3 minute read
Rent long-term
BY: RANDAL C. HILL
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye, your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner, they’d be your partner
And you’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you
Don’t you, don’t you? Some lyrics of Carly Simon’s #1 hit “You’re So Vain” left many music fans scratching their heads in wonder. Let’s start with the little-known word gavotte. “A gavotte is a French dance,” Simon explains. “I thought I would use a word that was slightly presumptuous… He’s gavotting because that’s what a pretentious, vain man would do.” Then there is that mysterious line, “There were clouds in my coffee.” That statement came about during a flight that Simon took with her piano player, Billy Merritt. She explains, “As I got my coffee, Billy said to me, ‘Look at the clouds in your coffee.’ There were clouds outside the window of the airplane, and you could see the reflection.” (And we were supposed to figure this out?) But the question that most fans asked was: Who was Simon ridiculing in this Elektra Records tune that topped the Billboard Singles chart for three weeks in the waning days of 1972? That song, which took nearly a year of Simon’s time to create, came from her third LP “No Secrets,” and remained in the Billboard Album top spot for over a month. Simon claims that “You’re So Vain” actually refers to three famous, arrogant individuals, and has stated that ex-husband James Taylor and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger are not the men she had in mind when she put pen to paper. Possible candidates—deep breath here—have included David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Kris Kristofferson, David Cassidy and Jack Nicholson. “I was brought up by a mother who was adamant that you didn’t even kiss a man until you were in love with him,” Simon has admitted. “So I was in love with a lot of men. I was besotted by the lads! I was definitely a romantic.” Recently, Simon admitted that the second verse — but only the second verse – was about actor Warren Beatty:
You had me several years ago, when I was still quite naïve
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 August 2003, Simon agreed to reveal the unknown names to the highest bidder of a Martha’s Vineyard charity auction. The head of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersole, won with a bid of $50,000, but he had to agree to keep the secret, so, to this day, Carly Simon’s mystery men have remained a mystery.
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