It only took 43 years, but Carly Simon has said that her infamous 1972 song You’re So Vain is, in fact, about Warren Beatty. Well, partially.
The 70-year-old singer told People magazine that she’s “confirmed that the second verse is Warren,” one of her ex-lovers in the 1970s. She added that Beatty “thinks the whole thing is about him” – though after years of speculation linking him to the song, that is perhaps not much of a surprise.
In 2004, speaking to media personality Regis Philbin, Simon went so far as to say that one of the subjects of the song had a name containing the letters “a”, “e” and “r”. Beatty’s name fit that description, as did Simon’s ex-husband James Taylor and past collaborator Mick Jagger.
In a 1983 interview with the Washington Post, Simon denied that You’re So Vain was about Jagger, saying: “It certainly sounds like it was about Warren Beatty. He certainly thought it was about him – he called me and said thanks for the song …”
The second verse includes the lyrics:
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive / Well you said that we made such a pretty pair/ And that you would never leave / But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me / I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Simon, in conversation with People magazine, had been promoting the forthcoming memoir Boys in the Trees. As of yet, there is no official word on the people behind the song’s other two verses.
