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Home
Authors
Carly Simon
American
Musician
About the author
You know, people want to honor me, and on the one hand I just don't want to be a poster child; but on the other, I want to do something classy and great - something where the residuals will go to the cause.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Want
#People
#Will
#Honor
#Cause
You usually can't tell what's inspiring until you look back on it.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Inspiring
You're lucky you had that when you were 20. I sure didn't. I was overweight, and I had acne.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Fear
#Being
#Anxiety
I think that I've got some pretty bad reviews on albums or songs that later proved themselves.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Songs
#Pretty
I think that most people really know if it's a really great album.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#People
I took it to heart that in order to be a good person, you never said anything mean about anybody.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Heart
#Order
I just want to show off my scar proudly and not be afraid of it.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Want
I'm still more comfortable with standards than with my own songs.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Songs
My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Mother
#Father
It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Now
#First
I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Singing
#Sisters
#Sister
But when we listened to the radio, it was Bill Haley and the Comets or the Everly Brothers.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Brothers
No, because I was always nervous about being onstage.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Being
No, because I've never really changed my style that much.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Style
One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Cause
#Desire
#Pain
So I suppose this slightly mature fashion sense happened because of what I had.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Sense
#Fashion
I try to get to those peculiar and particular things that you never think of to say.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
I had this terrible stammer, so I couldn't really speak properly until I was 16 or 17.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
My scar is beautiful. It looks like an arrow.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
Well, I tried to get a record deal in 1966 or '67, and everyone thought I was too eclectic.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Thought
Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Music
#Boyfriend
Sometimes, but the year I lived in France I started to write songs.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Songs
#France
There was a French singer, Francoise Hardy - I used to look at her pictures and try to dress like her.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Dress
We are in this period now where we all are trying to be in shape physically and deny ourselves any pleasure.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Now
#Trying
#Pleasure
We need role models who are going to break the mold.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#American
#Jazz
#Theater
Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Song
The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Folk
I always sang standards because the songs I wrote for myself weren't as easy to sing.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Songs
A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#War
#Woman
As a singer I tried on all these hats, these voices, these clothes, and eventually out came me.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Clothes
Being in this business for as long as I've been in it, it's sort of like living in a town or a city before the war and then after the war and then during the reconstruction and then during the time that it sprawls out to the malls.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Time
#Being
#War
#Living
#Business
I always think it's interesting to dig a little bit deeper every time you go to someplace that seems like a revelation or a strong connection to an emotional truth.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Time
#Truth
#Connection
Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Life
#Years
I've gone through the village of my songwriting and my artistry, and I've gone through lots of different phases, including one where it has been very quiet and abandoned me for a few years.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Years
#Quiet
You know when you take the paint off an old canvas and you discover that something's been painted underneath it? That's what I feel like - that part of the old is coming through the new.
Carly Simon,
American
Musician
#Old