Songfacts®:

• In this song, Carly Simon gets a message from God, telling her:
  
  Embrace me you child, you're a child of mine
  And I'm leaving everything I am to you
  
  Simon feels the song itself came from on high. "I was just the go-between from the power that inspired it to what finally came out," she told Modern Hi-Fi and Music. "It's the only song that I've ever written that I've seemed to have no control over. My hand almost led. I didn't think it out. I didn't have an idea for that song."
• Simon mentions her father in this song, and he has a message for her as well:
  
  Go chase the wild and nighttime streets
  
  Her father, Richard L. Simon of Simon & Schuster fame, died in 1960, 12 years before this song was released. In the song, she's visited by both him and God, who leave her with a bit of clarity:
  
  I never figured out where God and Daddy went
  But there was nothing those two couldn't do
• "Embrace Me, You Child" is a track on Simon's third album, No Secrets, the one with "You're So Vain." It's not one of her more popular songs but it made a strong connection with many of her fans.
  
  Like many songs in her catalog, she never performed it live. Simon did very few concerts in her career due to acute anxiety over public performance (also known as stage fright).
• Simon was suffering from writer's block when she came up with this song with a big push from her guitarist, Jimmy Ryan, who told her she had to write, no matter how unpleasant it was for her. "He put up a little sign on my bulletin board saying, 'I will write whether or not it's inconvenient or time consuming,'" Simon said. "I signed the little piece of paper and put it back on the bulletin board. That night I just kind of sat down without any ideas for a song and that song just kind of came out of me."
• The heavenly choir was conducted by Paul Buckmaster, who also did the orchestral arrangement. The song was produced by Richard Perry, whose other clients included Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross.