Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain”

43 years ago today, a song featuring one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in pop music ascended to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for a three-week stay. Now let's all have a shared laugh over the fact that it was the big hit single from an album entitled No Secrets.

As soon as Carly Simon hit the chorus of “You're So Vain” and sang, “You probably think this song is about you,” the world at large wanted to know one thing: who is so vain? Simon, however, wasn't talking, and she's still keeping her mouth shut even now: on the rare occasions when she's opted to discuss it in any capacity, it's almost always been in the most general terms possible.

When the song was first released, Simon said it was about men rather than one specific man, and she has since streamlined that statement to confirm that it was about three men. In 1983, she said that it wasn't about Mick Jagger, who sang backup vocals on the track. In 2001, she reconfirmed this statement when she contributed guest vocals to Janet Jackson's “Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)” and said, “The apricot scarf was worn by Nick, nothing in the words were referred to Mick.” (The “Nick” in question is Nick Delbanco, a writer with whom Simon had a relationship in the '60s.) Warren Beatty was so convinced that he was the subject of the song that he called and thanked Simon, and Simon confirmed in November 2015 that, yes, he was the subject of the second verse. She's still staying enigmatic about the other two dudes, though.

Whether it was the mystery or the music that made “You're So Vain” into a hit, it doesn't really matter: the end result is that it became Simon's signature song and helped make her into a household name.