My third favorite album of 1972 (my birth year) is a record I consider among the most quintessentially 70s albums I own — Carly Simon’s No Secrets.
I’ve written about this on the blog before so I won’t dwell on it again here, but this record is forever cemented in my memory as one of those adult artifacts my parents shared with my sister and me, either directly or inadvertently.
Obviously it was many years after its release that I discovered this album — sometime between age 6-10, I’d guess — and it symbolized the adult world for me. With its references to love affairs, clouds in your coffee and, yes, secrets, it was mysterious and inviting in a grown-up way.
I’m come to love the album as a grown-up, but I don’t know if it would still have such a hold on me if it weren’t for the way I discovered it.
We tell each other everything
About the lovers in the past
And why they didn’t last
We share a cast of characters from A to Z
We know each others fantasies
And though we know each other better when we explore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never knew some of those secrets of yours
The water was cold
The beach was empty but for one
Now you were lying in the sun
Wanting and needing no-one
Then some child came, you never asked for her to come
She drank a pint of your rum
And later when you told me
You said she was a bore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never knew some of those secrets of yours
In the name of honesty, in the name of what is fair
You always answer my questions
But they don’t always answer my prayers
And though I know you say that it’s me that you adore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never, never, never knew
Some of those secrets of yours
Some of those secrets of yours
Some of those secrets of yours
We have no secrets
Telling each other most everything now
In the parlance of “Inside Out,” this is one of your core memories, and it’s a good one.
So glad this one is on your list 🙂
As I think I’ve commented on earlier posts about this album, I, too, remember vividly feeling as if we were listening in on something somehow forbidden. It seems beyond quaint now when I hear some of the lyrics on the radio! One of the things I love the most on this album, and particularly on this song, is how Simon’s voice lilts along with the ebb of the music. I’m sure there is a more correct technical way to refer to what I’m thinking of, but that’s what I love (“we tell each other ev..ery… thing”