"I always think it's interesting to dig a little bit deeper every time you go to someplace that seems like a revelation or a strong connection to an emotional truth"
About this Quote
There’s a quiet rebuttal baked into Carly Simon’s line: the “revelation” isn’t the ending, it’s the lure. Pop culture loves the lightning-strike myth of creativity - the song arrives whole, the feeling is pure, the artist simply channels it. Simon, whose career has been shadowed by the public’s obsession with confession (“You’re So Vain” becoming a national guessing game), reframes emotional truth as something you return to, not something you extract once and cash in.
The phrasing matters. “Dig a little bit deeper” is workmanlike, almost unglamorous. It suggests craft, revision, and a willingness to distrust the first version of your own insight. And “every time you go to someplace” implies repetition: the emotional well isn’t a one-time epiphany but a location you revisit, with different weather each trip. That’s a musician’s mindset - melody as muscle memory, lyric as excavation, performance as a re-test of what you thought you knew.
The subtext is also about resisting spectacle. Simon isn’t promising authenticity as a brand; she’s describing curiosity as a discipline. “Seems like a revelation” is especially telling: even the big moments get side-eyed. The feeling might be real, but your understanding of it is provisional. In an era that rewards hot takes and instantaneous vulnerability, Simon argues for the slower, braver move: stay with the emotion long enough to find what’s underneath the part that first impressed you.
The phrasing matters. “Dig a little bit deeper” is workmanlike, almost unglamorous. It suggests craft, revision, and a willingness to distrust the first version of your own insight. And “every time you go to someplace” implies repetition: the emotional well isn’t a one-time epiphany but a location you revisit, with different weather each trip. That’s a musician’s mindset - melody as muscle memory, lyric as excavation, performance as a re-test of what you thought you knew.
The subtext is also about resisting spectacle. Simon isn’t promising authenticity as a brand; she’s describing curiosity as a discipline. “Seems like a revelation” is especially telling: even the big moments get side-eyed. The feeling might be real, but your understanding of it is provisional. In an era that rewards hot takes and instantaneous vulnerability, Simon argues for the slower, braver move: stay with the emotion long enough to find what’s underneath the part that first impressed you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Carly
Add to List






