My Mom, in a cleaning out mode, gave me this Carly Simon Anthology CD by noting “Here, you can have this. I don’t even know who she is.”
I thanked her and pocketed the CD. However, it wasn’t until I got home and checked that I realized I did not own any of Carly’s material. Some artists that I liked but didn’t care enough about them to buy their stuff, I would buy their Greatest Hits. Acts like Journey, Blondie, and Bon Jovi for instance fit this description for me. However, I discovered that I didn’t even have a Carly’s Greatest Hits CD even though she had released a couple of them (click here.)
Not long ago I had read Carly’s Boys in the Trees memoir so, unlike my Mom, I not only knew who she was but also even felt like I knew her personally. Her memoir made me appreciate her and her music a little more than I had previously.
Of course I knew all about her and James Taylor’s rock and roll relationship but reading how she dealt with all that gave me a new perspective on her and maybe even made me feel a little sorry for her. (To read a great review of Boys in the Trees by Janet Maslin (click here.)
Maslin writes that Carly’s memoir recalls her songs: “a little precious, a little redundant and a little too much.” I found myself agreeing with Maslin as Carly writes about some very intimate details which Maslin described as “squirmworthy.” (Don’t think I have ever heard that word used before but it sure was right on for describing some of the things Carly relates.)
I don’t know why but her lyric “Suffering was the only thing that made me feel I was alive” always ran thru my mind whenever I have to do something unpleasant that I didn’t really want to do. Too, the song that that line is from “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain” was one I often leaned on when my divorce slumming crap was going down.