Boys in the Trees

by Carly Simon

Charisma is an overused word. It’s different from beauty, and it’s not the same as cuteness. People who have it possess faces that change from moment to moment, from stunning to plain to gaunt to exquisite to ugly to pale to flushed, challenging you to put a name, an adjective, to what you’re seeing, or imagining, but since you can’t, you give up, not realizing you are continuing to gaze helplessly at them, still puzzled, never not puzzled, in fact, unable to take your eyes off a face whose angles and adjectives seem to whirl and spin before you. Right away I could tell that for Mick Jagger, all women, including me, were his, by divine right. Women existed to frame him, impress him, shimmer for him, illuminate him, jog themselves helpfully into his peripheral vision: a fast-click snapshot Mick might take out of the corner of one eye for future purposes and dalliances. By now Mick was huddling with Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. I can’t remember if Mick even glanced at me that night, but my memory is he didn’t—that would come later. Nor could I bear to look at him directly. Then it was time for the Stones to do whatever it was real rock ’n’ roll bands did before a show. There were groupies in the room, and Danny and I made our way out.

There was no question that seeing Mick was the birth of something powerful in me: I remember I wanted to be a dancer, one who was watched.

I knew who he was, of course, before he introduced himself. In actual fact, there was no one who could match him. What a glorious specimen of man. He put them all to shame, if looks and charm were what you were after. He homed in like a tracking dog. It was mysterious because it worked and it shouldn’t have. Now, when I say it worked, I mean it was irresistible. He had to have me as a notch in his belt, a belt where the greats could mix warmly with the rich, the famous, and the fair.

On Warren Beatty

“Whew!! What a night I had. Warren flew in at the last minute and didn’t get to my apartment until one thirty, at which point I was already tired, but he had so much energy and my God, he’s such a superman, I know what I’ve said about him in the past, how I believe he’s better at playing him than anyone could ever be, and how it was even better having two of him: one ‘him’ and one him playing ‘him.’ But last night I felt as if there was only him, you know what I mean…” It was then that I noticed Dr. L looked unwell. He had a pallor that scared me, and I thought he was going to be sick or do something violent or that he might die on the spot. I asked what was wrong and sat forward in my chair. He said: “Under the circumstances, I can’t withhold this. It’s too much to believe … it’s unbelievable, in fact … I suppose … I suppose I will tell you … that … You are not the first patient of the day who spent the night with Warren Beatty last night.”

James was my muse, my Orpheus, my sleeping darling, my “good night, sweet prince,” my something-in-the-way-he-moves.

On James Taylor.