{"id":11663,"date":"2012-01-19T16:46:02","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=11663"},"modified":"2012-01-19T19:30:27","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T00:30:27","slug":"rth-confessional-carly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rth-confessional-carly\/","title":{"rendered":"RTH Confessional: Carly Simon\u2019s \u201cVengeance\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s no secret<\/a> that, like a lot of young teenage boys in the early-to-mid-1970s, I found Carly Simon hot<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. 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<\/a> with James Taylor<\/strong> on “Mockingbird,” there was a sense of anticipation<\/a> over the release of each new album cover<\/a>. With her XL smile<\/a>; sleepy eyes<\/a>; soft,\u00a0flowing\u00a0fabrics<\/a>; a\u00a0flexible<\/a>, acrobatic<\/a> posture; and a\u00a0soap operatic personal life<\/a> Simon was rock’s safe-as-matzo Jewish American Princess. She wasn’t\u00a0tangled up in that smelly CSNY crowd,\u00a0like Joni Mitchell<\/a>. She wasn’t a practitioner of witchcraft, like Stevie Nicks<\/a>.\u00a0She made no claims to being\u00a0“one of the boys,” like Linda Rondstadt<\/a>.\u00a0Carly 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<\/a>, who couldn’t manage an acute angle alongside renegade Kris Kristofferson<\/a>. For a middle-class boy venturing into the world of sexual longing and rock ‘n roll, she was as pervasive and\u00a0only mildly daring\u00a0as a woman’s subscription to Cosmopolitan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0notions of rock womanhood, I had no idea the following video ever existed, of a song called “Vengeance,”\u00a0which thankfully I don’t recall ever hearing. Talk about an ultimate rock soft-on. Let’s examine the\u00a0moments that would have immediately spelled the end of my young lust for Carly, had I not already been heading in that direction.<\/p>\n