ABSTRACT
In 1973 the American popular singer Carly Simon released a recording called “You’re So Vain”; its lyrics chronicled the errant ways of an unnamed egotistical, unprincipled womanizer whose high-profile misadventures included jetting to Nova Scotia to watch a total eclipse of the sun and spending questionable time with the wife of his best friend. So self-absorbed is the man that, as the refrain says “You probably think this song is about you, don’t you? Don’t you?” Not surprisingly, the press had a field day with the song, and more than three decades later, continued speculation has still not established the identity of the object of Simon’s scorn, although the leading candidates have always been Warren Beatty (with whom she had had a relationship), Mick Jagger (the Rolling Stone who sang with her on the recording), and James Taylor, whom she had recently married. Simon herself has repeatedly refused to identify any one man as her subject, claiming that the figure was a composite of men she had known.
