Carly Simon "You're So Vain......" Who was she referring to ?

[The Chao Goes Mu]

Today at work the topic came up about who Carly Simon was referring to in the song "You're so vain" I know there has been a lot of speculation through the years and that in a relatively recent interview she said it was a couple people combined but a co-worker said she revealed it to be one person. He couldn't remember where he heard it, naturally
Can anyone help?
Thanks!
I will lose sleep over this.

[Brad Pittiful]

i think it was Warren Beatty

at the very beginning of the song...very low...she says "you son of a gun" so she pissed id say

[Hugh Jass]

She has always said that it was a bunch of different people. Warren Beatty was the one I always heard. Several people thought it might be Mick Jagger (made more interesting by the fact that he sings back up on the song).

Recently, she decided to auction off the name of the person. For charity, I believe. The winner of the auction had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Someone fairly famous won the auction, but I can't remember the name.

It strikes me as fairly convenient that she is now saying it really is about one person. We may never know for sure.

[wakimika]

If you must have the answer, you'll need to get Dick Ebersol really, really drunk.

He "won" the right to know who the song is about in a charity auction. However, he also signed an agreement to never divulge the secret.

[lieu]

I believe it was some TV exec that paid the 50K to find out. I'd pay 50K to find out who killed Kennedy but not who dumped Carly and pissed her off.

[omni-not]

Wasn't there a thread on this subject very recently?

[omni-not]

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...hreadid=202466

[omni-not]

...and lieu even contributed to it, as did I (but, at least, I remembered it vaguely)

[The Chao Goes Mu]

sorry, didn't know about the thread,.,,, i've onl been here since june and am still trying to learn the ropes....a good time to ask you....how come when i try to search for a thread, it always tells me that i don't have enough words to search. even when i type in exactly what a thread title contains (did it as a test) ????????

[omni-not]

I'm still amazed that I could find the thread. Perhaps you should direct your query to the ATMB forum, assuming no one else can answer you here.

Welcome aboard, by the way!

[Brad Pittiful]

Originally posted by lieu
I believe it was some TV exec that paid the 50K to find out. I'd pay 50K to find out who killed Kennedy but not who dumped Carly and pissed her off.

the mob killed JFK...woo hoo 50k coming my way

[mhendo]

I had always heard Warren Beatty, and most people i know seem to be of the same belief on the matter.

[Wendell Wagner]

CURIOUS_GEORGIE7 writes:

> how come when i try to search for a thread, it always tells me
> that i don't have enough words to search.

I just did a search on the words "Carly", "Simon", and "vain" (with no time limit and on all forums), and I got 25 threads. Try that yourself. That set of threads is probably everything relevant.

[acrossthesea]

Weird, this Warren Beatty thing, I'd never heard that before. When I was little my mother used to play that song a lot and told me it was about James Taylor!

[Xema]

So Warren Beatty killed JFK!?! Whoda thunk it?

[Marley23]

the mob killed JFK...woo hoo 50k coming my way

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...hreadid=204992

[The Chao Goes Mu]

Hmmmm..... I can buy the Warren Beatty thing....self absorbed bastard that he is. But James Taylor? I thought he was too busy wallowing in self-pity to be vain.

OMNI NOT WROTE:
Welcome aboard, by the way!

Thank you!

[lieu]

Maybe Beatty will squeal like a pig for us.

[The Chao Goes Mu]

ummmm Lieu.............that was Ned Beatty.......Ned's the one that had to squeal.....