“You're So Vain” by Carly Simon

Carly Simon spent a year writing "You're So Vain", which began life as "Bless You, Ben", and released it as a single in November 1972; it also appears on her album No Secrets that year. It's a sharp-clawed portrait of a self-absorbed lover, and the guessing game over who it's about has never stopped; Simon has said it covers three men and has named only one of them, Warren Beatty.

Richard Perry produced it and added percussion, with Klaus Voormann playing that bass introduction, Jim Gordon on drums, Jimmy Ryan on guitar and Simon on piano. Simon arranged the strings herself, with Paul Buckmaster orchestrating, and Mick Jagger turns up on backing vocals. By early 1973 it was number one in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and it picked up nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.