Sunday Music: The Best of Carly Simon

Album Title: The Best of Carly Simon, Carly Simon

Why I Bought It: I bought the LP, um, almost forty years ago. I have a vague memory that I wanted "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be", but I could be mistaken. (I also have a vague memory of confusing her with Helen Reddy....)

What I Like (Melancholy): "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be". I once described this as the saddest song about accepting a marriage proposal that I'd ever heard, and I stand by that.

What I Like (Uplifting): "Haven't Got Time for the Pain". That last verse, when she lets out all the stops ("open up and drink in / All that white light pourin' down from the heavens!"), always cheers me up.

What I Like (Sassy): "You're So Vain". Just a classic.

What I Don't Like (Slightly Icky): "(We Have) No Secrets". "Often I wish / That I never knew some of those secrets of yours." You and me both, Carly.

Overall: A mixed bag. "Night Owl", "Attitude Dancing", and "The Right Thing to Do" don't do much for me. "Anticipation", "Mockingbird", and "Legend in Your Own Time" are good enough, I suppose, but really it's the three WIL songs above that make the album for me.

Age?

I mentioned, in the last post, my liking for Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be". But there's one thing that bugs me about it.

How old is the narrator supposed to be?

In the first verse, we learn that she's living, or perhaps just staying, with her parents. ("I tiptoe past the master bedroom where my mother reads her magazine / I hear her call 'Sweet dreams', but I forget how to dream.") Remember that this is supposed to be the '70s; adult children living with their parents were not as common as they reputedly are today. But in a later verse, we hear, "My friends from college, they're all married now / They have their houses and their lawns." Okay; presumably they're about as old as the narrator. Now, I didn't buy a house until I was thirty-five; I'd be surprised if that many college graduates get around to that before age thirty. But even so: "Their children hate them for the things they're not" - man, those are teenagers, right? We're talking late thirties at the very least.

But wait, there's more. "Soon you'll cage me on your shelf / I'll never learn to be just me first, by myself." She's at least in her thirties, never married (otherwise she'd draw on that experience, rather than saying "All I know is what I see.") - and she's never been her own woman? If that's what she wants, then why is she apparently still living with her parents?

I like the song a lot. But it really doesn't make sense as written. Am I missing something? ("Yes - a life" is not an acceptable answer.)