about you"

So I dunno, I guess "absurd" or "nonsensical" would be a better term, the key weird phrase is "you probably think this song is about you", where usually the "you probably think..." construction would point to something false, here, surprisingly, it points to a truth, implied by the initial "you" and following "don't you?", adding up to a nice caricature of a person so vain that he sees himself even in such a negative description

So anyway, I think it's a play on apostrophe as a figure of speech - the vanity of the addressed person gives it a nice absurd twist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_%28figure_of_speech%29

but sorry if these thoughts are jumbled

Thanks for trying to think through that...If the target of the song is correct, he's a) perceptive, and b) either more or less or exactly as vain as she thinks--I think that could go either way. If he's wrong, if the song's not about him, he's a) not very perceptive because b) he's even vainer than she thinks.

It's such a great line--I think it almost confounds categories.

When I played the song for my class today, with the lyrics and the backstory, they pretty quickly picked up on the fact that Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, and Taylor Swift write songs like this all the time. I told them that they all took their cue from Carly Simon, but I'm sure there are many precedents before that (Dylan wrote a bunch of who's-he-writing-about? songs in the mid-'60s). What makes "You're So Vain" so significant is that it hit #1 and turned into a national guessing game.

the line seems like a 'catch-22' to me, although i know that's not a classical figure of speech. the person to whom the song is addressed is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

and yeah that video for 'why' is... alternately horrifying and charming.

I thought about this some more on the way home today--I feel like it's a very important issue in 2015--and came to a similar conclusion. It's a trap, where three out of the four possibilities reflect badly on the intended target.

1) You think it's about you and you're right.
2) You think it's about you and you're wrong.
3) You don't think it's about you and you're right.
4) You don't think it's about you and you're wrong.

1 and 2 aren't good. Either way, you're definitely vain; the second possibility makes you really vain and also clueless. 4 means you're not vain but are clueless. Only 3 is a favorable outcome.

Actually, if you're the intended target, only 1 and 4 apply. Change that to three out of the four possibilities reflect badly on everyone who's ever heard the song. Most of us--me for sure--are safe with 3. For Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger and such, much trickier.

great stuff

you reckon there's more than one you in play? since it's the same word, I'd assume it refers to same subject throughout ("you walked..." "you're so vain" "don't you?") and the song can only be about you

leaving the question: who are you? two possible answers:

1) you're warren beatty or someone else intimately familiar with carly simon - this song may be about you, and you probably think it is

2) you don't know carly simon personally, so this song isn't specifically about you - but the meaning of the song might apply to you too; if you think it does, it does

I feel like it's a very important issue in 2015

carly simon and her publisher sure hope so!

I've always wondered if "You're So Vain" isn't about any man in particular—even if there are references to specific guys (i.e. Beatty)—but all men.

Keeps you Running slays
https://open.spotify.com/track/4kmIcVKU595QzqULEp1OzH?si=4UbyrPlaQ1yn_wt7pdv_lA
I’m tapped in 1977 and I can’t get out

it kinda does! is it a good album?

Personally I had diminishing returns from the rest of the album, ymmv