Jonathan Chait is weirdly puzzled over the lyrics to “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon (which is not about David Geffen, despite what you may have heard).
Chait says: “[N]othing about the song makes any sense. She’s giving an extremely detailed description of a former lover, but insisting that his being able to recognize the description is evidence of vanity.”
But that’s why it’s clever! The whole point of the song is that the person is vain, smug, self-satisfied, thinks the world revolves around himself…and is wholly justified in thinking so. At least in respect to the narrator. The song IS about him, after all. It works in the same way that a great “I’m SOOOO over you” song works. If you were really over them, you wouldn’t have to write a song about it. And if she wasn’t obsessed with him, then his vanity wouldn’t be a problem. Right?
And then there’s a whole additional layer, which is that she has played the vagueness of the subject matter into a multiple-decade-long mystery. So obviously the specific stuff is meant to be true in spirit but not literally correct. The result being: there are quite a few people who might think the song is about them – and by doing so it BECOMES a song about them. Get it?
Anyways, it’s more fun to not know than it ever would be to get an answer.