Carole King’s “Tapestry” is 50. Here’s why I love it.
Carole King makes me feel. I first heard “Tapestry” as a 15-year-old and would turn to “You’ve Got a Friend” in spells of heartbreak and sadness. I needed a support and King stepped up. All I had to do was call.
I fell in love with it again as a 17-year-old. I was a bit more mature, a bit more capable of understanding the emotion behind her words. What she felt, I felt.
How she elicited that response from me I’m not sure. Through listening to her I felt more in tune with my emotions. She communicated things I was feeling but didn’t know how to express. Music is special in that way.
When I had feelings I didn’t know how to sort out, I turned to “Tapestry.”
For example, this urge to love accompanied by the fear of being hurt. A complex emotional idea to unpack but King puts it in simple terms on “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”
I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?
It’s as if the voice in the back of my head made an album.
“Tapestry” was born out of a period of reinvention.
It was released three years after her divorce from her husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin. The pair made it as a songwriting team, but as the 1960s rolled on and bands wrote their own music the career became irrelevant. Pure songwriting, along with King’s marriage, faded.
Her marriage and career, two things tied to a person’s identity — despite whether or not they should be — were gone. In the aftermath of such losses, one must rediscover who they are.
King’s search for herself is a big reason this album resonated with me. As a young person trying to find my way in the world, I felt a lot of what she had to say.
Searching for a place of comfort, uncertain of if and when you’ll find it in “Way Over Yonder.”
Longing for the presence of someone you miss in “So Far Away.”
Dealing with the loss of love in “It’s Too Late.”
These are circumstances universal to the human experience. She presents them with a simple elegance.
At 17-years-old I was a young man looking for my place. I did not speak to anyone about emotions. There were — and still are — barriers I placed on myself because it felt like what I needed to do (how much of that is tied to ideas of masculinity I am uncertain, if you are a therapist or gender studies major, drop me a line!).
King spoke to me as a gentle female presence who came along to tell me everything was going to be okay. She told me she’d been there before. She made it out of her dark times, and she told me I would, too.
King takes you through an emotional exploration and then drops a bomb on the albums close with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
It’s magnetic. It’s pure love. Read what she has to say.
Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But you're the key to my peace of mind
In an album full of such pain and doubt, King’s last action is to open the door to love. She lets it in. She gives us hope.
When my soul was in the lost and found
You came along to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
'Til your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful, of what I'm living for
And if I make you happy I don't need to do more
I’m still unsure quite what emotions I experience listening to this song but I am 100% sure that I like them. I want the love that she is feeling. I want the absence of doubt as to what I’m living for. I want to make the girl happy and to not need more. I don’t know what it means to be a natural woman, but after three minutes and 49 seconds with King she made me feel like one.
At 22-years-old, I hear “Tapestry” differently.
I’m a bit more confident, a bit more assured in who I am. The elements of King’s confidence in who she has become now stand out. King sends a message to you with the album art alone. Before you put the needle down you’re told that this is someone who’s found herself.
She sits in a grey sweater, her feet bare accompanied by her cat. It has the attitude of ‘this is who I am and I don’t give a shit what you think about it’ while still maintaining this warm, inviting image.
You could sit next to her without being afraid. She might even offer you a cup of tea.
If the image doesn’t assure you of the confidence and power that this woman has, listen to the first track, “I Feel the Earth Move.”
When you do, listen to the first eight seconds a handful of times repeatedly. Hear the power in her left hand. Listen to the way the song builds around her. Acknowledge that the intro is, by all accounts, cool as hell. Then do yourself a favor and hear the solo section. King is playing with passion, furiously trading licks with guitarist Danny Kortchmar. It, again, is cool as hell.
On my way out, I must comment on this album’s significance to the women’s-rights movement.
Women’s rights can be difficult to write about as a man, so I’ll borrow the words of another man, David Browne and his Rolling Stone write up on King’s album.
Tapestry also rolled around just in time for the burgeoning women’s-rights movement. Later that year, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” would become the first major, clear-cut feminist pop anthem, and 1971 also saw the arrival of not just Blue but Carly Simon’s self-titled debut. Tapestry communicated that cultural shift starting with its cover image of King, in a gray sweater, curled up near the window in her L.A. home. She was alone but looked assured, comfortable, at ease with herself.
King arrived with “Tapestry” when women needed it, but the songs were for everyone. She allows me to be a natural woman. That matters.
For a further read on Tapestry and its cultural significance, your next step is to Browne’s story.
For me, King serves as this love-interest-turned-maternal-support-turned-inspiration and, truthfully, I’m not sure I can handle anyone else filling that void.
I wouldn’t want them to anyway.
