A perfect Carly Simon playlist

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:

1. Let The River Run
2. You Belong To Me
3. Nobody Does It Better
4. Coming Around Again
5. Jesse
6. The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
7. You’re So Vain
8. Touched By The Sun
9. Haven’t Got Time For The Pain
10. Better Not Tell Her
11. Legend In Your Own Time
12. Mockingbird (with James Taylor)
13. That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be
14. All I Want Is You
15. The Right Thing To Do
16. Like A River
17. Anticipation
18. Give Me All Night