Friday 8th November

There was a short space in time when Carly was almost as famous as Joni and Joan Baez and James Taylor.  For some reason she never had the longevity that they had.  In fact she only really made two brilliant albums – ‘Anticipation’ and ‘No Secrets’.  She made a few more records and has had a couple of attempted comebacks, but somehow she never wrote many decent songs after that first flurry.

She will probably be best remembered for the ironic and superb song “You’re So Vain”; a very direct and accusatory and memorable lyric, heightened by the public’s morbid interest in the possible subject of the song.  James Taylor? Kris kristoffersen?  Mick Jagger? Warren Beatty?  No-one was admitting it might be them, and Carly, though she dropped hints, kept shtumm too.   Well really, who cares?  It was probably all of them, and a few others too.   Actually, although the most successful of singles, it is far from the best song on the album.  Both of these records flow from one brilliant song to the next.  And Carly’s voice, strong and vibrant has never sounded better.

And she had it all; a great voice, a beautiful face, and friends in high musical places.  Maybe it was all too easy for her, and she forgot that in the artistic world you have to keep coming up with new stuff, and are always judged against your finest work.

So, while most of the world has moved on and even when the early seventies are fondly recounted, Carly is largely forgotten, I am still full of ‘Anticipation’ as time comes around for Carly, and it is ‘No Secret’ that I am still in love with those records.