
Carly Simon is one of those artists who makes you feel like you know her from listening to her songs. I have been captivated from the moment back in 1971 (!) that I heard her first hit single, “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be.” It was intimate, it was painful, it was real.
The Wikipedia article about her quotes a former fiancee as saying she was “the answer to any sane man’s prayers: funny, quick, erotic, extravagantly talented.” And her best songs pull you deeper below that surface.
I found myself looking at the description of her 1995 box set Clouds in My Coffee, and my brain started playing the track list of Disc 1, and I thought, “Holy cow, that is just about the perfect Carly Simon playlist.”
A few days and an eBay Buy It Now later, and the CDs are in my possession and I can now attest yes, if you want a perfectly curated set of Carly Simon hits, you could try this list first:
- Let The River Run
- You Belong To Me
- Nobody Does It Better
- Coming Around Again
- Jesse
- The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
- You’re So Vain
- Touched By The Sun
- Haven’t Got Time For The Pain
- Better Not Tell Her
- Legend In Your Own Time
- Mockingbird (with James Taylor)
- That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be
- All I Want Is You
- The Right Thing To Do
- Like A River
- Anticipation
- Give Me All Night