Anticipation (1971)

Performer: Carly Simon                                        Writer: Carly Simon
Highest US Chart Position: #13                            Label: Elektra Records
Musicians: Carly Simon, Paul Glanz, Jim Ryan, John Ryan and Andy Newmark

For those of us who grew up in the seventies and were unfortunate enough not to be really conscious of popular music before the middle of the decade, Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” will forever be associated with the Heinz Ketchup commercials that ran in the later half of the decade. It’s a shame, because the song was her second top twenty single in a career that helped to define the sound of the seventies. She had a distinctive voice and a writing style that was usually lumped in with singer-songwriters like her soon-to-be husband James Taylor. It’s true that her albums were solidly in that vein for the most part, but the singles of hers that became hits were usually distinctive in their emphasis of the studio band sound over just the acoustic guitar. This song was the title track of her second solo album, released in November of 1971, and peaked at number thirteen in the charts in the beginning of February 1972. It was written in the few minutes that she was waiting to go on a date with Cat Stevens, but it’s not really about that. Instead it deals with the idea of trying to predict any situation, the dangers of projecting into the future, and fully embracing the present.

What really cemented this song in my memory is the way I was able to get a copy of it, which probably wasn’t until some time in the mid seventies. Back before I ever purchased 45s, they used to promote anthology LPs on the television of recent hits from a few years previous. One of the most intriguing for me was a three-LP set called Mellow Gold. Of course, I didn’t have any money back then and had to beg my mom for quite a while before she relented and purchased it for me. I think I wanted it primarily for the songs by Seals & Croft, as well as hits by The Doobie Brothers, Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates, but it also had two hits by Carly Simon, this song among them.

The beginning of the song is standard acoustic fare, with Simon singing the lyric over her guitar. At the beginning of the first chorus the rest of the band comes in all at once, with drum fills punctuating dead air before the final line. In fact, the drumming by studio veteran Andy Newmark is one of the highlights of the song. Both the piano and bass cut loose with ad-libs on the last verse and this leads into a terrific coda that emphasizes the fact that the present moment is going to be “the good old days” at some point in the future. One of the obvious things that made Carly Simon a pop star was her distinctive voice. It’s not one that seems full of power or range. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There’s a certain fragility to her voice that makes her songs very intimate and her persona vulnerable. And yet lyrically she is a powerhouse, challenging assumptions and walking a fine line--in the seventies--between romance and self-determination. The song was her second hit single after “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be,” a subtle condemnation of societal expectations for women taken from her debut album released the previous summer. The B-side of the record is the acoustic ballad, “The Garden,” a romantic ode that ends with strings and is somewhat overly sentimental in the production. “Anticipation” is just one of a string of top twenty hits for Simon that lasted throughout the decade and made her one of the distinctive artists of the era.