Nobody does it better than...

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by creekster

WHat on earth is wrong with Carly Simon? DO you dislike her musically or at a more personal or vsiceral level?

Yes.

Plus, there's that awful pink outfit she's wearing in the video SEQ posted.

Also, "you're so vain" has been stuck in my head for the last week.

[Jeff Lebowski]

You're So Vain has to be one of the corniest songs ever. She sings an entire song about the guy and then repeatedly says "..you probably think this song is about you..." Huh? The entire song IS about him.

And it's a catchy tune so once you get it in your head it is tough to purge it.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

You're So Vain has to be one of the corniest songs ever. She sings an entire song about the guy and then repeatedly says "..you probably think this song is about you..." Huh? The entire song IS about him.

My dear, dear Lebowski. That the song is, in fact, about him is precisely the point of the song.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

Yes.

Plus, there's that awful pink outfit she's wearing in the video SEQ posted.

Also, "you're so vain" has been stuck in my head for the last week.

I hadn't even noticed the pink outfit. Carly is a little weird, but she has a nice voice, IMO.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by creekster

My dear, dear Lebowski. That the song is, in fact, about him is precisely the point of the song.

LOL. Yes, indeed. But look at the lyrics:

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

The guy may be the most vain jackass on the planet, but to sing a song that is 100% directed at a guy and then call him vain for thinking the song is about him seems pretty silly to me. You could argue that she could have been singing about anyone and the point is that he is so vain that he surely would assume it was about him. But she uses specifics such as:

Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun

I read an article about Carly Simon way back in the day where she claimed this was directed to a real person she had dated. A very famous person that everyone would recognize.

And what is this supposed to mean?

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

LOL. Yes, indeed. But look at the lyrics:

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

The guy may be the most vain jackass on the planet, but to sing a song that is 100% directed at a guy and then call him vain for thinking the song is about him seems pretty silly to me. You could argue that she could have been singing about anyone and the point is that he is so vain that he surely would assume it was about him. But she uses specifics such as:

Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun

I read an article about Carly Simon way back in the day where she claimed this was directed to a real person she had dated. A very famous person that everyone would recognize.

And what is this supposed to mean?

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...

You are persistent, but i think you have been in science too long.

Clouds in my coffee means her dreams were fleeting, non-substantive and ephemeral. IOW< nothing came of them, they just disappeared as they melteed into the humdrum of her life.

The song is supposedly about Mick Jagger.

It is about a spurned lover who throws out an insult that he is so vain and he probaboly thinks the song is about him and yet it is,meaning that the one having the probolem is the singer, not the object of her deriswion. IOW, the guy was all that and a bag of chips to her, so her compalint is really a self criticism. The song is about her and her trying to separate frio him but being unable to, really.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by creekster

You are persistent, but i think you have been in science too long.

I think you are probably right about that. No doubt about it, actually.



As for the "mystery man", wikipedia comes through again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_So_Vain

(Is there any topic too obscure for wikipedia?)

[BarbaraGordon]

I agree with Jeff.

It's a poorly done attempt at some sort of irony.

I always thought the "clouds in my coffee" line was a pathetic metaphor.

I'm sorry, Creek. I was willing to back down on the Starship issue, but in this case...well, you're just plain wrong.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

I agree with Jeff.

It's a poorly done attempt at some sort of irony.

I always thought the "clouds in my coffee" line was a pathetic metaphor.

I'm sorry, Creek. I was willing to back down on the Starship issue, but in this case...well, you're just plain wrong.

Now let's be fair. You will search in vain for any comment I made saying I liked you're so vain. I don't particualrly care for it as I find it a bit boring and musically dull. I simply pointed out that it appeared to me that Jef L had missed the point of the song.

I actusally don't mind the Clouds in my cofee line, as it works very well if you assume, as I choose to, that she is talking about the moment jkust after you put cream in black coffee and for a few seconds you can see the cream like a cloud in the sky until it compeltely disperses and is lost as a separate substance.

Per Wiki, I may or may not be rigth about Jagger as the subject, but I can't say it matters much to me. The reall point, I think, should be that Carly Simon is not the same thing as You're so vain. She has a nice voice and, even thought that particular song is dull, she does some other stuff very well, such as Nobody DOes it Better, which is where SIEQ started this whole mess.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by creekster

IMO RH's cover is pretty good but Carly is always the first choice for that song.

This pretty much captures it for me. RH sounds pretty good here, which in itself is amazing because Thom Yorke doesn't really have the chops for this song. It seems RH wisely built the arrangement around that fact and have thrown in some brooding guitar to drive home the irony.

Still, there is no question this is one of Carly's signature songs and she sang the heck out of it. She has strength, delicacy, and texture, and the whole thing comes off as the sexy nightclub number Hamlisch meant it to be. As a practical matter, I would much rather look at Carly singing it (she's hot!), and listen to Carly singing it (I have a soft spot for smokey altos and she sings like a throwback to the 40s when she wants to). The cumulative effect is that the song is clearly a serenade to my prowess. Yes, the song is about me!