You're So Vain

I've never much cared for Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" (which is why you won't see it embedded anywhere on this page. I'd always found it kind of dull, pretty much like most of Simon's catalogue that I've heard. The song has been the subject of much mythologizing (which you can catch up on here) and were I more cynical, I'd label it as one big publicity ploy to keep Simon from falling completely out of the cultural lexicon. Not initially, of course, but over the past ten to fifteen years. That's not really what I want to write about here, though. What bugs me most is that "You're So Vain" tries so hard to be clever but undermines itself and winds up just being stupid.

The song states, as everyone knows, "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you," which it is! So if the song is about him, then he's not so vain after all.

"Now just a minute!" you might argue. "There are several people this song could be about. Therefore, they are vain because they think a song not about them is about them. That's the point!"

In this case, yes, there are some vain characters hanging around the periphery, but one of those people is correct. The song is about him.

Simon has indicated that it's a composite of three men, but in recent years she has been dropping letters that appear in the man's name. Unless she is being particularly coy and is eventually planning on spelling out the names of all three men, we can only assume that there is one main male acting as the subject of the song. And this man is not vain. He is correct.

In my mind, you can't right a song about someone and call him vain for thinking the song is about him. That's some sort of crazy cognitive dissonance. And just plain stupid.