No, we are not getting a jump on April Fool’s Day. Yes, you read that headline right. According to MTV, Tim Burton’s muse and his river-crying buddy will be recording together, and not just on any old song — a cover of one of the greats, Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” It should maybe come as no surprise that a guy who played Sweeney Todd, Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Ed Wood, the Mad Hatter, John Dillinger, and so on is, um, “eccentric” enough to be BFFs with the shock rocker, or that he’d want to appear on an album called Born Villains (seriously, check out his resume). Oh, and one last thing — that Carly Simon song? Totally written about us. [MTV]

There was a surprising bit of hip-hop news in the wave of pardonings and sentence commutations that accompany any president getting ready to depart office: Former Wyclef Jean sidekick John Forté received a reduction on his 14-year sentence for drug charges.

Proving it always helps to have attended an elite East Coast prep school, John Forté’s famous friends–Carly Simon and her son Ben Taylor, whose cousin was a classmate of Forté’s at Phillips Exeter–campaigned on his behalf, claiming that his trial for accepting a suitcase containing $1.4 million worth of liquid cocaine wasn’t fair because of mandatory minimum sentences for drug cases.

Pre-incarceration, Forté was probably best known for his verse on Wyclef’s “Stayin’ Alive” remake, “We Trying To Stay Alive”:

His solo album bombed, but that might have been partially due to the Wyclef overload felt by the world at the time. Forté bounced back with a pre-prison indie release (featuring Carly Simon!) that wasn’t bad. Post-incarceration life hasn’t always been the greatest for rappers, but here’s hoping for the best for Forté, who should be free before the end of the year.

BREAKING: John Forte One Of 16 Pardoned By George Bush [HipHopDX]

Billboard continues its coverage of the 50th anniversary of its flagship singles chart, the Hot 100, with a look at songs on its recently compiled all-time Hot 100 that have engaged in lyrical brand-dropping. Not surprising, there are a few hip-hop songs in the rundown (“Gold Digger,” “Low,” “Yeah!”), but a couple of older radio staples are also in there: the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” which name-checks The New York Times; Chic’s “Le Freak,” which mentions the New York nightclub the Savoy (confidential to Billboard–pretty sure the lyric is about stomping, not stopping, at the nightclub); and Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” which incorporates the Saratoga race track and the Lear jet into its lyrics. [Billboard]

Carly Simon is going to put out her next album through Starbucks’ Hear Music label, with This Kind Of Love slated for release on April 29. If only they’d made this announcement two days ago during the mandated Starbucks closings! That would surely have been a better time to capitalize on the crazy “starbucks closed” “starbucks omg” “starbucks nooooooo” Google searches that were clogging up the Internet at that time. [Billboard]