The Playground

WARNING: Read at your own risk. I can not be held responsible for each individual's interpretation of my words.

Carly Simon is a smart woman. She had something to say about a past lover and wrote a great song to illustrate her point. Over 30 years since You're So Vain was a hit, and she still hasn't revealed who it's about. The best part is that it's her prerogative as the artist/writer to never tell who she was thinking about when writing that song; even the man himself doesn't know. (Or at least she hasn't told him.) And that's what draws the attention. The mystique of it. But it also offers Ms. Simon and the unnamed subject a certain amount of anonymity or maybe it's freedom...Ms. Simon was free to express what she needed to say without the possible ramifications of libel or slander or whatever because she didn't name names. It's perfect all around, the artist has his/her freedom of expression and the subject is spared having his name blasted from car radios across the country. Everyone knows of course that the real man in the song would have to know who it's talking about because he'd be the only one vain enough to believe she wrote a song about him and his vanity in the first place...Some people think the sun rises and sets by them.

So, it's with You're So Vain playing through my mind that I say this:

I am going to write what I want to write about whomever I please and it's not always going to be about you. In fact, I will probably never name you. Sometimes it will be about her or him or them or people you don't even know. Sometimes it will be my imagination and my story about events that I create. And if you feel like it's about you, that's called projection. You're finding yourself in a story because you somehow identify with what's being said and because you put yourself there, not because I did. Maybe you've found a personal truth in what I've written, and if so, I'm happy to wash muddy eyes clean, but that doesn't mean I had you in mind when writing it. It just means you're vain enough to think I did.

That is my disclaimer; I will write what I see and what I imagine and I'm not asking you to be a fan. I write for my pleasure and expression because I have something to say. And I don't have to answer to you.