Carly Simon's hit You're So Vain is said to have been written about a famous man with whom she had a very bad relationship (link goes to The Other Wiki). Carly refuses to admit who this man is; only one other person knows and he is sworn to secrecy (see below). The person addressed in the song remains a mystery, but we have our theories...
- "Your hat strategically dipped below one eye" — Odin sacrificed one of his eyes to drink from the Well of Wisdom, giving him knowledge of the past, present, and future. In his guise as Vegtam, the Wanderer, he's often depicted with a hat with a wide brim, angled to hide his empty socket.
- Likewise, he "had one eye on the mirror" because he only has one eye, period. Two-eyed people are typically incapable of keeping just one eye on something.
- "Your horse naturally won." — Odin's eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, naturally wins races against ordinary four-legged horses.
- "You flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun." — There was a total eclipse of the sun in Nova Scotia on July 20, 985◊, just about the time the Vikings were spreading into Greenland, and that Norwegian Bjarni Herjolfsson may have landed in Newfoundland. Given that Odin would likely be with his worshippers in either of those places, it's not that far of a flight (the "Lear jet" is obviously a modern metaphor for whatever transportation Odin would have used) to Nova Scotia.
- It could also be about Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon. Odin was fairly faithful to his wife where Zeus was a bit of a player.
- Jossed: "Who Are You" is about Pete Townshend waking up in the doorway of a London pub after a long night of drinking. The "who" in question is Townshend, as a cop who recognized him said he's let him go home by himself if he was sober enough to identify himself. Even if the theory were true, Roger has contributed to exactly one song ("Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere") in The Who's 50+ year career.
- And all of the above are Odin (or, barring that, Roger Daltrey and/or Deep Throat). Even the Guys Want Him
- Or perhaps Odin is the informant known as Deep Throat. As a god, he'd be able to witness everything that happened during Watergate, and decided that the truth needed to come out, and contacted Woodward and Bernstein while disguised as Mark Felt.
- As "Big Shot" is clearly directed at a woman ("They were all impressed with your Halston dress"), this is clearly impossible.
- Unless Uncle Joey is a cross dresser, deep throat, and a Norse god.
- Roger Daltrey isn't mad at anyone in "Who Are You." He's singing about a cop who once told a publicly hung over Pete Townshend that he'd let him go home if he could answer the eponymous question.
- To elaborate, Carly was visiting a friend or relative and saw their kids watching a Scooby-Doo marathon and decided to join them. After a few episodes, she was disgusted by Fred and decided to write this song.
A mixture between two of them. when the song was written, Simon didn't have anyone in mind, she just wanted to screw with people. Cut to 2003, when Dick Ebersol had paid $50,000 for Simon to tell him exactly who he wrote the song about. Ebersol was then sworn to secrecy about the identity of the person the song was about after she told him, but Ebersol was allowed to say one clue: The person who the song was about had a letter 'E' in his name...
Is there a reason for this other than Rule of Funny?
...rather, it was inspired by several different people with whom she'd had relationships, or inspired by bad relationships in general. People assumed that it was directed at someone specific, but it was actually written to be vague so that various people she'd had failed affairs with might assume that it was about them, while she was mocking their vanity to assume that she'd target them. Makes the chorus all the more cutting, don't you think?
Also both "several people" and "bad affairs in general" (as well as numerous other wordings that fit either possibility) fitthe "A" "R" and "E" clue.