Carly Simon

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Musicians take their inspiration from life, and their songs often speak of the human condition. The best of them resonate with the experiences of their listeners and their musical tales of love, death, sadness and joy afford an insight into lives which, it seems, are just as complicated as our own. When Carly Simon sang “You’re So Vain” we all wondered which of her ex-partners -- which included first husband James Taylor -- had inspired the song, but she kept that information to herself and left the rest of us guessing. Now she has afforded fans the opportunity to explore the mystery in film by launching a competition to create the first ever video of the song. "People ask me all the time why is there no video of this song. I think it's that people were so busy asking me who the song was about that nobody thought to make a video of it." The winning filmmaker will be given a prize from Simon’s personal archives, but it seems unlikely that the prize will include the answer to the long-pondered question: just who was so vain?

Carly Simon is suing ubiquitous coffee shop chain Starbucks for not selling enough copies of her latest record, This Kind Of Love. Last year she signed a deal to distribute the album through Starbucks' own record label, Hear Music. Unfortunately, just days before it was due to be released, Hear Music was downsized, and Simon says this was the cause of her album selling only 124,000 copies. Instead of being prominently promoted in every store as agreed, Simon says she visited several stores and didn't see a single copy for sale: "You can't sell a product that's not in stores" she said. After initially discussing an advance worth $1m, she eventually settled for $575,000, but even that hasn't been paid in full according to Simon. After hoping to sell enough copies to quit music, 64-year old Simon has had to return to the studio to record another album to augment her retirement fund. She is seeking between $5-10m for "concealment of material facts," "tortious interference" and "unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices." A spokesperson for Starbucks said they were "disappointed" and that they were "hopeful that this matter can be resolved in an amicable manner."

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