Carly Simon hailing a cab in New York City
Carly Simon is 77 years old today.
A singer-songwriter, musician and children's author, Simon rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records including "Anticipation," "You're So Vain," "Nobody Does It Better" and "Coming Around Again."
Her 1988 hit, "Let the River Run" was the first song in history to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for a song both written and performed by a single artist. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.
Simon is the former wife of another notable singer-songwriter, James Taylor. They have two children together, Sarah "Sally" Maria Taylor and Ben Taylor, who are also musicians.
Born in New York City, Simon’s father was Richard L. Simon (co-founder of Simon & Schuster), a pianist who often played Chopin and Beethoven at home. Her mother was Andrea Louise Simon, a civil rights activist and singer.
Simon's career began with a short-lived music group with her sister, Lucy, as The Simon Sisters. They had a minor hit in 1964 — "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod" — and made three albums together before Lucy left to get married and start a family.
Later, Carly collaborated with eclectic New York rockers, Elephant's Memory, for about six months. She also appeared in the 1971 Milos Forman movie, Taking Off, playing an auditioning singer. She also sang "Long Term Physical Effects," which was included in the 1971 soundtrack for the movie.
Her solo music career began in 1971, with the self-titled, Carly Simon, on Elektra Records. The album contained her breakthrough Top 10 hit "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be." It was followed quickly by a second album, Anticipation.
The title song from that album, written about a romance between Simon and Cat Stevens, was a significant hit, reaching #3 at Easy Listening radio and #13 on Billboard's Hot 100.
It was perhaps even more famous for its use in a variety of international commercials to market the legendary "slow" (i.e., thick) ketchup of the H. J. Heinz Company, one of the largest food producers in the world. The next single release — also reportedly written about Stevens — was "Legend In Your Own Time," which made a more modest impact on the charts, peaking at #50 on the Hot 100.
After their brief liaison during 1970–1971 ended amicably, Stevens wrote his song "Sweet Scarlet" about Simon, who also had highly publicized relationships with Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson and James Taylor during this period.
In 1972-1973, Simon scored the biggest success of her career with the classic global smash, "You're So Vain." It hit #1 on the U.S. Pop and Adult Contemporary charts, and sold over a million copies in the United States alone.
It was one of the decade's biggest hits and propelled Simon's breakthrough album, No Secrets, to #1 on the U.S. album charts, where it stayed for six consecutive weeks. No Secrets achieved Gold status that year, but by the album's 25th anniversary in 1997, it had been certified Platinum.
The subject of the song itself has become one of the biggest enigmas in popular music, as this track also carries one of the most famous lyrics: "You're so vain/I bet you think this song is about you." Simon has never publicly admitted who the song is about.
She hinted that it could be a composite of several people, and for many people the most likely "suspects" have always been Beatty or Jagger, who sings backup vocals on this recording.
Simon has given vague hints over the decades to a variety of talk shows and publications, saying that riddles wouldn't be interesting if everyone knew the answers to them.
On August 5, 2003, she did finally auction off the information to the winner of a charity function for a grand total of $50,000, with the condition that the winner (a television executive, Dick Ebersol on NBC's Today Show) not reveal who it is.
Finally, in November, 2015, Simon, promoting her about-to-be-published memoir, said, "I have confirmed that the second verse is Warren," and added that while "Warren thinks the whole thing is about him," he is the subject only of that verse, with the remainder of the song referring to two other, still-unnamed men.
Here, Simon performs “You’re So Vain” in 1987 at Martha’s Vineyard
Photo by Lynn Goldsmith