The Daily Swarm

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October 12, 2009

Carly Simon Accuses Starbucks of Mismanagement... Can't Retire...

“This Kind of Love” was supposed to be Ms. Simon’s final album — “my last chance at bat,” she said — but she is in financial straits from other business problems and must keep working. And she is having trouble finding and paying producers. “All of a sudden you’re the ugliest girl at the prom, and you’re not picked,” Ms. Simon, 64, said in a recent interview at her West Village apartment.

Her money issues make the Starbucks lawsuit partly about business. But Ms. Simon has always been driven by her life’s narrative. “Anticipation” is about her first date with Cat Stevens; “Hello Big Man” about how her parents met; “You’re So Vain” about — well, she still won’t say. And there is also a sstrong element of the personal in her entanglement with Starbucks and its chief executive, Howard Schultz. This time, rather than singing about a man who misleads her, she is suing him.“Starbucks was so attractive to me because of what it offered, and Howard Schultz seemed to be such an attractive person.”