When Carly Simon wrote the song You’re So Vain, her career changed forever, and yet the song remains one of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest mysteries. Who is the person Simon is singing about?

Well, Carly herself has revealed who the classic song is about.

The 1970’s sure was a time for great music. During the 1960’s, bands like The Beatles had conquered the world, and now it was time for the likes of Bob Dylan and others to take over.

Carly Simon – singer/songwriter
One of those who did just that was Carly Simon. The wonderful singer/songwriter became one of the most popular artists when her career began to grow in the early 1970’s.

We’ve all heard You’re so Vain and various other classics from the New Yorker. But what about her life? And who was You’re so Vain actually about? This is the story of the wonderful Carly Simon.

he Simon family were also good friends of legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson, who soon would take Carly under his wing. Jackie Robinson and his family lived in the Stamford house while their own home was under construction.

Befriended Jackie Robinson
She got to sit in the dugout at the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn – home of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Soon, she became the unofficial mascot of the team.

“Jackie even taught me how to bat lefty, though it never took”, Simon wrote in her memoir Boys in the Trees (2015).

“He always had the cutest look around the side of his mouth, as if he were thinking about what he was about to say before he said it.”

However, the family would go through a tragedy. Simon’s father was strong-armed out of his own company, and died in 1960, just before his daughter’s 16th birthday.

For her part, Carly showed an early interest in music. She started singing together with brother Joey – who later became a successful writer, writing the music for the Broadway show The Secret Garden – but later, it was her and her sister who would go on to pursue a career in the business.

As Carly wrote on her website, she and sister Lucy taught themselves three chords on the guitar and hitch-hiked up to Provincetown, MA in the summer of 1964.

Carly Simon was later engaged to musician Russ Kunkel in 1985. She married writer James Hart in December 1987, but the couple divorced in 2007.

Carly Simon, now 75 years of age, continued making music for many years to come. And, as a by-product, continued to win several awards for her trophy cabinet.

Her 1977 worldwide hit Nobody Does It Better was the theme song of the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. It’s considered by many to be one of the greatest Bond anthems of all time.

Hall of Fame entry
In 1988, she released the song Let The River Run, first featured in the 1988 movie Working Girl. With the song, she became the first singer ever to win three major awards for a single track: an Academy Award, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

Six years later, in 1994, Carly was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Carly Simon lived a happy life during the 1960s and 1970s. She sure is a legendary singer with a legacy that will live on forever.

Thank you for all the wonderful music, Carly, and we hope to hear more in the future.

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