Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Then what is it about?

This is something that has long bugged me.
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?

Well...it is about him, isn't it?

Update: I wonder...maybe it is that the 'you' is plural. So she's singing about multiple guys and each one probably thinks the song is about him, when it is about all of them. Different terms for 3rd person singular and plural would help here.

4 comments:

Timothy Sandefur said...

The song is about her--i.e., the singer--whose sense of identity and self-respect has been wounded by her association with the megalomaniac. He's so vain he doesn't understand that the song is about her ability to finally assert her pride and self-respect. Instead, he only sees that it talks about him. A good analogy is Gone with the Wind, which although it centers around Scarlett, is really about Rhett, and his discovery of his own indepenendence.

Unknown said...

Well... The story goes that it could have been about maybe 3-4 men, one of them being Mick Jagger. He sings background vocals on the song. If you listen closely you'll hear him.

Jordan Zimmerman said...

It's about someone but she doesn't say whom. So, I imagine there could be many people listening to the song thinking "is it me or someone else?" In that way, it's very clever.

Anonymous said...

Nah. Carly Simon is singing about Warren Beatty.

"Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun" His mom's up there.

Anyway, that's always bugged me too, since he's right, and the song IS about him.