The Carole King song that wrote itself: “It was pure inspiration”
It’s fair to label Carole King as the most generous musician of all time.
Not generous in the sense of what she has given us as fans. Sure, she has provided endless inspiration for the everyday listener by baring her soul on almost every song she wrote. But I mean generous in terms of what she’s willing to give other musicians.
I’d be willing to bet that there is a large portion of music listeners who were completely unaware of the fact that ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ was actually a song composed by King and given to Aretha Franklin, with King later featuring it on her 1971 album Tapestry, three years after Franklin released it on Lady Soul.
It’s an iconic song that perfectly encapsulates the feelings of falling in love in a truly brilliant arrangement. It wouldn’t have taken a musical genius to work out that this was going to be a monster hit, and so the fact that King gave it to Franklin only goes to prove her generosity. She had an acute understanding of how the song’s purpose comes before her own gain.
Her commitment to serving the journey of a song didn’t just stop at Franklin’s epic, however. No, the reason I label her the most generous musician of all time is that she gifted yet another classic to yet another artist and subsequently allowed their career to be defined by it.
Like the former song, ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ featured on King’s ‘71 album Tapestry, but it was also gifted to James Taylor, who released it in the same year and in many listening circles, made it his. It’s another song that perfectly encapsulates the natural feeling of life and companionship, adding to King’s reputation of being one of the most at ease songwriters in music. And when she remarked on how this song came to life, she ultimately confirmed that that was the case.
She explained, “On ‘You’ve Got a Friend’: That song was as close to pure inspiration as I’ve ever experienced. The song wrote itself. It was written by something outside of myself through me. It happens from time to time in part. That song is one of the examples of that process, where it was almost completely written by inspiration and very little, if any, perspiration.”
This almost supernatural relationship she had with the song made it easy for her to pass it over to Taylor. Rather than the owner of the song, she felt like its temporary keeper and understood the beauty that would come from letting it live under the spotlight of someone else’s vision.
King elaborated, “When James heard it, he really liked it and wanted to record it. At that point, when I actually saw James hear it, I watched James hear the song and his reaction to it. It then became special to me because of him, you know, and the relationship to him. And it is very meaningful in that way, but at the time that I wrote it. Again, I almost didn’t write it.”
King is the ultimate purveyor of music and its true essence. She understands that beneath it all, songs don’t belong to anybody in particular and rather, it’s the listeners who are the most important. Knowing that has helped her songwriting process and, in turn, made her not only the most generous musician of all time but also one of the most beloved.
