In late 1972 Carly Simon released her third album, No Secrets. The first single from that album was an immediate hit and sat at #1 on the US Singles chart for the first three weeks in 1973. Let’s listen……
One of the most interesting things about the song was that everyone, and I mean everyone, spent hours speculating about who the song was about. Among my friends, the most popular theory was that the song was about the rock star that can clearly be heard singing the background vocals on the song. The background vocals are uncredited on the album but I expect that you will recognize the voice immediately If you are the first to identify the singer (via a comment), I will give you credit in tomorrow’s post when I will identify the singer and provide some additional speculation as to who the song is about.
Before I end this post I have a couple of personal notes to pass along about Carly, and this album in particular.
I was 19 when this album was released and I confess to being in love with Carly based on the No Secrets album cover. It was a striking picture and there were a couple of things about it that caught my attention. During this time period, I was in record stores at least a couple of times a week and I never failed to visit Carly 🙂
Carly and James Taylor were newly married late in 1972 and the No Secrets album included a song called Mockingbird that they performed as a duet. Let’s listen……
I was lucky enough to catch a James Taylor solo acoustic show in 1973 at Florence State (now University of North Alabama). In the middle of that show James said that he needed some help to perform the next song and walked off the stage. The crowd was buzzing with the assumption that Carly was backstage and was going to sing Mockingbird with him. A minute later James walked back on stage, with a big smile on his face, carrying a tape recorder. He played Mockingbird and sang along with Carly vocals which were played back through the tape recorder. We were all disappointed but it was a great moment just the same since James had clearly set us up.
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 