Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney Spanis, now.
Speaker 2: I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the
Speaker 2: greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great,
Speaker 2: and also to discover what makes Carol King the greatest
Speaker 2: songwriter ever. And It's Too Late a classic of seventies
Speaker 2: Carol King.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this episode is entirely about Carol. Carol's entries on
Speaker 1: the list. I mean, when we were playing together a
Speaker 1: list of the songs that we want to talk about
Speaker 1: in episodes, we wanted to do. This was, I mean
Speaker 1: a no brainer, I think for both of us to
Speaker 1: do an episode dedicated to miss King. And as Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift said in her induction of Carol at the Rock
Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty twenty one, she
Speaker 1: is the greatest songwriter of all time. I think that's apparent.
Speaker 2: Her main competition would be the Beatles, who never stop
Speaker 2: saying that they started writing songs because they used to
Speaker 2: see the Goffin King credit. They were looking at the
Speaker 2: songwriting credits on the label and the two names that
Speaker 2: always jumped out at them were Goffen King and Smokey
Speaker 2: Robinson and that's why they started writing songs. And John
Speaker 2: Lennon always said, when we started, we wanted to be
Speaker 2: the Goffin King of England, and they kept that going
Speaker 2: their entire career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are two goffen King compositions on the list.
Speaker 1: We have Aretha Franklin's You Make Me Feel Like a
Speaker 1: Natural Woman, which lands at number ninety and the Charelles
Speaker 1: Will You Love Me Tomorrow is at number one fifty one,
Speaker 1: and then of course Carol's own hit It's Too Late
Speaker 1: off of her seminal nineteen seventy one album Tapestry, lands
Speaker 1: at number three forty six. So we are you know
Speaker 1: just I mean, I think fans of every era of
Speaker 1: Carol's songwriting and composing and her skills just from the
Speaker 1: get go, from.
Speaker 2: The get go, and that she became such a legend
Speaker 2: behind the scenes in the sixties writing all these classic
Speaker 2: songs for other artists from you Know, We Love Tomorrow,
Speaker 2: like the Cherell's which is on the list, but One
Speaker 2: Fine Day by the Chiffons, Some kind of Wonderful by
Speaker 2: the Drifters, the Locomotion by Little Leva, so many classics
Speaker 2: up on the roof by the drifters. Any of these
Speaker 2: songs could be on the list. But for her to
Speaker 2: step into her own voice in the seventies as a
Speaker 2: singer songwriter, and it's funny that we know her voice
Speaker 2: so well, but for all those people hearing Tapestry, it
Speaker 2: was the first time they were hearing a voice that
Speaker 2: they'd heard through her songs. Yeah, for all those years.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course I mean Tapestry as an album, and
Speaker 1: we'll get even more into it as we talked about
Speaker 1: this episode. But anyone who considers himself a songwriter, that
Speaker 1: is an album that they immediately cite. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't think of a single artist on the charts right
Speaker 1: now who would not immediately cite Tapestry as a foundational
Speaker 1: text for them or the saying that they grew up
Speaker 1: listening to is something that they learned how to write
Speaker 1: songs from Carol as an composer, as a writer, is
Speaker 1: I mean a blueprint forever, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: And for her to make that transition from a pro
Speaker 2: songwriter the real building, the famous cubicles with people at
Speaker 2: their desks with pianos just banging out songs minute to minute,
Speaker 2: hour to hour, nine to five, and just getting so
Speaker 2: many hits done at the same time. And for her
Speaker 2: to go from that to the Laurel Canyon wearing denims,
Speaker 2: hanging around with her cat, you know, in her Laurel
Speaker 2: Canyon pad, to be photographed for the greatest album cover
Speaker 2: of all time, Tapestry. Such a revelation for everybody in
Speaker 2: music to hear an adult woman whose voice they didn't know,
Speaker 2: who had not been famous when she was younger, but
Speaker 2: who became as a thirty somethingter divorce, you know, like
Speaker 2: with a lot of really hard living behind her already,
Speaker 2: and hearing that in these songs and songs like It's
Speaker 2: too Late or so far away, those are really adult
Speaker 2: songs in a way that was totally new.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I love about Carol's story is that,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's incredibly talented, right, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: like that kind of rare mix of incredible talent and
Speaker 1: this amazing kind of gift of songwriting and musicality, but
Speaker 1: also just like amazing timing and right place, right time
Speaker 1: of like being part of two of the most formative
Speaker 1: communities in rock music history. I mean, she grew up
Speaker 1: in New York City. She you know, was going to
Speaker 1: high school with Paul Simon, Neil Sadaka. She ends up
Speaker 1: meeting Jerry Goffin, who becomes her husband and of course
Speaker 1: her songwriting partner for this incredible decade where they you know,
Speaker 1: basically were some of the biggest pimmakers of that time,
Speaker 1: but you know, they find themselves in that real building
Speaker 1: community of songwriters that you know. Of course we talked
Speaker 1: to Jeff Barry and are be my Baby episode who
Speaker 1: was a part of that. I mean, this was like
Speaker 1: a really really important time for pop music where there
Speaker 1: was these brilliant young songwriters who were writing some of
Speaker 1: the most classic songs, songs that are standards now that
Speaker 1: they probably could not have even imagined would continue to
Speaker 1: be as memorable and on the radio as they are now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so many of the great writers who've come since then,
Speaker 2: really every wave of songwriters since then has been so
Speaker 2: inspired by those songs and trying to build on them.
Speaker 2: So many of the people in the seventies who are
Speaker 2: writing songs, who you know, worked with Carol King became
Speaker 2: peers and Neil Young is a great example someone who
Speaker 2: really took so much of his alotic sense was inspired
Speaker 2: by Carol King's melodies, and that you know, he got
Speaker 2: a lot of his early recording playing on songs that
Speaker 2: she wrote, like for the Monkeys As We Go Along,
Speaker 2: But that she had so many songs that were huge,
Speaker 2: mega famous hits, like you said, standards, and yet for
Speaker 2: every one of those, there's so many songs that are
Speaker 2: deep cuts. I mean, it seems strange to call any
Speaker 2: Carol Kings song a deep cut, but she was so
Speaker 2: prolific with such high quality over such a long time
Speaker 2: that there's so many songs there like waiting for anybody
Speaker 2: to discover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course the goffin King combo was Jerry
Speaker 1: was Ryan Rics and Carol was composing the music for
Speaker 1: these songs, and they ended up having their breakthrough with
Speaker 1: of course will You Love Me Tomorrow on the list.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is like the girl group standard and classic.
Speaker 1: That is a song that I've grew up listening to
Speaker 1: my entire family loves like. It's just like a devastating, beautiful,
Speaker 1: gorgeous song that of course ended up becoming not only
Speaker 1: the breakthrough hit for Carol and Jerry, but also ended
Speaker 1: up hitting number one for the Charell's. They became the
Speaker 1: first all African American, all female group to hit number
Speaker 1: one on the charts, and that was a massive breakthrough
Speaker 1: for everyone involved. I mean that song is something that
Speaker 1: you know, is I feel like kind of every devastating
Speaker 1: love song tries to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Cherrelle is such an amazing story in themselves,
Speaker 2: such heroic figures in so many ways, and the connection
Speaker 2: between them and the Goff and Kings song is just
Speaker 2: one of the amazing connections between groups and writers that
Speaker 2: they just they got each other's sensibilities on that level.
Speaker 2: So even a song that's not as famous, like what
Speaker 2: a Sweet Thing that was, which was a hit, you know,
Speaker 2: not a major hits, not when you ever hear on
Speaker 2: oldies radio or anything, but boy, if that was the
Speaker 2: only collaboration that they had, that would be yeah itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just that like that would be enough
Speaker 1: like to still be considered legendary and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it would make the list no matter what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tonight's and Night another like brilliant like collaboration between
Speaker 2: the Shrells and Goff and King and something that in
Speaker 2: her melodies, his words, their voices, there was just so
Speaker 2: much chemistry and so many different stories, and that's why
Speaker 2: people go on listening to these songs and rewriting them
Speaker 2: as time goes by.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And of course Carol and Jerry became some of
Speaker 1: the most in demand songwriters of this time. I mean
Speaker 1: they you know, until nineteen sixty eight when their marriage
Speaker 1: dissolved and they stopped working together. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: writing hits for everyone. Of course, they Wreatha Franklin song
Speaker 1: You make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman would end
Speaker 1: up becoming a signature song for Aretha, one that Aretha
Speaker 1: even sang to Carol at her Candy Center honors a
Speaker 1: couple of years before Aretha died, which is just a
Speaker 1: beautiful performance to kind of witness Carol witnessing Aretha singing
Speaker 1: that in honor of.
Speaker 2: Her, Yeah, is super chal Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I love the story of that song where it
Speaker 1: was the Atlantic Records co owner and producer Jerry Jerry Wexler,
Speaker 1: who just kind of had like an idea in his
Speaker 1: car one day and was like, you know, it was
Speaker 1: like thinking about like what a natural man is and
Speaker 1: just like yelled at Carol and Jerry write a song
Speaker 1: about a natural woman for Aretha. And then you get this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of Aretha's best performances on record, I mean, which
Speaker 1: is already a difficult task to even put what is
Speaker 1: a great Aretha Franklin performance on record? But this one
Speaker 1: just happens to be one of the best ones written
Speaker 1: by Carol and Jerry, and it's perfect.
Speaker 2: And one of the great moments. There's nothing but great
Speaker 2: moments on the VH one Divas Concerts. Yes, yes, the one.
Speaker 1: I not bring the hot first.
Speaker 2: Ye, Yes, I knew it was coming. I thought i'd,
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, Grease the Runway, but that
Speaker 2: you have Carol King on stage and Aretha Franklin and
Speaker 2: lots of other famous people who hate each other and
Speaker 2: say really nasty things about each other in the memoirs,
Speaker 2: no names coming to mind at the moment, but a
Speaker 2: lot of ego on the stage and a lot of
Speaker 2: competition on the stage, but just the sheer deference to
Speaker 2: the fact that Aretha Franklin is there and Carol King
Speaker 2: is there and they're singing this song. It's just really
Speaker 2: just kind of a mind blowing moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like, I mean, Aretha hut a lot
Speaker 1: of beefs with people, which is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things about her. She never had one with Carol. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything. She never had a bad word
Speaker 1: to say about Carol that I cannot think of one.
Speaker 1: And if she did, I don't want to know. I
Speaker 1: don't want to believe they ever had anything. You know,
Speaker 1: Aretha a lot of people she had words for, and
Speaker 1: they were some of the funniest and best words ever
Speaker 1: ever spoken by anyone. But she never had a Yeah,
Speaker 1: the word frocks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that word ruined forever.
Speaker 1: Like beautiful, beautiful gowns, beautiful.
Speaker 2: Gowns, the shadeath the Franklin could put into one noun
Speaker 2: and like change the history of that.
Speaker 1: Now, even someone calling someone else a queen of anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But she she had nothing but respect for Carol King,
Speaker 1: which I think is the highest amount of respect she
Speaker 1: can get. Yes, absolutely, Franklin, Yes, respects.
Speaker 2: You never put the word queen in your album title.
Speaker 2: She will find a way to defeat you whatever it takes.
Speaker 2: But yet a beautiful moment and just the connection between them,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just really amazing. How and on Tapestry,
Speaker 2: a classic album, you know, it wasn't the first time
Speaker 2: she made an album. She did the Writer album than
Speaker 2: the album with the group The City.
Speaker 1: I really loved the Writer album.
Speaker 2: It's really really great. I know you love the City
Speaker 2: album too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I love the Carol's Laurel Canyon years are
Speaker 1: are just wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah for such a quintessential like New York woman. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like and Shan we went to LA because like Jerry Goffin,
Speaker 2: like when the marriage like exploded and he was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going out to LA So she decided, well she
Speaker 2: should move there too, so we could have contact with
Speaker 2: his daughters. You know, wasn't her decision to go there,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't like he ran the decision by her.
Speaker 2: She made this decision unilaterally for the good of everybody else.
Speaker 2: So very Carol King wait to do it. But the
Speaker 2: way she found to thrive out there and to make Tapestry,
Speaker 2: and the famous scene of like she's in the studio
Speaker 2: making Tapestry, it's the same studio where Joni Mitchell is
Speaker 2: down the hall making Blue at the same time, and
Speaker 2: the carpenters are down in the third studio and they're
Speaker 2: making an album that has rainy days and Mondays on it,
Speaker 2: which is you know, that's that's the closest they got
Speaker 2: to a Carol King or Joni Mitchell type of song,
Speaker 2: and James Taylor is in his studio a block away,
Speaker 2: so he's bopping over to play on Jonie's album and
Speaker 2: Carol's album. And like you said, this community that just
Speaker 2: thrives around the music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's already incredibly lucky to find herself
Speaker 1: in one great songwriter community. But Carol found herself in
Speaker 1: two very exciting times in music. I mean going to
Speaker 1: Laurel Kanyon in what was it nineteen sixty nine that
Speaker 1: she moved there. Like if I could live anywhere at any point,
Speaker 1: it would be nineteen sixty nine Laurel Canyon, Like it
Speaker 1: would be like it would be that like hands down,
Speaker 1: you know, like that was just I mean it was
Speaker 1: like Joni and James and Carly and you know the
Speaker 1: Crosby Stills, Nash and Young like it. It's all of
Speaker 1: these incredible songwriters who would end up defining the next
Speaker 1: you know, decade in a on of rock music, of
Speaker 1: folk music. Is I mean, she found herself there and
Speaker 1: found her voice, She found you know, her her singing voice,
Speaker 1: her writing voice, you know, until this time again, like
Speaker 1: she had been so much the composer to Jerry's words,
Speaker 1: and so now this was kind of her finding that
Speaker 1: voice in a multitude of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with this group.
Speaker 1: Of people who were writing albums that would go on
Speaker 1: to not only be successful and classic, but end up,
Speaker 1: i mean, the most important influences on pop music.
Speaker 2: Absolutely with Tapestry, where she is, you know, like you said,
Speaker 2: already one of the biggest influences. And she's singing these
Speaker 2: songs from her past, you know, in addition to like
Speaker 2: all these like devastating new songs like It's Too Late
Speaker 2: and so far Away, but she sings you make Me
Speaker 2: Feel like a natural woman and will You Love Me Tomorrow?
Speaker 2: And they're both. It's funny only in terms of time,
Speaker 2: like just a few years past the original versions, but
Speaker 2: you can hear that so much time is past. She's
Speaker 2: been through so much since those songs were written. And
Speaker 2: for people hearing Tapestry, it was the first time to
Speaker 2: hear those songs and think, oh wow, this is the
Speaker 2: woman who wrote these songs and who didn't have a
Speaker 2: public voice until now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She's this great story that she tells about how she
Speaker 2: was on stage with James Taylor and it was his show.
Speaker 2: She was just his pian player. She was too shy,
Speaker 2: she never wanted to sing in public, and James Taylor
Speaker 2: just without warning her, just told the crowd, you know,
Speaker 2: this is Carl King. She wrote all your favorite songs.
Speaker 2: You don't know her name, but you know all her songs,
Speaker 2: and now she's going to sing up on the roof
Speaker 2: for you. And he did not clear that with her,
Speaker 2: and she was forced to just sit there and sing
Speaker 2: up on the roof in front of other people for
Speaker 2: the first time in her life and found out that
Speaker 2: she loved it. Yeah, and they loved it where she did,
Speaker 2: but everybody loved it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love her version of will You Love
Speaker 1: Me Tomorrow on Tapestry, I mean just like I mean,
Speaker 1: given the Joni Mitchell background vocals on that song, which
Speaker 1: already going to win me over, but I mean just
Speaker 1: kind of that slowed down sort of devastating, like really
Speaker 1: pulling out the sadness in that song and the kind
Speaker 1: of longing in that song. It does so much remind
Speaker 1: me of that kind of the re recording of both
Speaker 1: sides now that Jonie does right where like she like
Speaker 1: revisits this song that she wrote in her youth as
Speaker 1: an older woman looking back and kind of adds a
Speaker 1: new meaning to it. I mean, like you said, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that long in between, but still kind of feels
Speaker 1: like a lifetime and feels like so much has passed
Speaker 1: in between those two moments on like the Charrell's version
Speaker 1: plus Carol's own take on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and those are just you know, she learned
Speaker 2: how to write songs by writing for other voices, So
Speaker 2: she wrote all these songs with Goffin, with Tony Stern.
Speaker 2: All these voices have heard themselves in these songs, and
Speaker 2: so many amazing different, weird cover versions of all these
Speaker 2: songs just people hearing them and saying, yeah, this is
Speaker 2: my voice. And Carol King just writes in that way
Speaker 2: that people just hear themselves in it. It's funny a
Speaker 2: song that from Tapestry that stands out on the album
Speaker 2: just because Tony Stern's lyric is very different. But where
Speaker 2: you lead yeah and the Gilmore Girls, Yes, the song.
Speaker 2: Carol King over the year, she talked about that song
Speaker 2: and she thought it was outdating when they did it
Speaker 2: on Tapestry, that it was you know that she thought
Speaker 2: it was so subservient to the man in the song
Speaker 2: and it does like it's really an outliar on the album.
Speaker 2: There aren't any other songs that are just like you know,
Speaker 2: I'll follow you around. And it was only years later
Speaker 2: when it became the Gilmore Girls theme that Carol King
Speaker 2: has always said, that's what she realized what the song
Speaker 2: was always about, that it was always meant to be that,
Speaker 2: and Tony Stern was like, yeah, let's redo this, Let's
Speaker 2: make it the mother daughter song that was always meant
Speaker 2: to be and sang it with Louise Goffin and for
Speaker 2: her to take this song that was already out there
Speaker 2: in the world and the song story changed just because
Speaker 2: of the way people heard it. To me, that's a
Speaker 2: beautiful tribute to Carol King as a songwriter that this
Speaker 2: song could totally transform and we always think of it
Speaker 2: as a mother daughter song now, Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's really what.
Speaker 3: It was like.
Speaker 2: She said, that's what the song was always meant to be,
Speaker 2: and took Gilmore Girls for her to hear that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's kind of the beauty of her
Speaker 1: talent and her legacy. I mean, I guess maybe the
Speaker 1: different that comes from her experience versus someone who starts
Speaker 1: off as a performer write and starts off as like
Speaker 1: someone whose songs they're writing for themselves, that they're performing.
Speaker 1: Is that she has like this innate understanding of all
Speaker 1: the possibilities a song can hold, Like she has this
Speaker 1: sort of innate understanding of the idea that there is
Speaker 1: so much beauty to someone else singing that song and
Speaker 1: what they can curry to it, and that these versions
Speaker 1: can coexist, and that it's meant to evolve, and it's
Speaker 1: meant to change. It's meant to you know, turn into
Speaker 1: and morph into so many things as it ages and
Speaker 1: is allowed to exist in so many different formats. So
Speaker 1: I think that's always been the beauty of watching kind
Speaker 1: of Carol react and allow her songs to be used
Speaker 1: in all these different ways and even rework them herself.
Speaker 1: And like you mentioned with the Gilmore Girls version and
Speaker 1: even just her own versions of will You Love Me
Speaker 1: Tomorrow and her version of One Fine Day and you
Speaker 1: know of you make you feel like a natural woman,
Speaker 1: like she is not trying to take away from the
Speaker 1: original versions of the song. She's like letting them kind
Speaker 1: of grow and mutate as their too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a brilliant point that you make and
Speaker 2: so crucial that she was a writer before she was
Speaker 2: a performer or ever thought she'd be a performer. You know,
Speaker 2: James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, they were singing in front
Speaker 2: of people before they even wrote songs. They were entertaining
Speaker 2: with the guitar. But she was a songwriter who commuted.
Speaker 2: She took the subway into to write the songs and
Speaker 2: would look at people and could walk around unnoticed like
Speaker 2: a regular person. She's always told the story of the
Speaker 2: song Beautiful and how she came up with the idea
Speaker 2: for that song while she was writing the subway on
Speaker 2: her way to work. You know, it's certainly not something
Speaker 2: James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, like, they were so famous they
Speaker 2: couldn't just you know, ride the subway and come up
Speaker 2: with ideas for songs. But Carol King always had that
Speaker 2: and never lost that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's why the crazy stat I had
Speaker 1: no idea was like the actual stat But I mean,
Speaker 1: Tapestry was the for over forty years, kept the lexi
Speaker 1: of being the best selling album by a solo female artist,
Speaker 1: and it was only broken by Adele twenty one, which
Speaker 1: is like insane that that was, like how long it
Speaker 1: was able to happen. I mean, it's very clear just
Speaker 1: because all these songs are such incredible classics. And again,
Speaker 1: like talk to any I mean, we've interviewed so many
Speaker 1: artists that I mean, I can't even count the amount
Speaker 1: of times that Carol King has been brought up without
Speaker 1: me having to bring her up, which I'm happy to do,
Speaker 1: but you know, like the amount of times that it
Speaker 1: comes up in no matter what age, what generation, where
Speaker 1: they're from, Tapestry Carol, she is brought up constantly, and
Speaker 1: I know you have the same. It was like exact
Speaker 1: experience with so many artists you've spoken to.
Speaker 2: She's always the standard that you know a songwriter wants
Speaker 2: to reach, whether that's Jonan and Paul McCartney in the
Speaker 2: sixties or you know, like Adele and Taylor Swift, you know,
Speaker 2: like the in the twenties. It's always that ideal of
Speaker 2: like a songwriter who is very pop and very real
Speaker 2: at the same time. I mean, I didn't know that
Speaker 2: about how she held a record and a Dell broke
Speaker 2: it and it's such a that's so perfect and simple.
Speaker 2: You know, Adele would be the first one to say that.
Speaker 1: Adel would probably I mean at twenty one is Tapestry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are joined now by singer, songwriter, environmentalist, all around
Speaker 1: legend Carol King. Thank you, thank you so much. We
Speaker 1: are both so excited to have you on here.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's a pleasure to see you and talk
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 1: Before we get into some of the songs that we
Speaker 1: talk about in this episode. I mean, you are, for
Speaker 1: so many people a songwriting and composition blueprint. I'm curious
Speaker 1: for you when you first started out and started exploring
Speaker 1: that talent for yourself. Who were your blueprints and influences.
Speaker 3: Well, my influence just go way back before there was
Speaker 3: a Rolling Stone magazine, certainly before you guys, But my
Speaker 3: earliest influences were Broadway. My mom, she loved theater and
Speaker 3: she took me to Broadway shows. And I think my
Speaker 3: all time favorite song is called Hello Young Lovers. It's
Speaker 3: by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein the third The melody
Speaker 3: is so simple, the chords are unexpected, and I love that.
Speaker 3: I loved that so much that I tried to do
Speaker 3: that in my whole songwriting career. And the lyric, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just such a simple, beautiful song. And any song
Speaker 3: in West Side story. Those are some of my early influences,
Speaker 3: you know. And then rock and Roll happened when I
Speaker 3: was only thirteen, and I used to listen to Alan
Speaker 3: Freed's show, and that was my first introduction to R
Speaker 3: and B. And I loved the fusion between music from
Speaker 3: the black community. I had never heard any of that.
Speaker 3: I was like, whoa, and that was Alan Freed brought
Speaker 3: that to my generation. So I was highly influenced by that.
Speaker 1: And how did you sort of begin to bridge the
Speaker 1: those two parts of yourself, the influence from Broadway and
Speaker 1: the influence of you know, people like Steven Sondheim with
Speaker 1: rock and rolling, with R and B, how did you
Speaker 1: kind of find a way to connect those Well.
Speaker 3: I was like a sponge. I would hear music and
Speaker 3: I would take it in and incorporate it into my being.
Speaker 3: And I have this gift of channeling it out and
Speaker 3: being able to take it in and put it out.
Speaker 3: And that's how I wrote songs as a melody writer.
Speaker 3: I wasn't writing lyrics then, and the lyrics I wrote
Speaker 3: when I first started out, before I met Jerry Goffin
Speaker 3: were terrible, you know. They were like baby, baby, baby,
Speaker 3: babysitting I'm a baby baby. It really is a gift
Speaker 3: that I have to take in the kind of music
Speaker 3: that I want to be writing. If I'm writing for
Speaker 3: an artist, I put myself in the mind and the
Speaker 3: vocal range. I just sort of get inside that artist,
Speaker 3: and I'm able to write for an artist in that way.
Speaker 3: I can still do that. I haven't been writing very
Speaker 3: much lately, but I've had occasion to write a couple
Speaker 3: of things, and it made me very happy to know
Speaker 3: I can still do that. It's just part of my
Speaker 3: being that I can do that, and I'm blessed and grateful.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Those songs are part of our being. We
Speaker 2: love to argue over our favorites because you've written so
Speaker 2: many classics, in so many different styles and in so
Speaker 2: many eras. Some of them songs that you sang, some
Speaker 2: of them songs that other people saying. So we can
Speaker 2: argue about our favorite Carol King songs forever. It's almost
Speaker 2: difficult to even guess, like which ones are the ones
Speaker 2: that are your favorites.
Speaker 3: You know, it's hard to have a favorite because there
Speaker 3: are so many songs that I wrote that I really love,
Speaker 3: and I'm really honored that you chose three of them
Speaker 3: to be in your top five hundred, that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: And there Will You Love Me Tomorrow? And a Natural
Speaker 3: Woman and both of which Jerry wrote the lyric for,
Speaker 3: and It's Too Late, which the lyric was written by Ms.
Speaker 3: Tony Stern. But it's hard to pick a favorite because
Speaker 3: it's like which is your favorite child? You know, I
Speaker 3: have four children, and I don't have a favorite. I
Speaker 3: love them all. Speaking of children, two of my children
Speaker 3: are in the music business. One is Louise Goffin, who
Speaker 3: is a songwriter in her own writer. And not only
Speaker 3: is she's a songwriter, but she founded the Goffin King Foundation,
Speaker 3: which is dedicated to empowering songwriters.
Speaker 2: She's a legend in her own right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of, you know, But I wanted to mention
Speaker 3: this songwriting because I think it's so amazing that she's
Speaker 3: taken on this mission of sort of bringing it to
Speaker 3: new generations and inspiring new generations of songwriters. Yeah. Lets
Speaker 3: just check out the Goufin and King Foundation.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And to speak to the songwriting legend of your daughter's parents,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm curious what the chemistry or working sort
Speaker 1: of way that you and Jerry would write songs together.
Speaker 1: Was it something where you know he would work on
Speaker 1: a lyric first, or would you work on a composition first,
Speaker 1: or would it be kind of simultaneous and kind of
Speaker 1: at once where you would build a song like will
Speaker 1: you Love Me Tomorrow? Together? Or you make Me feel
Speaker 1: like a natural woman together?
Speaker 3: In that way, every song is different, even with the
Speaker 3: same writer. For example, Tony Stern put the lyric to
Speaker 3: It's too Late, She handed it to me. I put
Speaker 3: it on the piano, on the typewritten page. You know,
Speaker 3: on the piano. The music just came out of me.
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, like if you just say,
Speaker 3: stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time,
Speaker 3: there's something wrong here. There can be no denying. You
Speaker 3: can almost hear the music, or I could certainly just
Speaker 3: by saying it as I'm playing the piano. The music
Speaker 3: just came, and that that song got written with will
Speaker 3: You Love Me Tomorrow? Again? I think Jerry wrote the
Speaker 3: first verse first, and I don't remember if it happened
Speaker 3: literally the way they depicted in the show. I don't
Speaker 3: know if it was overnight or not. But I remember
Speaker 3: seeing that first verse in his handwriting and the music
Speaker 3: came and I remember thinking, this is a funny story.
Speaker 3: I remember thinking when I was writing it, it kind
Speaker 3: of almost sounded like a country song. But then, you know,
Speaker 3: it turned out it wasn't for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: But I heard later in later years that the Cherelles
Speaker 3: didn't want to do it because it sounded to country.
Speaker 3: That's the thing that I've never put together. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean there's also that those incredibly lush string arrangements
Speaker 1: that I know that you arranged for that song. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about kind of adding that
Speaker 1: layer which makes it predecidedly kind of further away from
Speaker 1: those sort of country influence roots from it.
Speaker 3: Right. There was a hit then called there Goes My Baby,
Speaker 3: which I think was Benny King's first hit as a
Speaker 3: solo artist after the Drifters. He left the Drifters, and
Speaker 3: that was I believe produced by lebre and Stoller, Jerry
Speaker 3: Leeber and Mike Stoller, and they got an arranger and
Speaker 3: again I think that was Stanley Applebaum, but it had
Speaker 3: strings on it. Here's this great R and B singer singing,
Speaker 3: you know, there goes my Baby, and you have timpany Oh,
Speaker 3: you know these are orchestral instruments, and they are putting
Speaker 3: it on a rhythm and blues song sung by a
Speaker 3: black singer, and you know who sings from the church, right,
Speaker 3: They've put it all together. And Jerry and I heard
Speaker 3: that and we were floored. And I think that's what
Speaker 3: made us decide to use strings on it. I don't
Speaker 3: think that came from the producer. I think we wanted
Speaker 3: to put strings on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wrote so many great songs for the Cherells.
Speaker 2: My personal favorite is what a sweet thing that was?
Speaker 2: Like that song just destroys me. You have so many
Speaker 2: songs like that that you wrote for those artists that
Speaker 2: we think of as the girl group artists from that era,
Speaker 2: that gave them this voice from your melodies.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Yeah, that resonated. You know, first of all,
Speaker 3: I'm a girl. But Jerry wrote the lyrics, and he
Speaker 3: also wrote the lyrics I'm going to do what you
Speaker 3: call segue. He wrote the lyrics to you make me
Speaker 3: feel like a natural woman. He also wrote not with me,
Speaker 3: saving all my love for you. So he seemed to
Speaker 3: have that gift of getting inside the head of anybody
Speaker 3: of any gender, of any you know age. He had
Speaker 3: that same gift that I have for music that he
Speaker 3: had for lyrics. And I don't know how we found
Speaker 3: each other in the universe, but I'm really grateful that
Speaker 3: we did.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always been so in love with and
Speaker 1: kind of obsessed with this community of songwriters that you
Speaker 1: were part of in Laurel Canyon and as you were
Speaker 1: working on your first two albums, finding James Taylor and
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell and of course Tony Stern, who who was
Speaker 1: very instrumental in those first two albums. I'm curious kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about you know, you and James and
Speaker 1: Joni and how foundational those albums that you worked on
Speaker 1: around then the songs that you've written. Could any of
Speaker 1: you have imagined the kind of longevity and staying and
Speaker 1: remaining influence and impact that the music you were writing
Speaker 1: in Laurel Canyon and during that era would have.
Speaker 3: The answer is no, we didn't. We were too busy
Speaker 3: being that community. That's true of the songwriter era in
Speaker 3: New York. I was again, you know, I feel fortunate
Speaker 3: to have met Jerry Goffin, and I was in the
Speaker 3: right place at the right time for the birth of
Speaker 3: rock and roll and the birth of the songwriter era.
Speaker 3: There was a songwriter era before me, in the thirties
Speaker 3: and forties. You know, you sort of visualize the music
Speaker 3: publisher and the elevator, you know, and the songwriter saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I got this great song, you know, in one of
Speaker 3: the buildings, in the real building. That's a real thing.
Speaker 3: But that predated when I was coming of age. And
Speaker 3: so when I was coming of age, I literally could
Speaker 3: walk into the office of Atlantic Records, which I think
Speaker 3: was populated with Jerry Wexler, Armitt Erdigan, Armitt's brother, and
Speaker 3: Miriam I forget her last name, who was their accountant.
Speaker 3: So I could walk in and they had a piano,
Speaker 3: and I could sit down and say, want to buy
Speaker 3: a song? You can't do that anymore, But so that
Speaker 3: was then, and again I didn't know I was part
Speaker 3: of a thing, you know. And the same thing was
Speaker 3: true in Laurel Canyon. When I moved out there, there
Speaker 3: was a music business in California that was totally film oriented,
Speaker 3: right because Hollywood and the music business in California before
Speaker 3: that era was people writing songs for movies, right. And
Speaker 3: then just before I got there, there started to be
Speaker 3: record companies, little independent record companies like Liberty Records, and
Speaker 3: I think that was Bobby Vee's label. And so when
Speaker 3: I got out there, other people were coming there with
Speaker 3: their guitars, and Peter Asher moved out there, and there
Speaker 3: was this whole community in Crosby Stoles and Nash and
Speaker 3: Jonie and Bonnie Raid and all the people that you
Speaker 3: know were I don't know if she lived out there,
Speaker 3: but she, you know, she was part of the people
Speaker 3: that played at the Troubadour. And so that was another
Speaker 3: thing that was being born, which is the music business
Speaker 3: apart from films. And I was there for that too. Again,
Speaker 3: like thank you, I had that gift that was able
Speaker 3: to rise to the occasion. I also work hard, you know,
Speaker 3: I did the work, but it's a coming of good
Speaker 3: fortune and a gift.
Speaker 2: You've this great story in your book A Natural Woman,
Speaker 2: which I love, where you're talking about singing when you
Speaker 2: hadn't planned on singing in front of people that you
Speaker 2: were just playing piano with James Taylor and he just
Speaker 2: put you on the spot and made you sing a song.
Speaker 2: And for you to go from a writer for other
Speaker 2: artists to finding your own voice as a performer as
Speaker 2: well as a writer that symbolized such a huge change
Speaker 2: in terms of how people experience music to this day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. And I guess I don't consider myself
Speaker 3: a great singer. I think I've learned how to be
Speaker 3: a really good singer. I really do think I've learned
Speaker 3: how to how to be that, and there are skills
Speaker 3: like that you put to work in service of that.
Speaker 3: But I am a channel, and I was, as a writer,
Speaker 3: the vehicle to present the song to the publisher, to
Speaker 3: the artist, to the arranger, and the transition to becoming
Speaker 3: the person to present it to the world. James knew this,
Speaker 3: That's why he put me on. Lou Adler knew this,
Speaker 3: that's why he signed me. Other people who signed me
Speaker 3: saw this. I never saw the connection that all I
Speaker 3: had to do was be the same channel I was
Speaker 3: in singing it for an artist or a producer or
Speaker 3: an arranger or a band, and that's all I did.
Speaker 3: But when I happened to do that on Tapestry, it
Speaker 3: was the right thing, and people went, oh, this is authentic,
Speaker 3: this is real, This is speaking to me from somebody
Speaker 3: who's just like me. And that's I think that's how
Speaker 3: the transition happened. But I never thought of myself. To me,
Speaker 3: there was a barrier between me and an audience that
Speaker 3: was any bigger than a room full of people who
Speaker 3: I was playing a song for. And I learned from
Speaker 3: James that there is no barrier.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Carol, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to begin to thank you
Speaker 2: for all the songs, Sweet Season maybe my favorite, like
Speaker 2: so Far Away. These are deeply embedded in our lives.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. And honestly, I hear from people all
Speaker 3: the time, and people come up and they say this
Speaker 3: when they'll name a song or their name tapestry and
Speaker 3: they say that meant so much to me. And I
Speaker 3: bet you've heard that a million times, and I've honestly
Speaker 3: gotten to the place where I really know. But you're
Speaker 3: telling me that for the first time, and so I'm
Speaker 3: saying that to you. Thank you, I hear you, I
Speaker 3: feel you, and I love you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much, so much, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening to Rolling Stones five hundred great songs.
Speaker 2: This podcast is brought to you by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: Written and hosted by me, Rob Sheffield and Britney Spanos.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine, alex Dale and
Speaker 2: Christian Horde, and produced by A Cannon, with music supervision
Speaker 2: by Eric Zeiler.