Only part of Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain' is about Warren Beatty

Carly Simon explains who, exactly, is so vain
(Image credit: Joe Corrigan/Getty Images)

Yes, Carly Simon's 1972 hit "You're So Vain" is about actor Warren Beatty, Simon admits in a new autobiography, Boys in the Trees. But only the second verse ("You had me several years ago when I was still quite naïve/Well you said that we made such a pretty pair/And that you would never leave..."). There are three verses to the song, so who are the other two guys? She won't say. Why not? "I haven't told either of them that it's about them, so it would be too much of a shock, too much of a cold, calculated thing to put it in the book without them knowing," Simon told USA Today.

That means that Beatty has known for years that the song is, in fact, at least partly about him. ("Warren thinks the whole thing is about him!" she told People.) As for the guy who wore an apricot scarf and a "hat strategically dipped below one eye," or the fellow who flew his Lear jet to watch an eclipse in Nova Scotia and dallied around with "the wife of a close friend," well, before Simon's marriage to James Taylor (the focus of the book) in 1972 she was linked to a pretty famous roster of men, including Jack Nicholson, Kris Kristofferson, Cat Stevens, and Mick Jagger, who sings backup on "You're So Vain." You can try to figure out if any of them fit the bill for verse one or two in the video below. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.