More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon

Stephen Davis

Jan 2012 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

A love song to an American icon: the first full-length biography of Carly Simon, from an acclaimed music journalist who has known her for decades

Carly Simon has won two Grammys and an Academy Award, and her albums have sold more than forty million copies. Her music has touched countless lives since her debut in the 1970s, yet her own life story has remained unpublished-until now. Tapping private archives, family interviews, and a forty-year friendship with the legend herself, Stephen Davis at last captures Carly Simon's extraordinary journey from shy teenager to superstar. More Room in a Broken Heart candidly covers everything her fans want to know, including:

• Growing up with her father, publishing mogul Richard Simon
• The Bob Dylan turning point that launched her career
• The real story behind "You're So Vain"
• Carly's severe stage fright (she's the only musical guest to pretape an SNL segment)
• Romantic involvements with Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty, and Cat Stevens
• How Carly and James Taylor went from being pop music's reigning couple to independent souls living at opposite ends of Massachusetts
• Surviving breast cancer
• Her recent financial and spiritual crises

  Along the way, Davis vividly takes readers back to some of the most powerful eras in American music history and delivers a tribute worthy of the artist and her loyal fans, who know that nobody does it better than Carly Simon.

Ratings and reviews

I, for one, am still waiting for a truly authoritative bio of Carly to come along. I won't be buying this rag. I can think of few people in the world whose life story is richer and more intriguing than Carly Simon's, just based on what she herself has revealed about her experiences over the years. Her struggles and triumphs are inspirational, as evidenced by the way they have enriched her music over the decades. Carly has shown extraordinary courage in mining her own emotional life to reveal universal truths about the human condition. She has succeeded in reaching her listeners so that they recognize themselves in her story. I know Carly's music has caused me to reflect on my own life and I know I'm not alone in this. I believe I am a better person for having taken Carly's music and message to heart at a young age. Those same listeners who have been touched by Carly's music are the very souls Mr. Davis hopes to entice to buy this book. But he has a funny way of showing it. His analysis of Carly's music is some of the most shallow and useless stuff I've ever read. For instance, he reduces Carly's intensely reflective and transformative song, "Scar" to a "mastectomy two-step." Carly's use of metaphor is subtle and incisive, never cliche, always precise. Mr. Davis' interpretive skills simply aren't up to the challenge of shedding any light on her work. His overly literal understanding of Carly's lyrics leads him to describe "The Carter Family" as "a little waltz with verses about missing old friends and lovers, and especially Grandma, whose criticisms were usually wise." What? Any Carly fan I know could provide a more insightful perspective, so why pay good money to see this guy do a hatchet job? Davis describes "We Just Got Here" as a song about just arriving back on Martha's Vineyard, when in reality it is a poignant song about the fleeting nature of time, with a bittersweet narrative about saying goodbye to the island and to a summer that went by too quickly. It's almost as if English is Mr. Davis' second language, and he is only just learning it. How else to explain getting this one so wrong? Perhaps he never listened to the song at all. That, I fear, is closer to the truth, and is all one needs to know about why this book is unable to speak with any authority whatsoever on its subject. Carly listeners, as a group, respond to honesty, talent and the commitment to excellence exemplified in Carly's music. They appreciate the way Carly weaves complex layers of meaning into lyrics that sound so elegantly simple. They respect the way Carly's music is sometimes so honest that it takes us a little out of our comfort zone and forces us to see truths that we might rather sweep under the rug. Her music is all about truth. This is what Carly fans respect and expect. So why in the world would they buy this book? How sad that Mr. Davis felt the need to tamper with the truth, and to do such shoddy and dishonest research. He abandoned the true, and the truly inspirational, in favor of the salacious and the juvenile. I guess you could say this is a reflection of the way our society seems to be going these days. But if you are a lover of Carly's music, I'm guessing that's not your style. I'm guessing that you, like me and many other Carly fans, would rather read a well-sourced bio, one that appreciates the many layers and dimensions of Carly's life and music.

I thought I would gain new insight into Carly Simon's life and extraordinary career by reading this book. I was wrong. As a fan who has read almost everything that has been printed about her through the years, I was disappointed in not only the content of this book, but the writing itself. Bland and uninteresting at times, the book never develops Carly as a human being. It merely narrates and rehashes what any Carly fan would already know. There are timelines that don't make any sense and obvious blunders that make me question if Davis really did his homework. How could Carly meet Mick Jagger twice for the first time? How could Diana Hyland (Travolta's girlfriend) die in two different years? How could Carly have two children and then later be pregnant with her first child? Then there are explanations to her songs that are so weird, you wonder if the author ever even listened to any of the songs. Whether you are a die-hard or casual fan, don't look here for any historical accuracy, new information or even an enjoyable read. Save your money, it is a bore. I found it perplexing that this book is called "a love song to an American icon". I thought some of it was just plain mean to Carly, James Taylor, Jim Hart, and others. I was hoping for so much more from this book. I had hoped Carly might even do a book tour. Turns out she is extremely unhappy with this unauthorized project and wants nothing to do with it. Who could blame her?

This book in NOT an authorized biography of Carly Simon. It is a sleazy, hastily put together piece of fiction. The author never interviewed Carly Simon, nor did she cooperate in any way about this book. The author has dates wrong, he has plagerised from other books and in my opinion tried to come across as an insider in Carly Simon's life. Don't waste your time or your money on this book... if you want to hear from Carly in her own words then buy one of her albums.

About the author

Rock journalist Stephen Davis is the author of five other music tomes, including the New York Times bestseller Walk This Way (coauthored with Aerosmith) and most recently LZ-'75, about Led Zeppelin's legendary 1975 tour. He lives in Boston.