When Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” came out every guy, and I’m sure some women, who had ever been in the same room as her claimed it was about him. I never shared the same air as her nor is the jerk in question self-absorbed the same way I am, so I’m reasonably sure it’s not about me.
When Linda Ronstadt released “Long, Long Time” (AKA “The American Suicide Song”) in 1970 I was 16 and mopish about girls, prone to instant infatuations but too shy to do anything about them. I thought that song reflected how I felt about my unrequitable loves, which changed every time the class bell rang. (I never said I was deep.)
Listening to it today I find that I no longer relate to Linda, but see myself as the guy she’s singing about. I think about a couple of women whom I know loved me much more than I loved them, and it makes me sad in a different way, imagining how they–we–might’ve been happier if I were as in love with one of them as she was with me.
So, is there a song that describes you, and in your head were you the singer or the sung about?
I appear as minor characters in Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row.”
I am one of the sailors who are filling up the beauty parlor. In a later verse I am one of the persons “expecting rain.” And I am among the members of the Riot Squad.
Until I got married to the most wonderful woman in the world, I had Jackson Brown’s “The Pretender” as my theme song.
I’m gonna be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Though true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender.
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender.
