Vinyl Exam

That was Then

When I was a kid, we used to go to Blanchard Library in Santa Paula to listen to Mrs. Spencer read for story hour. It wasn’t long until I found that you could check out records, along with books. Most of the records were terrible. Most were marching band music, and things that people in their sixties during the seventies would consider “mighty fine music.” Sprinkled in with those albums, I found a copy of Carly Simon’s “No Secrets.”

I kept a copy of this record around until I traded my vinyl in for CD’s. As the years went by, this album grew on me. Sure, that album cover was enough to make any kid in the middle of puberty lose his marbles, but the album did have a alot of facets to it.

I remember listening as a youngster, and thinking “Wow, this must be what it’s like to be a grown up. All this drama, all this passion, this is gonna rock!” I remember playing the album over and over, and wondering if sometime in my future, I was gonna be a part of this whole grown up thing. I wanted my life to have a cast of characters. When I grew up, I wanted someone to write a song like His Friends Are More Than Fond Of Robin about me an my adventures.

This is Now

Needless to say, setting out to find your fortune in life with the idea that a grown up life includes drama and a cast of characters will get you just that. I can’t say that I wish I would have done it differently, because it was a really wild and memorable ride, but I guess I didn’t read between the lines enough to see that there would be collateral damage.

Listening to this album again, it’s hard to believe that this was written 33 years ago. Not that the album sounds contemporary, but the songs are honest. In that honesty, you find that even though this was written when I was only three, and I rediscovered it at age 35, there is not much that has changed with me, with Carly, or with the world.

I guess it just seemed like it the whole world was different back then. It wasn’t, just my vision of it was smaller. This album is a great one to revisit not only for the songwriting, but for the honesty, the humanity, and the drama.

It’s interesting to note that I recently found out that there is a big hub bub over who the song You’re So Vain is all about. At the time it came out, I was too young to worry about such things. Growing up in Southern Californita, it’s hard to even think of a random group of ten guys where 8 of them didn’t have this attitude. I never thought about who it might be. Then, when I heard there were contests as to who it might be about, and I saw the lists of potential beaus, I was even more disinterested in who it might might about. I preferred to keep the idea that even Carly could fall for a guy like that while a guy like me had to beg and plead for dates as just another private shame.

The Jury Says

In case you are not familiar with this album, go look for it. If you were only a Carly Simon fan for the hit songs, this is a great album to check out just to realize that in between the hits, she was a fab writer.

The recordings are great, the musicianship is top notch, and this should stand as one of the better albums out there.