Carly Simon reveals inspiration behind You’re So Vain

HE’s so vain, he probably thinks this article is about him.

Carly Simon, left, and Warren Beatty. Pictures: Wiki Commons

And he’d be right.

US singer Carly Simon has finally revealed the mystery behind the inspiration for her 1972 hit You’re So Vain - a puzzle that has frustrated music fans for the past forty-odd years.

Simon, 70, says in her forthcoming memoirs Boys in the Trees that the song about a self-obsessed lover is based on a mixture of three of the men in her life, with one of them being actor Warren Beatty.

The New York-born singer told People magazine that the Bonnie and Clyde star is aware of his inspiration.

She added: “I have confirmed that the second verse is Warren [Beatty]. But Warren thinks the whole thing is about him.”

Simon, who had flings with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger - who appears on the song - as well as Cat Stevens and Jack Nicholson, has not named any other names, but has denied in the past that the song was about her then husband, fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor.

You’re So Vain topped the charts in the USA, Canada, Australia and Ireland in 1972, and remains Simon’s biggest hit.

She admitted to the magazine that she was intrigued by the continued interest in the men behind the song.

“Why do [people] want to know? It’s so crazy!”

The song has been covered by artists as diverse as Marilyn Manson, Liza Minnelli and Queens of the Stone Age.

Simon has teamed up with Taylor Swift to perform the song live while she lent featured vocals to Janet Jackson’s Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song is About You) which samples the 1972 hit.