Wondering about You're So Vain

Carole King has a lot of fans. I found that out when my piece on Tapestry came out and suddenly a lot of people around seemed to be talking about Carole King. Friends I had not heard from in years called to reminisce about their It’s Too Late Days. There were also those who e-mailed or texted including the pakopya naman and akin na lang CD mo kind. And I was really amazed at the blog! Wow! Thank you guys.

From jediknight: Tapestry (incidentally one of the oldies albums in my iPod), is one of those seminal albums released during the ‘70s. Full of poetry like Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush.

From websurfer: I really like that genre…that hippie, sunflower on the long hair, bare naked Yoko and John Lennon, very rebellious yet wants peace, the Janis Joplin, Hendrix era... the music was original and classic... well except for the puffing and drugs part... and I wasn’t born yet during that time...

From bladerunner: Because of this article, na-intrigue tuloy ako. I have to look for the Tapestry CD. I know the individual songs but until today, never really knew that they’re all in one album. Now I’m no longer surprised with the awards and the attention that Tapestry received and continues to receive.

From JoseParco: Thanks mucho. Each of the songs you mentioned are my faves. The lyrics are so very profound. Methinks there will never be anything close to this anymore.

From morpheus: Saw her (Carole) on BBC Breakfast promoting this album. Her voice is still great, parang di tumanda.

From howlindave: Tapestry was one of the best albums in the ‘70s… the greatest years in the field of rock music… almost all of the great rock hall of famers were very active in that era. Another great female songwriter of that era is Carly Simon… whose song You’re so vain/ you think this song is about you… in referring to Mick Jagger, was a Billboard hit together with another classic, A Legend in her Own Time.

From Bonny S: Have you found out who the guy was in Carly’s You’re So Vain?

From J. Jeanie: Please tell howlindave, it wasn’t Mick. It was Warren Beatty. Kung ako rin si Carly, I would also write a song about Warren. The Warren of those days of course.

From angelbaby: Does the book (Girls Like Us, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller) say kung sino si You’re So Vain? Etc..

The column was about Carole but along with all those messages extolling the virtues of Tapestry came a lot of feedback about Carly and particularly about You’re So Vain. Must be due to the gossip that resides in all of us. That is the only reason I can think of for so much interest in a 37-year-old song. Like, this is not a case like who really killed Ninoy Aquino.

Simon in the ‘70s was a hot singer-composer with Grammys, Oscars and other awards in her resume. She, along with Carole and her husband James Taylor were the leading proponents of the new sound of the time. Aside from You’re So Vain, among her other hits were Anticipation, That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be, Nobody Does It Better and You Belong to Me.

Smart, glamorous and sexy Carly is from a moneyed New York and counted Jackie O among her friends. She wrote You’re So Vain in 1972. I do not know how the legend about the man behind the song started but it has stayed alive after all these years. And nobody still has the right answer.

The closest answer I found is in a book, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into Music that my good friend Shirley Kuan brought back from the States. It is loaded with facts, like how ragtime started, trivia, like whom the later disgraced Milli Vannili defeated at the Grammys and other items. Among these is an update on You’re So Vain in a section about burning questions about famous songs.

It asks: Will we ever find out who’s You’re So Vain. Answer: Probably. In 2003, Simon donated a dinner date and the answer to who’s so vain to a charity auction. Winner was NBC executive Dick Ebersol who put up a $50,000 bid but he was sworn to secrecy and allowed to give only one clue. There is an e in the name of the vain one.

That eliminated Carly’s former fiancé, the British playboy William Donaldson. Left were Jagger, Beatty, Kris Kristofferson and Taylor. A year later Carly added the letter A to the clue, which got rid of Kristofferson. She has played up this game over the years, so she might just drop another clue one of these days.