Carly Simon Is Back, But She’s Never Really Been Gone

The hardest part in setting up my interview with Carly Simon was getting approval from my building to allow Carly to bring along her dog, Molly, who evidently goes with her everywhere. When we finally did get the OK, Carly showed up with the adorable Molly, and during the course of the interview, Molly jumped around and played with toys in the studio. And despite the occasional bump into a microphone, it was actually a little comic relief from the standard interview. And as Carly told me, the great thing about animals is, they never worry. They don’t think about the past or the future, they just think about right now.

And talk about rock royalty – Simon’s won a few Grammys and she was the first artist to win an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe for the same song, “Let the River Run” from the Working Girl soundtrack.
In addition to these accomplishments, Carly has produced and written several TV and other film soundtracks, recorded several albums of standards, recorded music for an opera, and written children’s books. She’s known worldwide for huge hits like “Anticipation”, “You’re So Vain,” “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be,” “Nobody Does It Better” and “Mockingbird” (with former husband James Taylor). She and Taylor have two wonderful kids, Ben and Sally. I asked her about the writing of “You’re So Vain” and the story behind having Mick Jagger on that song and also about working with her son Ben on her new album, Never Been Gone, an album of Carly’s classic songs, re-interpreted.

Carly Simon – Ben really put on his producer’s cap for this. He was the guy behind the job and is a brilliant musician and it comes to him naturally … and also my daughter Sally, who makes an appearance on this album, too. But Ben was really instrumental in getting me to do this album, because at the time, I wasn’t interested in doing anything. He just said, “Let’s do some of your old songs like ‘You’re So Vain’ and ‘Anticipation’ in an unplugged sort of way.”

Jonathan Clarke – And speaking of “You’re So Vain,” people for years now have been so fascinated by this song and specifically who the song is about; in fact, you have a whole section on your website about that song.

CS – See, I think it’s interesting that people find it so interesting. That song took me about a year to write. I started to write it in 1971 and I recorded it in 1972. I had this, believe it or not, Gucci notebook that I used to carry around and put ideas in when they came to me. One day, I put in the notebook this line that came to me, “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” Then there were other lines on other pages that came to me on subsequent days. Then there was an incident where I was at a party, and someone came into the party and the person next to me said, “Doesn’t he look like he’s walking onto a yacht?” So I wrote that line down. And about two months after that, I was on a plane going to Palm Springs for my record company’s convention, and my friend Billy, who was sitting next to me said, “Look at your coffee; it looks like there are clouds in it.” So I wrote that down, too. At the time, I didn’t relate those three lines together at all. But I got back to New York and had this melody in my head and I came up with a shell of a song that was completely different [from] how the song came out eventually. So it stalled there, but I then went back to my notebook and realized that the guy that the song is about is probably that guy that came into the party. So I continued on that theme and started to think of details and things that had happened with me, and with him, and then everything flowed from there. Up until the final artwork for the album was approved, the song was called “Ballad of a Vain Man.”

JC – And talk about how it came to be that Mick Jagger sang background vocals on that song.

CS – We were in London recording the album with Richard Perry. And Richard’s idea was to have Harry Nilsson help out on the background vocals on this song. Harry was floating around London and was a good friend of Richard and the studio, and he came in one night with a bottle of scotch. So Harry and I went into the vocal booth and we recorded a couple of takes. Then there was a phone call for me that I was supposed to take in the lounge. So I pick up the phone and say hello, and I hear on the other end, “Hey, baby, whatcha’ doin?” And it’s Mick Jagger. So I say, “Why don’t you come over? Harry and I are singing background vocals to a song of mine and I would love for you to hear it”. He was open to just being spontaneous. So he came over and it was Mick, myself and Harry in the vocal booth singing. There was such a dynamic between Mick and myself that Harry said “Hey, you know, I think it should just be the two of you. It sounds great and I seem to be getting in the way.”

JC – Carly, thank you so much.

CS –Thanks so much for having me.