A hit song’s connection to the solar eclipse and Canada
Published April 8, 2024 at 2:31 pm
“Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia, to see the total eclipse of the sun,” Carly Simon wrote in her 1972 smash hit ‘You’re So Vain.’
Speculation has been rampant for years about who the song is about and the singer finally admitted recently to People magazine that at least part of the sing is indeed about Beatty:
‘Well, you had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
When you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave’
Carly Simon and Warren Beatty
As to the rest of the sing, including the passage about the eclipse, Simon isn’t saying, but her ex-partners of the time, including Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Cat Stevens and James Taylor (who she married) have all be mentioned.
What is not in dispute is the eclipse she was referring to, which happened on March 7, 1970.
This description is from a Newfoundland newspaper of the day:
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‘For about ten minutes before and after a peculiar colour of yellow and chrome was visible in the sky. This phenomenon will not be seen in this locality until the year 2024.’
Simon’s daughter Sally moved to Nova Scotia recently and is in Halifax today to watch the eclipse. No Lear jet needed.
