Music Urban Legends Revealed #11
This is the eleventh in a series of examinations of music legends and whether they are true or false.
Click here to view an archive of the previous music urban legends.
Let’s begin!
MUSIC LEGEND: Carly Simon auctioned off the identity of who “You’re So Vain” was about for $50,000!
STATUS: True
One of the great mysteries of pop music is who is the “mystery man” behind Carly Simon’s 1972 smash hit, “You’re So Vain.”
The song rips apart a vain man and has the striking chorus, “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you.”
Various suggested targets have been Simon’s ex-husband James Taylor, actor Warren Beatty and musician Mick Jagger (who sang back-up on the song).
Beatty is the only one of those three who Simon has not said “no” to over the years (although, who knows if she was being genuine when she turned down the others)
In any event, in 2003, Simon offered up for a charity auction the secret behind the song.
The winning bidder was Dick Ebersol, longtime TV executive (and friend of Simon’s)…
Ebersol paid $50,000 for the information!
He had to sign a confidentiality agreement beforehand and finally, at midnight (after dining on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and vodka), Simon told him the information.
I hope it was worth it, Dick!
MUSIC LEGEND: Bob Holness played saxophone on Gerry Rafferty’s hit, “Baker Street.”
STATUS: False
It’s rare that we can actually pinpoint where a legend began, but in the case of the story behind who played the sax on “Baker Street,” we can!
Gerry Rafferty was the lead singer of the band Stealer’s Wheel, known almost entirely nowadays for their hit single, “Stuck in the Middle With You” (which found a new life when it was used in Reservoir Dogs)…
After leaving the band, Rafferty was stuck in legal limbo for a few years before finally being able to release his 1978 album, City to City.
The album went platinum, backed mostly on the incredibly successful single off of the album, “Baker Street.”
The song is mostly known today for its striking saxophone solo, a solo that has certainly appeared to increase the amount of usage of saxophones in television and movie soundtracks in the 1980s by a factor of ten.
Rafferty did not credit anyone for writing/performing the sax solo, so that allowed some people to run wild with jokes/rumors about who performed the solo.
Longtime British music personality Stuart Maconie came up with a story, in the early 80s, that the sax solo was performed by none other than game show host Bob Holness!
The “fact,” presented in a segment called “Would You Believe It?” was clearly intended as a joke, but over the years, it was repeated enough times that people soon began to believe it, and it creeped into actual biographies of Holness (Holness appreciated the joke and kept it going on his end, as well).
The actual saxophone player was Raphael Ravenscroft.
Ravenscroft claimed last year that he was actually never paid for the performance (he was given a check for 27 pounds, but it bounced).
MUSIC LEGEND: Maya Rudolph is referenced in the song “Loving You.”
STATUS: True
Maya Rudolph was a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1999 until 2007.
Currently, she’s co-starring in the Sam Mendes film Away We Go with actor John Krasinski.
Rudolph is the daughter of songwriter and producer Richard Rudolph and singer Minnie Riperton.
Riperton tragically died of breast cancer at the far too young age of 31 when Rudolph was just shy of her seventh birthday.
Riperton’s biggest hit was the lovely tune, “Loving You,” whose lyrics appear on her gravestone (“Loving you is easy because you’re beautiful.”
The song originated as a lullaby that Riperton would sing to her infant daughter, Rudolph. Her husband developed the song, which is most famous for the high notes that Riperton hits.
At the end of the song, Riperton specifically references her daughter, almost chanting “Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya” as the song fades out.
It’s a beautiful legacy left to a daughter who lost her mother way at way too young of an age.
Okay, that’s it for this week!
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com
True or False: Brian Cronin is pictured on the cover of Brian Rafferty’s single Baker Street
Also, although I know all the true answers to these ones, it might be cool to do a “eating things on stage” legends like Frank Zappa eating shit on stage, Mike Patton drinking piss on stage, Ozzy biting the head off a bat, (are there other ones?) etc. And the Alice Cooper puppies incident.
I always thought Simon was singing about Frank Sinatra.
The sax solo is the only worthwhile part of “Baker Street.”
On Guns N’ Roses’ “Rocket Queen” (from Appetite for Destruction), a woman moans as if in ecstasy. Not long after this album was released, a rumor swirled ’round that this was one of Axl’s girlfriends that he’d taped during intercourse. Anyone heard about this?
P.S. Michael said, “The sax solo is the only worthwhile part of ‘Baker Street.’”
Disagree–the guitar solo smokes, too.
Ha, Da Fug!
There really is a resemblance there, isn’t there?
@ Andy Jessica Drew Hardy
It is Axl’s girlfriend moaning during intercourse with Axl in the studio on Rocket Queen. I know I read a quote from her somewhere in one article or another. I know she said something in the article like, “Axl was magic.”
There was a thing about the GnR thing and Axl’s girlfriend on VH1 the other night. I think she actually did it with Slash to get back at Axl or vice versa….can’t remember. It was a show about the girls who dated/did the guys of the glam-metal era in LA.
The GNR story was featured on VH1′s “Women of the Sunset Strip” special recently (it’s probably still being re-run on VH1 Classic). The woman in question was Steven Adler’s (GNR drummer)girlfriend at the time, but she was mad at Adler & Axl talked her into having sex with him in the sound booth, which was recorded for use on “Rocket Queen”.
During a show in south america while opening for guns and roses, Faith no more was having things thrown at them. So being the provacateurs they are, they told the crowd to throw more. and apparently somebody peed in a bottle and threw it at mike patton (the lead singer) and he in turn opened it and poured it over his head while standing on axl’s monitor.
“Longtime British music personality Stuart Maconie came up with a story, in the early 80s, that the sax solo was performed by none other than game show host Bob Holness!”
Well, be that as it may, Casey Kasem declared that Ravenscroft was the performer of the solo way back in 1978 when the song was in the Top 40. I don’t recall EXACTLY which week, although I do seem to recall in the song’s last week or so in the Top 40 (which would’ve been late July or early August), that Kasem led into the song with the announcement that Ravenscroft had signed his own record deal or was in the process of recording his own album. The main reason I remember the “revelation” of Ravenscroft’s identity was because I was an avid listener of Casey’s “American Top 40″ show and kept my own list of the week’s Top 40 songs. When he did the lead-in, I wrote down Ravenscroft’s name as the artist and was just waiting for the song when it turned out to be “Baker Street” and that Ravenscroft had earned that privilege from his solo on the song.