Song of the Week #135 – “You’re So Vain”
Written by admin on December 3, 2012 – 7:26 pm -| Carly Simon’s signature hit “You’re So Vain” is Song of the Week on Classic Pop Icons.
“You’re So Vain” was released on single in November, 1972, backed with “His Friends Are More Than Fond of Robin”, and also appeared the same month on her third album “No Secrets”. |
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The identity of the man who Simon is singing about in “You’re So Vain” has been debated for 40 years, with Warren Beatty probably most often named, but Simon has always been very coy about revealing the truth. She did have a number of other high profile relationships/friendships with famous men in this period, including Cat Stevens, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson and James Taylor. The latter can probably be ruled out as she married him two days after the release of “You’re So Vain” and she has explicitly denied that the song is about him. Jagger is another name that she has ruled out. In 2010, it was widely reported that record executive David Geffen was the subject of the song, after a publicity stunt in which Simon said that the answer could be found in a track on her latest album “Never Been Gone“. Simon soon put an end to that theory.
A likely scenario is that the song is about a type of man, rather than a specific man, and that the character is a composite of people she had dated. In a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone (Issue No. 125, January 4, 1973), conducted just as the song was becoming well known, Simon said:
| “The anger in that song is not necessarily about anybody whose put down my music or wanted me to be subservient to them. It’s at a certain type of man, very into themselves, that I’ve been very affected by, adversely, in the past – a man whose more concerned with his image than the relationship… |
| It’s really a little about anybody who suspects it may be about them. But the examples were really taken from my imagination. I don’t know anybody who went to Saratoga and I don’t know anybody who went to photograph the total eclipse of the sun. The point of that verse is that the person was where they should be all the time. That that’s the hip thing to do and so the person is doing it… I had about two or three or people in mind.” |
The song’s most famous line, “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you,” is mischievous in intent and there were probably several men who wondered whether or not they were being ribbed. In an interview that appeared in Sheila Weller’s 2009 book “Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation” (p 366), Simon’s friend and writing partner, Jake Brackman, suggests that there was an element of venom in the lyrics:
| “Those were all wrenching emotional affairs for her. And this thing that Nicholson and Beatty had, where they find a new girl and then they want to share her as a male bonding thing, that passed-on feeling [translated to]: “You gave away the things you loved, and one of them was me…” |
The memorable next line, “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee,” was taken from a comment Simon remembered her piano player, Billy Mernit, making while the pair were on an airplane flight. He had noticed the clouds outside the window reflecting in her coffee cup. In the context of the song, the “clouds in my coffee” are a reference to the transitory and unstable nature of her relationship.
Simon also spoke about the song’s origins in the 1973 Rolling Stone interview:
| “Sometimes when you play a new song for somebody they say that sounds like a single, but I certainly didn’t write it as one. In fact it was originally called, “Bless You, Ben,” and it was about thanking an imaginary man named Ben who came into my life. Thank you for coming in when I was mournful up in my loft, just watering my plants. And it was a morose subject that I didn’t want to have anything to do with. So I scrapped those lyrics but kept most of the melody, and I had one line that had been in my notebook for a long time which was, “You’re so vain, you probably think this song’s about you,” and I used that.” |
The song also went by the title “Ballad of a Vain Man” (in homage to Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”) before Simon settled on “You’re So Vain”. The “Ballad of a Vain Man” was originally conceived as a slow, folk ballad, and it was in this form that she first played it to her record producer, Richard Perry, at his Laurel Canyon home in May 1972. He quickly recognised the song’s potential, and that summer the pair would work up the solid pop/rock arrangement that helped make the song such a big hit. Simon would return to the folk arrangement for the new version of “You’re So Vain” that appeared on “Never Been Gone” (2009).
“You’re So Vain” earned Carly Simon Grammy nominations for Best Pop Female Vocalist, Song Of The Year, and Record Of The Year (Single). She came away empty handed, but in 2004 the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame. It also appeared at #216 in RIAA’s Songs of the Century, compiled in 2001.
“You’re So Vain” – Carly Simon
In 2010, a competition was held to create an official video for “You’re So Vain,” using either the original recording or the 2009 remake, and “green screen” footage of Carly singing the song. The following winning entry incorporated both versions.
“You’re So Vain” (2010 promo) – Carly Simon
Authorship
“You’re So Vain” was written by Carly Simon.
Recording date/location
“You’re So Vain” was recorded in the summer of 1972 at Trident Studios, London.
Musicians
The following musicians appeared on “You’re So Vain”:
- Carly Simon – piano, vocals, string arrangements
- Jimmy Ryan – acoustic and electric guitars
- Klaus Voormann – bass
- Jim Gordon – drums
- Richard Perry – percussion
- Mick Jagger – backing vocals
- Paul Buckmaster – orchestration.
The highly effective bass lick during the intro was reportedly a happy accident, with producer Richard Perry asking Voorman to replicate what he had heard him do while warming up his fingers. That edgy bass and Simon’s whispered “Son of a gun” set the tone for what follows.
Mick Jagger’s appearance on the record was unplanned. In 1995 interview with CBS’s This Morning, Simon noted:
| “I was in London, it was 1972 and he [Mick] happened to call at the studio while I was doing the background vocals with Harry Nilsson. Mick said “Hey, what cha doin’?” and I said “We’re doing some backup vocals on a song of mine….why don’t you come down and sing with us?” So Mick and Harry and I stood around the mike singing you’re so vain and Harry was such a gentleman – he knew the chemistry was between me and Mick; in terms of the singing, so he sort of bowed out saying “The two of you have a real blend – you should do it yourselves.” And that’s how it happened.” |
Chart performance
“You’re So Vain” hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 31, 1972. It remained on top for three weeks.
The single was also Simon’s breakthrough hit in the UK, peaking at number three.
The album on which “You’re So Vain” appeared, “No Secrets,” topped the Billboard album chart for five weeks and reached number three in the UK.
There will be a new Song of the Week on December 10.
Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” is available on “No Secrets” and a number of compilations, including “Reflections: Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits”. As noted above, the 2009 version appears on the album “Never Been Gone”.
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No Secrets (CD) |
Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now |
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Reflections – Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits (CD) |
Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now |
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Never Been Gone (CD) |
Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now |
Tags: Carly Simon, You're So Vain
Posted in Song of the Week |
