Music Monday ~ Carly Simon

Happy Birthday, Carly Simon! I felt sure I'd already written a post about her, but unless the tag has gone AWOL I'm mistaken. I definitely posted a video of one of her best-known songs when the result of 2008's presidential election was announced. Let the River Run. I wrote some really, really stooopid stuff around that time too.

On 4 November, in a brief post

I'm so proud of America! On two fronts. They have overwhelmingly supported a black president, and, for me far more important - a left-wing president who will, in turn support ALL Americans, not just the chosen few.

YIKES - I got that wrong - and how!! I was so naive, along with many, many people in the USA thirsting for political change.

Next day I posted the video with these words

Speaking of the President Elect, and the joy many Americans, myself included, feel this morning, I simply have to post this song.

Let the River Run??? Turns out that Let the River Run away might have been more appropriate!

We're coming to the edge
Running on the water
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughters
Let the rivers run
Let all the dreamers wake the nation
Come, the new Jerusalem
Silver cities rise
The morning lights, the streets that meet them
Sirens call them on with a song
Asking for the taking
Trembling, shaking
Oh, my heart is aching
Coming to the edge, running on the water
Coming through the fog, your sons and daughters
Sing the greatest song
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the dark'ning dawn............................................ etc.

That was four years ago. I still love the song, but it brings me sadness rather than exhileration now.

Carly Simon was born 25 June 1945 in New York City. In a 2008 book by Sheila Weller, Girls Like Us, about the lives of three "rock queens", singer-songwriters of the 1960/70s: Carole King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell who are now no longer girls but grandmothers, of Ms Simon the author writes:

The mid-1960s liberal arts college girl like Ms. Simon is described as “a polished young woman from a family of means, who wore an expensive suede jacket and hoop earrings, with the sides of her shiny long hair gathered at the back of her head by a wooden-chopstick-clasped leather thong.”

Carly Simon was born into a well-to-do family, all with music in their bood. Her father was co-founder of Simon & Schuster, one of the four largest English-language publishers and publishing houses. Her ancestry includes Jewish, German, African, Cuban and French - quite a mix!

Many love affairs and engagements to luminaries of the 1970s music world and two marriages, the first to singer-songwriter James Taylor, have decorated her life. A stammer, a brush with breast cancer and loss of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme of financial advisor Kenneth I. Starr, now a prison inmate, have marred it. She has never felt comfortable on stage - surprising for one so gifted and goodlooking, but her stammer must be the prime reason, I guess.

For details of her career and recordings see Wikipedia's page

Best known of her songs is You're So Vain. The mystery of who was the song's subject has kept it in the public's memory. More about that HERE

Ms Simon was honored this year with one of the industry's highest honors, celebrated for her lifetime of achievements as this year's recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Founders Award.

There's a loose link with last Monday's post in that Carly Simon sang Nobody Does It Better, theme song for another James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)- music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager.

I have one Carly Simon CD: Film Noir, a collection of standards, cream of American songwriting from past decades, beautifully performed by Ms Simon. My husband has a Greatest Hits Live compilation CD, and no doubt he also has some of her LPs in his vast, seemingly bottomless collection.

ASTROLOGY



The chart is set for 12 noon as no time of birth for Ms Simon is known.

Sun, Saturn and Mercury in ultra-sensitive Cancer are at base of her nature. Mercury (communication) conjunct Saturn (restriction), to me represents her stammer.
Without a time of birth exact degree of Moon can't be established. Unless she was born before 6:00 AM Moon would be in early Capricorn and opposing Cancer Sun. Natal Moon opposing her emotional and sentimental Sun from down-to-earth Capricorn would bring in some needed balance.

Venus (the music planet) in its home sign Taurus, and conjunct Mars; both sextile Mercury/Saturn. There's a kind of good news/bad news feel to this. Venus and Mercury both have itchy/scratchy conjunctions with more negative planets.

Another sextile from Jupiter in Virgo to Mecury/Saturn provides some benign input. In spite of her challenges in life, things have turned out pretty well for Ms Simon, all in all.

Here she is with a song written by Paul McCartney: Blackbird

and My Romance, by Rodgers & Hart: