(Credits: Far Out / Elektra Records)
Sun 11 January 2026 2:00, UK
We’re now over half a century on from Carly Simon‘s famous hit, ‘You’re So Vain’, and the subject of it stills turns people into a tailspin.
Such is the salacious nature of the human mind that, even despite the fact that Simon has semi-confirmed at least one of the inspirations to be Warren Beatty, we still won’t rest until we crack who the remaining subjects are. James Taylor, Mick Jagger, and Yusuf/Cat Stevens have all been added to the shortlist as potential suitors, given their romantic history with Simon.
But the latter is unlikely, given how much of Vain’s recollection of him eludes the sort of slanderous tone that laces her great hit. Simon did, in fact, confirm that Stevens was the source of inspiration for another song of hers, ‘Anticipation’, which was penned while waiting for the songwriter to turn up for a date.
“I was already in love with his album,” she confessed, adding she was “copying his songs and singing along with him on my reel-to-reel tape machine.” She sat patiently waiting for him to arrive. Ever the rockstar, he was up to 40 minutes late, which for Simon was the perfect amount of time to write a track that she claimed was simply too designed to imitate his style. What was left was a song too good to forget and a bed of nerves appropriately settled, prior to his arrival.
It proves that Simon’s adoration for Stevens extends well beyond the realms of human interaction. Sure, there is a personal relationship that exists between the two, but Simon isn’t scared to admit that it was built on the back of her own fandom for Stevens.
She explained, “It’s not an exaggeration to say that if it wasn’t for Cat Stevens (as most of us knew his name as that), I would probably never have performed,” adding, “The first time I heard his voice, which was on the radio earlier that year (1971), I had such an unusual reaction to it. It was brand new in every way except for one: it stirred my soul (up from the many), but like very few voices ever had. I had to hear it in person.”
She continued, “He did transport me and grip me. The songs coming from that warm, dark, fierce place. The child-like quality which he had in addition to the powerful adult male sexiness was so interesting, so charismatic. He had that quality that you couldn’t name. You had to go searching.”
Appropriately, she tailed off her tribute with a cheeky, “If I sound ecstatic, I am. I’m not exaggerating.”
It seems as though Simon has a lot to thank Stevens for in her career. Inspiration, an actual song and, least of all, the primitive excitement of being a die-hard music fan. Not to be reductive to both Simon and Stevens’ careers by bringing it back to ‘You’re So Vain’, but I think we can safely rule Stevens out of the running when it comes to deciphering the three-man shortlist for the track.
Related Topics