Clouds in My Coffee Redux

This post has got to signify the smallest tempest in the teensiest teapot I've ever written about, but it's not every day that I get to see my name in a Vanity Fair story -- and see that they've gotten the story wrong.

One of my longtime claims to fame -- i.e. to being a tiny footnote in pop musical history -- is that I'm the guy who gave Carly Simon the line "clouds in my coffee" for her song, You're So Vain. 

Back in the day, Carly was my singer-songwriting mentor.  We were close friends who did a lot of playing and singing together, on her records and on the road. But in years since, it's a bit like I'm being photo-shopped out of an old photo. 

Here's how Carly reports on the origin of that "clouds in my coffee" line in the liner notes of her box set of 1995, entitled... Clouds in My Coffee:

"It came from an airplane flight that I took with Billy Mernit, who was my friend and piano player at the time.  As I got my coffee, there were clouds outside the window of the airplane and you could see the reflection in the cup of coffee.  Billy said to me, 'Look at the clouds in your coffee.  That's like a Truffaut shot!'  I said, 'Hmm, clouds in my coffee?' And I wrote that down in my book."

It was heartening to see this in print 13 years ago, especially since her recollection was fairly close to mine, though she bobbled the movie reference: what I had talked about was a Godard shot, namely the overhead close-up of a coffee cup from 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her -- a shot later homaged by Scorsese in Taxi Driver, using a glass of Alka Seltzer instead of coffee.  (Carly's favorite movie in those days was Truffaut's Jules and Jim, which we'd seen again together, so her mis-remembrance is perfectly understandable.)

At any rate, what happened next has never been reported, and I tell it here to the best of my recollection:  I kept a journal, too, and I wrote the line down in mine, as well.  Carly and I were in the habit of sharing works-in-progress with each other in those days, and we agreed it was an image that should go into a song.  Some weeks later I got a call from Carly.  "Are you doing anything with that 'clouds in my coffee' line?" she asked.  "Because if not, I'd like to use it in this thing I'm working on."

"No, take it," I said.  And, no -- as many people have queried me, with varying degrees of disbelief -- it didn't even occur to me to add "...and I'd like a token percent of the publishing, with songwriting credit."  We were friends, Carly had already been quite generous with me in my own burgeoning musical career, and this was a tacit act of generosity in return.

That "thing" she was working on turned out to be quite the ubiquitous little ditty as time went by.  And there were a number of times years later that Carly's double-tracked chanting of that line made an ironic soundtrack for the hole of a nowhere-doing-nothing spot I was in.  In the movie version, I'd be the guy bussing a counter in a coffee shop as the song played on the radio, telling a waitress "I gave her that line" and having the waitress go, "Yeah, right." 

Such is life.  I've felt pretty much sanguine about the whole thing, up until now.  But here's how Vanity Fair tells the tale, in an excerpt from the forthcoming book Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller.  Weller describes Carly's writing process for You're So Vain:

She'd sketched in her journal the beginning of a song called Bless You, Ben.  Then, on a flight from L.A. to Palm Springs for an Elektra Records convention, she'd added another, totally unrelated line to her journal when her seatmate, musician Billy Mernit, looked into the cup of coffee on his tray and said, "Doesn't that shape look like clouds?"

I know, I know -- I'm probably the only human being on the planet who gives a flying freak, but the characterization is a little galling: I'm the kid at a backseat car window going "Look-- cows!"   What fascinates me is how time seems to be erasing the guy who's already known as Periphery Man from having any substantive role in The Creation of the actual line.  Like a figure in some cosmic Etch-a-Sketch that's about to be shaken out, I fully expect that the next time I hear this anecdote, it'll be Carly passing by "some guy" on the aisle of a plane, telling him, "Hey, there's clouds in your coffee."

I'm so vain, I'm trying to say the song was about me.  But honest, my blog-venting isn't due to Ms. Weller writing elsewhere in her article that my immortal phrase "proved one bad line could be more memorable than a thousand good ones."  No, it's for the sake of history (i.e. pop trivia) that I offer up my version of the origin story, knowing that in cyber-space, occasionally they do hear you scream. 

I offer it also as a cautionary tale.  If Vanity Fair can get this little bit of ephemera wrong...  Just imagine for a moment what the journalists of the world are mis-reporting about like, things that really matter?!

Comments

[Ernest]

OK, this story doesn't have nearly the poignance or heartbreak of the above, but I swear tonight, not an hour ago, when I was driving home from a late showing of STOP-LOSS, I flipped on the radio and punched a couple buttons to find a song that wasn't playing commercials, and landed on the oldies station with "You're So Vain" just starting. Like everyone else in the WORLD, I half sang along to the "clouds in my coffee" refrain, smiling, because I recalled something about Billy Mernit, I couldn't remember exactly, pouring cream in Carly Simon's coffee and it clotted, or something. Then at the end the DJ said, "and that was Mick Jagger on backup vocals," and I said (to no one) "and Billy Mernit on the Mr. Coffee." I stopped at the grocery store to get some -- I'm not kidding -- cream for tomorrow's coffee and paused to look at the Vanity Fair near the checkout. Thought, eh, that magazine always seems more interesting than it actually is, and opted for the new Harper's instead. There's really no point to this other than I'll have cream in my coffee tomorrow morning and I thank the skies I read Billy's blog. That's all.

[binnie]

Dontcha hate that?!?!
I was in the studio producing a new singer/songwriter this past Saturday, and his vocal coach was there with us. He (the vocal coach) used to play piano for Carly Simon - after you - and we were talking about the value of a great lyric, and so I said, Well, Billy Mernit, who ALSO played for Carly Simon, wrote the "clouds in my coffee" line in "You're So Vain". And we were all, AH, that was such a great line...! See, those of us who know the truth will spread the word.
Be not too troubled, and Happy Birthday in advance!
xo

[E.C. Henry]

Billy, you'll NEVER be forgotten. Your legacy isn't solely linked to 1 line written in 1 song. What about your contributions to the understanding and breakdown of romantic comedies? You're a pioneer in the coolest movie genre in the world!

Too cool that you were friends and mentored by Carly Simon at one time. I like how you two shared things with one another. If I were you, I'd savor the times you spent with Carly, and not get bitter over it. You never know how your career is going to play out. At least you got a cool story out of this experience, and get your named mentioned when a really cool song is discussed. Not many people have the cool, "insider" stories that you have, Billy.

So the story changed over time? You're here now to set the record straight. And who knows maybe someday you and Carly will reunite over coffee and have a laugh over this minor cloud of the true historical record.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Joanna Farnsworth]

And, Joni Mitchell isn't from rural SK. She's mostly from Saskatoon. Then, a liberal Brit-like University city, where those clouds she sang about filled our baby-boomer summer skys.

As I remember, we were wearing Mary Quant, not white gloves with luncheon suits. Ironed our hair. And wanted guitar lessons from "the Anderson girl" down the street.

There, I've spoken up for Saskatoon's clouds. Billy, don't let Vanity get away with marginalizing yours!

[sal]

to make up for the clouds in your coffee, can I take you for a coffee next week? Will be in LA and am hoping to get to your book signing on Sunday

[Rachel Hauck]

You should've said, "a third for a word." :)

LOVED this story. And yes, how much more do our "journalist" get wrong.

Or, Al Gore.

;) R

[Diana Celesky]

Thanks for the great post, Billy. I had to laugh at the sad realization that more that one person can experience the same circumstance and remember it and report on it so differently.

Go ahead. Be so vain and try to say the song was about you. "Clouds in my coffee" is a great line and it's YOURS. While I'm sure the bulk of Carly's work is very good, it's the song with YOUR line that I remember, and it's YOUR work that I promote on my blog and in writing groups.

Peace.

[Barbara]

Hey Mernitman -
What a great photograph. (And post) You have your mother's smile.

[Jenny Wynter]

Well, we heard you scream. :-)

I actually think you have to laugh at these things (pompous as that probably sounds coming from a stranger!) "Doesn't that look like a cloud?" You're right, it does sound like an over-excited kid, you'd think if they get the story so wrong they'd at least try to make the dialogue believable!!

Love your blog, by the way. And thanks for the "Truly Madly Deeply" recap too, that is without a doubt one of my favourite films ever.

PS Have you ever come or are you planning to come to the Banff Centre to run any writer workshops?

[MaryAn]

Such is the way history is written - he who has the press writes the account.

[Steven Axelrod]

What an annoying anecdote! As a small footnote to it, the origin story slightly diminishes my opinion of the line itself. The random diffusion of cream molecules through liquid coffee has always looked like actual clouds to me, since I heard that song. Not reflections of clouds from a plane window or a movie: clouds. At the time I thought ... small thing, but this is a fair representation of the value of art: I now see things slightly differently, my perspective has been enlarged a little by this fragment of poetry. Not to mention the extension of the image, the sense that dreams disperse into the day to day reality of life just as those 'clouds' resolve into the bland cafe-au-lait beige of a regular coffee to go. Not a bad line at all, as the Vanity Fair snob seems to think; a lovely line. But now it seems I have always put more into it than either author intended. Oh well ...

[mernitman]

Ernest: Thank you for this little morsel of synchronicity or... whatever you want to call the oddness of your thinking about me and seeing that magazine, et al, but especially for the new liner notes listing ("Billy Mernit on Mr. Coffee").

Binnie: And the truth will set your chickens free! Thanks for the birthday greets.

EC: Not bitter! Just a mite peeved and highly amused, but thanks for the vote of support.

Joanna: Interesting -- as the lines between fiction, fact, journalism and subjective interpretation get cloudier and cloudier...

Sal: It'll be great to meet you --looking forward to seeing you there!

Rachel: Just imagine how long the list would be, Gore and [fill in your favorite bete noir] beyond...

Diana: You're too sweet.

Barbara: Then I should give it back! No wonder she's looked glum in her recent photos. ;-)

Jenny: Glad you had a laugh. And no, I'm not familiar with the Banff Centre, so drop me an e-mail if you want to fill me in.

MaryAn: And he who has the blog is another accountant.

Well, Steven... I wouldn't be so quick to diminish, or rather, reduce. In fact, when Carly and I talked about the line, we talked about the associations, and put milk in our coffees and had a laugh about that.

But since when do the origins of an image necessarily define the effect of same? People reinterpret Dylan all the time (thousands are doing it as I write this), while he's famous for -- and not being disingenuous about it -- claiming that some of his most famous images simply "came to him" and were essentially meaningless (in the sense of narrowly defined). We could cite images from thousands of poems, stories and movies where the creators involved had no conscious intention of invoking one specific "meaning," yet people got all KINDS of meaningful meanings out of their subjective experience of the work.

Some might say that the job of the artist is merely to catch hold of such imagery as it emerges from the ether, and then put it out there for the rest of us to make with it what they will. The other day, I heard a screenwriter, referring to a major deal that had gone south on him, say "Well, you know, I had dreams... Clouds in my coffee, right?"

Perfect interpretation, and I'll never be the one to say he got it wrong.

In parting, here's Carly herself on what it means to her, from her website: "Clouds In My Coffee are the confusing aspects of life and love. That which you can't see through, and yet seems alluring... until. Like a mirage that turns into a dry patch. Perhaps there is something in the bottom of the coffee cup that you could read if you could (like tea leaves or coffee grinds)."

But, hey... What does SHE know?

[Steven Axelrod]

Hey, no offence meant; I was just surprised ... along those lines, I was talking about this with a friend and he said he had a totally different view of the line! To him, it was the steam coming off the hot beverage and dispersing into the air that signified the clouds in his coffee. I never thought of that one. Who knows how many more interpretations there are? Anyway -- it's a lovely fragment of poetry, one that seems to live on in its own way for many people, me included. It's right up there with Warren Zevon's couplet, "He's holding on to half a heart/but he can't have the restless part" for it's lingering resonance.

[Michele]

It's a great line! It's a great visual; it's a line that when I hear it, I know just how it sounds in the song.

It's a line to be proud of.

[Frank Murasso]

I was contemplating thus thought about the line with my girlfriend today and there were several thoughts bandied about. Thank you for this blog. Great line but one most obscured in a song otherwise straight forward. It is that piece of urban myth every great band has.

Anyway, I was at a motocross race in 1978 in Unadilla New York. I was 17 at the time. Camping took place on both sides of the road, and we were trackside. On the opposite side, there were bonfires and girls being fondled without consent, pillaging and wild behavior like todays "Girls Gone Wild" Videos. I said "hey, ya wanna go over to "Sin City"? Friends immediately picked it up and ran with it! The next day the annoucer alluded to the other side as none other than, you guessed it. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I guess if you can take credit for an infamous line like that,(and I do believe it, amazing story!) I probably coined the phrase. Occasionally, I will tell the story, and the people I share it with are very entertained, but there is still that urge to need to say, "but really, it did happen that way". Now though, I can rest in peace having shared this with someone who can relate. Great story! I suppose you can't tell me if the song was REALLY about Warren Beatty? Could You? lol