Boys in the Trees: A Memoir

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   When a Three-Year-Old Leapt onto a Coffee Table and Changed Everything

   

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   What happens when a shy girl discovers she can become someone else entirely-just by performing? Picture young Carly Simon at three years old, watching a prospective nurse interview for her baby brother. Suddenly, she springs onto the coffee table, drops to one knee like a vaudeville star, and belts out a brassy "HI!" That single moment contained everything about her future: the hunger to be seen wrestling with crippling insecurity, the transformation that happens when performance becomes survival. Growing up in a six-story Greenwich Village townhouse felt like living inside a music box. Her father Richard-co-founder of Simon & Schuster-played Liszt and Brahms with raw emotion each night, technique be damned. The extended family practically embodied the music industry: Uncle George founded Downbeat magazine, Uncle Alfie directed music for WQXR. Yet beneath this creative abundance lurked something darker. Richard struggled to show affection to his youngest daughter. "Darling, remember to kiss Carly, too," her mother would remind him at bedtime-a small sentence that echoed through decades. Then came Ronny, a nineteen-year-old hired as her brother's companion who became her forty-two-year-old mother's lover. When he was drafted and stationed in Germany, her mother made a suspicious European trip. Her father suffered a heart attack shortly after. The family's unspoken rule became clear: insist nothing's wrong when everything is. This early education in beautiful lies and hidden truths would become the bedrock of her songwriting-the ability to see what people desperately try to hide, especially from themselves.

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   The Girl Who Sang to Speak and the Island Where Everything Begins

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   Summer 1951 brought devastation: a stammer that turned language into an enemy. During "Little Women" rehearsals, Carly's throat seized mid-sentence. Vowels flowed one day while consonants blocked; the next day reversed without logic. She answered phones breathlessly to avoid "hello," used "Simon residence" when brave. She invented coded diary entries using "famul" to describe her stuttering, terrified someone might discover her secret. Then came the dinner table miracle. Struggling with "Pass the butter," her mother said: "Try singing it." Melody bypassed whatever neurological trap held her voice hostage. The family transformed the request into an impromptu jam session with tableware percussion. Swimming became another refuge - the fluid movement representing what she hoped her speech might become. Years later, boyfriend Nick Delbanco called her stammer "sexy" and "charming" - a perspective so alien after years of shame it felt like learning a new language. Martha's Vineyard in the late 1940s was gloriously rough - dune buggies, woodies, water buckets from the local well. The Simon family summered among Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, James Cagney. Outside Seward's market, Carly spotted "a cute boy" with Davy Gude, who introduced his friend as "Jamie" while demonstrating guitar chords. When she sat beside Jamie with her vanilla Popsicle, he casually took a bite without looking, then returned to "Roll On, Columbia." The following summer brought musical awakening. Davy taught Carly and Lucy a new strumming technique for "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod," which Lucy had written from a Eugene Field poem. They performed it at parties, eventually recording it - their "break" into music. During these summers, Carly discovered the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. This musical savior who could lead from darkness became her template for the ideal man. She would spend decades searching for Orpheus in various forms, not yet understanding that the music capable of saving her was already growing inside herself.

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   London, Love, and the First Great Heartbreak

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   During the mid-1960s British Invasion, the Simon Sisters performed in London, where Carly met Willie Donaldson, a theatrical producer. Their courtship was enchanting-their first night locked in Kensington Park, Willie avoided physical contact beyond draping his jacket over her. When questioned by a bobby, he claimed they were "friends of the Queen." Their Rehearsal Room performances thrived. Willie kissed Carly in Hyde Park, beginning their passionate affair. He introduced her as "the next Mrs. Donaldson," discussing marriage. But he soon withdrew and lied. At the train station before her departure, he disappeared, leaving only a crossword puzzle and a cassette of her singing. The journey home brought another blow-the sisters shared a ship with Sean Connery. After Carly wrote him a fan letter, Sean called late. Lucy took a stroll on deck, not returning until 5:15 a.m.-a painful betrayal that freed Carly from her lifelong identity as Lucy's younger sister. In New York, Willie's letter arrived: he'd reunited with his former girlfriend. The heartbreak left her "physically hollowed out." Yet Willie had transformed her self-belief-pushing her toward expressing what she truly wanted. That change would remain forever.

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   Breaking Through the Sound Barrier

   By 1970, Carly lived in a Stanford White-designed apartment near Jake Brackman-tall, lean, brilliantly intelligent, with a gift for savage insights. Their intellectually intense but platonic relationship yielded "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," addressing the pressure women felt to marry despite witnessing their parents' unhappy marriages. The response was electrifying. Manager Jerry Brandt visited her apartment. After sharing an unusual Swiss cheese, chutney, and red onion sandwich, they "threw the I Ching" to determine if they should work together. The answer was yes. After multiple rejections, Elektra Records president Jac Holzman said "There's something about her I just feel." Recording at Electric Lady Studios, complications arose when she and producer Eddie Kramer began dating, culminating in a drunken fight. Carly ended up producing much of the album herself-pushing knobs, adjusting reverb and compression. The result was her debut album, simply titled "Carly Simon." Despite stage fright, she soon opened for Harry Chapin and Kris Kristofferson at Carnegie Hall. The girl who sang to speak had found her audience.

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   The Song That Became a Cultural Mystery

   While waiting for Cat Stevens to arrive for dinner, anxiety gripped Carly. In that moment, she wrote "Anticipation" on her guitar, channeling Stevens' gravelly vocal style. This pattern of transforming emotional turmoil into creative output became her signature. In London recording her "Anticipation" album, she began developing what would become her most famous song. Starting as "Ballad of a Vain Man," it evolved through many iterations. The line "clouds in my coffee" came from friend Billy Mernit during a flight to Palm Springs. Contrary to decades of speculation, the song wasn't about just one person-Warren Beatty was only "second base in this particular infield." As they finished the album at AIR Studios, Paul and Linda McCartney were recording down the hall. Producer Richard Perry invited them to hear Carly's tracks, along with Harry Nilsson and Bonnie Bramlett. Then Mick Jagger showed up. He joined Harry and Carly to record background vocals on "You're So Vain." After Harry left, Mick and Carly were alone in the vocal booth. The attraction was electric-"The farther away we stood, the closer we got." These relationships, while sometimes painful, provided rich material for transforming personal experiences into universal expressions of desire, betrayal, and self-discovery.

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   Sweet Baby James and the Marriage of Two Troubled Souls

   After a Carnegie Hall performance in 1971, James Taylor suggested dinner at Carly's apartment. That night, they smoked and ate Sara Lee banana cake. In bed, their connection was profound - "flesh to bone," moving with their blood. They curled up without making love. While James slept, Carly remained awake, his songs circling in her head, feeling their music merging. Soon they drove to Martha's Vineyard in James's green truck to see his rustic cabin. One night, James predicted that if they married, they'd have two children - first a girl named Sarah, then a boy named Ben. They were linked by more than love and music - they were both troubled people trying to pass as normal. His depression and addiction complemented her alienation. Caring for him diverted attention from her own pain. At the Chateau Marmont, James revealed his heroin addiction, tying off his arm and injecting before flushing everything. They clung to each other "like apes." In her diary, she wrote: "James, James, James... His showing me was the big thing... Mainly I didn't want him to die. I was so scared that he would, just like my father." In March 1972, while driving down the California coast, they received a telegram congratulating them both on winning Grammys - Carly's for Best New Artist, James's for Best Pop Vocal Performance. The weekend before their wedding, they drafted an informal prenuptial agreement on lined paper in James's childish handwriting, misspelling "divorce" as "divorse." Two artists trying to protect themselves while falling completely in love - it was beautiful and doomed from the start.

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   When the Music Stops But the Love Remains

   Sarah Maria arrived January 7, 1974, three weeks late. After her C-section, James performed "Sarah Maria" at Trax nightclub that same night - quintessentially present and absent simultaneously. They'd given each other tacit permission to write about fantasy loves with no questions asked. Physical monogamy was their ideal, but creative work required muses and private realities they wouldn't share. Their home filled with music. James composed "Secret o' Life" by the fireplace while baby Sally cooed. When their voices hit that perfect-fourth harmony, Carly experienced literal goose bumps. In spring 1976, James confessed to infidelity. Ironically, Carly was about to reveal she was pregnant. Ben arrived January 22, 1977. By spring 1980, after discovering another betrayal, she demanded he leave - surprised by how easily he agreed. A year later, dropping off the children, they reconnected physically in silent intimacy. But like Orpheus, James disappeared again. The childhood myth had come full circle - except this time, she was Eurydice, left in darkness, learning to find her own light. Years later, his fishing rod still hangs above her Vineyard doors. How can you not love someone whose genes live in your children? Through everything, music remained her salvation. The stutter that silenced her became the catalyst for finding her voice. Carly found her greatest strength not in the boys in the trees, but in transforming life's discord into lasting harmony.

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