Wednesday, May 4

No Secrets (1972)

On the covers of her previous two albums, Carly was pictured within carefully composed settings. By contrast, the image on the cover of No Secrets could almost be a paparazzi shot. It is much more immediate, engaging, and informal than its predecessors. Her clothes are crucial to this effect: the handbag over the shoulder, the velour jeans, floppy hat, and loose jersey are as casual as her glance. She is caught in mid-stride, and, with a light breeze blowing and her nipples showing through her top, it is as though we have just bumped into her on the street.


Of course, not everyone we bump into in the street is so finely formed, so arresting. Hence, the captivating effect of this album cover. It offers an image many women would aspire to: youthful, confident, and chic without any stuffiness or contrivance.  Men are also captivated, and for obvious reasons. Indeed, the cover instantly became reknown: six years later, a Rolling Stone reporter based a lengthy profile of Carly around his fascination with this image, and he scarcely had to explain it to his readers. Yet for all the lusty comments, there is another aspect of the image that might have been reassuring for both men and women in the 1970s. It suggests that feminism - and not wearing a bra in 1972 was a clear feminist statement - could be sexy and stylish. It could represent something more than political rhetoric. 

The photographer was Ed Caraeff, and the session took place in London while she recorded No Secrets at Trident Studios in Soho. As the other photographs (below) demonstrate, they went through a number of settings and changes of clothes, some of which nodded to the album's first single by featuring a hat that could be strategically dipped below one eye and a scarf that was apricot. At the end of the session, however, Caraeff was not convinced that he had finished the job. Hence, he followed her as she returned to the Portobello Hotel, on Stanley Gardens in Notting Hill, and he continued snapping on the street. It was this impromptu session, unplanned and late in the day, that ultimately yielded the album's cover shot.




The papparazi style of the cover proved to be a perfect match for the album's title. It was No Secrets that set in motion the mystery of the subject of "You're So Vain".  Carly looks appropriately glamorous (for a woman involved with that song's jet-set playboy) and only the delicate way in which she holds her left hand suggests the refinement of her wealthy family background. At the same time, though, the candid nature of the photograph, her everyday clothing and the visibility of her nipples suggest that there is no snobbery or exclusivity at work here. There are no barriers, and - as the album title promises - there are no secrets between artist and audience. The distinctively spiky balustrading in the background may serve as a reminder of the exclusivity of class and celebrity, but it represents no real obstacle to the viewer. We will be allowed access, metaphorically speaking, to the other side of these elegant railings.

Of course, "You're So Vain" does not actually reveal all. It is a marvellously convoluted puzzle, with a chorus (You're so vain/ I bet you think this song is about you) that goes in circles, and lyrics that are filled with references that sound like clues but actually are some of the most intriguing red herrings ever put to music: the apricot scarf, the gavotte, the cloud-filled coffee, and the total eclipse of the sun in Nova Scotia. The tension here, between revelation and concealment, is perfectly captured in the cover photograph, which reveals so much, so discreetly.

There is much more to the album than its stellar, centerpiece song. The theme throughout is confessional but the other songs are more direct in their allusions. The album's opening lines - There's nothing you can do to turn me away/nothing anyone can say from "The Right Thing To Do" - set the scene for confidences that are as warm and open as they are studied and thoughtful. Her hushed delivery of the first lines of "Embrace Me You Child" (At night in bed I heard god whisper lullabies/while Daddy next door whistled whiskey tunes) brings this scene to vivid life. The admission in "The Carter Family" - And now at night I think of you, and the way that you undressed/and I find that I miss you more than I'd ever guessed - sets the stage for what immediately follows: "You're So Vain" and its frank recollection that You had me several years ago/when I was still quite naive. Another confession is made in the title song, where the singer admits to her lover that, as desirable as it is that We have no secrets/we tell each other everything, she finds that his revelations can be deeply unsettling. Sometimes I wish that I never, never knew/some of those secrets of yours are the song's closing lines, and her voice gets ever lower and darker as she sings them.
 
The songs on No Secrets are as autobiographical as popular music can be: disarmingly personal and yet infectiously melodious. The album's success marked the apex of the singer-songwriter movement, and also the moment it was infused with glamour, sex appeal and intelligence. The cover played a key role in this. As she walks down the street, Carly Simon looks effortlessly chic and ready to confide everything, or, as the song "No Secrets" puts it, in a final, off-the-cuff coda, almost everything.

14 comments:

  1. Hello;
    What a great blog! I'm a photographer and I appreciated so much this information! Some of them were completely unknown to me. I always wondered the palce the NO SECRETS cover was taken. I assumed it was London but didn't know the place. Now finally I discovered the place. In order to give some more clues; the ANTICIPATION cover was taken with a Nikon F with a 105mm (2.5). A little bit details about the camera and lenses. Also I haven't know the gate exactly this picture was taken. I thought it as Hyde Park. Thanx for you reat work! Congratulations:::!

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    1. The Anticipation album cover was taken at the gates to Queen Mary's Garden at Regent's Park in London.

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  2. Thank you, Londoner. I am glad you found the blog and enjoyed it.

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  3. Loving this blog! Where did you get access to these outakes? Can't believe I never stumbled into this site before.

    What I love about this album cover is the composition. The fence posts on the bottom left and upper right form a perfect diagonal. The type fills in the white space and forms its own diagonal. Look how tight the placement of her name is to her image -- it could have easily been placed more to the upper left -- it implies an intimacy and further forces our attention on the subject.

    Jack Holtzman, then president of Elektra Records, liked to give his artists a distinctive typeface, affectively branding them. (Think The Doors.) Carly's typeface was Desdemona, an art nouveau style. Interestingly, when Holtzman stepped down from Elektra, the Desdemona typeface disappeared from Carly's covers. The next time the Desdemona "logo" shows up is in a photo of Carly's mailbox on the back of the Letters Never Sent album.

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    1. That's fantastic information about Holzman. Where did you learn that?

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  4. Desdemona! Thank you for that. I tried to comment on the lettering in my entry on the first album, but could not think of the name of the typeface. And you are right about the design of the No Secrets cover. It is pure genius, but its sex appeal, and perhaps the casualness of the scenario, meant that few people have noticed how carefully composed it is.

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  5. I grew up on the album in the summer as a kid. My mother who is now passed on would listen to this album on those hot summer days. It brings back such good memories growing up in the 70's with Carly Simon playing in the background of life. As she sang the words " these are the good ol days". In deed they were.

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  6. Well, I'm Ed Caraeff, and enjoyed finding this blog today.
    Immediately put on, listening to, No Secrets and continued reading such thoughtful,
    in depth views of my 'work' def made my day.
    Next week I'll be interviewed on camera by the BBC for a show on...the No Secrets album!

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    1. Ed - Such an impressive body of work. Thank you!

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  7. I was thirty in '72 and immediately fell in love with the body. I stayed for the music and move to it today at 76. An artist and deliverer of messages that speak to the heart. She's 73 today, happy Birthday, love

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  8. Great blog! Nice to know the backstory behind some of the albums (and album covers) I've always loved.

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  9. Groovy article!! I just have one question I'd like help with...I have a friend named Rhonda Funk...she was nominated for 5 ISSAawards this year, including album of the year (Ain't Your Momma) and song of the year off that album (Cumberland Falls). To me, she's as unique as Carly Simon. I'd like to buy her a hat like this one. What's the name for that kind of hat, and does anybody know a place that might still sell them? Or is the style gone for good?

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  10. I was nine in 1972 and i remember being fascinated by the positioning of her hand.

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    1. Me too! I wonder if it means anything or just happened naturally!!

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