It’s no secret that, like a lot of young teenage boys in the early-to-mid-1970s, I found Carly Simon hot. Although I never cared much for any of her songs beside the outstanding “You’re So Vain” and, OK, I’ll admit it, her duet with James Taylor on “Mockingbird,” there was a sense of anticipation over the release of each new album cover. With her XL smile; sleepy eyes; soft, flowing fabrics; a flexible, acrobatic posture; and a soap operatic personal life Simon was rock’s safe-as-matzo Jewish American Princess. She wasn’t tangled up in that smelly CSNY crowd, like Joni Mitchell. She wasn’t a practitioner of witchcraft, like Stevie Nicks. She made no claims to being “one of the boys,” like Linda Rondstadt. Carly was all woman, more like one of my Mom’s younger waitressing friends than a rock star yet not half as square as a Barbra Streisand, who couldn’t manage an acute angle alongside renegade Kris Kristofferson. For a middle-class boy venturing into the world of sexual longing and rock ‘n roll, she was as pervasive and only mildly daring as a woman’s subscription to Cosmopolitan.
As I got into my later teens and became both more judgmental and daring, the mid-’70s appeal of Carly rapidly diminished. By 1981, when the likes of Debbie Harry and Exene were my maturing notions of rock womanhood, I had no idea the following video ever existed, of a song called “Vengeance,” which thankfully I don’t recall ever hearing. Talk about an ultimate rock soft-on. Let’s examine the moments that would have immediately spelled the end of my young lust for Carly, had I not already been heading in that direction.
In-depth analysis…after the jump!
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