Most folks can point to a teacher who inspired them as they grew from child to adult, a mentor who saw something special in them that set them apart from the crowd. Sometimes they have books dedicated to them in suitably purple prose, or you hear these shout-outs during awards ceremonies, when the winner gets really teary and sappy and their trembling hand flutters to their throat as they thank some elderly drama teacher who gave them their start in a juvenile version of Our Town.

I can’t say that any teacher inspired me or had a positive impact on my development as a writer.

That said, I did have teachers, but the lessons I learned weren’t taught in the classroom.

I had my siblings’ record collections.

I can say definitively that Carly Simon was my very greatest English teacher. When I stumbled across her “Best of” album, from 1975, I was captivated. I’d never seen anyone like her or heard anyone with that voice—frankly, I’d never even heard the name “Carly” before. The whole package was intriguing, and of course her marriage to James Taylor just completed the picture (and confirms my theory that female singers and musicians back then were typically partnered up with another musician).

And then there were Carly Simon’s lyrics. Of course, as part of the Simon family, of the Simon & Schuster publishing house, Carly’s lyrics were not going to be of the moon-June-bloom variety. Nope, they dealt with adult matters, explored complex feelings, and used vocabulary that sent me straight to the dictionary. Yes, I was that child nerd who read the liner notes and then looked up the definitions of the words Carly was giving life to.

Take, for example, probably her best-known song, “You’re So Vain.” Hum along with me as we stumble over these mature words: “yacht,” which of course she rhymed to “apricot,” and “gavotte,” all in the opening lines. Add to my vocabulary homework the terms “naïve,” “Saratoga,” “Lear jet,” “Nova Scotia,” and “total eclipse of the sun.” Whew! My mind reeled at the story she was telling.

Then comes a whopper—“vain.” I wasn’t sure if it was a put down, a bit of praise, or a sin. (Remember—I grew up Polish Catholic, and vanity was a sin.) Like, Carly was hot for this guy in the song, but she was criticizing him the whole time, and then Mick Jagger joined in and it sounded like they were having a good laugh about it all, so what the heck was my childish brain supposed to do with all of this swagger?

I thought about it… and kept listening… and dreamed up my own stories over clouds in my coffee.