The extremely disturbing song Carole King wants to delete from history
Carole King‘s songwriting credentials place her among the most revered in the profession. Along with Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks, King is one of only three female musicians to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on two separate occasions, which makes her the very elite of the elite. Yet, even the best in class occasionally rue their past work.
King’s records have sold over 75 million copies throughout her celebrated career. However, she started as a songwriter for the stars before breaking into the limelight. This is now a common trajectory, with contemporary acts like Charli XCX and Raye following this path before dominating the hit parades, but King was a trailblazer. While a student at Queens College, King fell in love with Gerry Goffin, and the two struck up a legendary songwriting partnership. The duo’s first hit came in 1960 when The Shirelles scored a chart-topping single in the United States with ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, a track that allowed the pair to follow their passion full-time.
Goffin and King’s success continued, and they soon became America’s most in-demand songwriting partnership. Every song they wrote was as close to a guaranteed hit as possible, with labels queuing up for their next creation. They were churning out tunes quickly, including ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’, which King would later deeply regret contributing to.
The track was sung by the girl group The Crystals and produced by Phil Spector, who was later convicted of murder. The song’s material was based on a conversation with the couple’s babysitter, Eva Boyd, who arrived at their house one evening covered in bruises after being attacked by her partner. In her 2012 memoir, Carole King recalled how Boyd “sort of smiled before she went to her room, and she said, ‘He really loves me’.” When King later told her husband about the remark, it sparked the twisted idea for a song about toxic and abusive relationships.
Due to the warped message of the song, The Crystals were reluctant to put their name to the creation. “That was weird for us,” La La Brooks of the band said in a 2011 issue of Mojo. “We were thrown aback by the song. I’m a teenager at the time. [Crystals singer] Barbara [Alston] was a little uneasy doing it. And I was trying to figure out the song and why Phil would record something like this. Barbara was so turned off because she was singing the lyrics and can’t feel anything. So in the studio, Phil was telling her, ‘Don’t be so relaxed on it.'”
Although King only contributed music to the song rather than lyrics, she later lamented her part in crafting ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’. In her memoir, she admitted: “I wrote the music to ‘He Hit Me (and It Felt Like A Kiss)’. Obviously, I’m complicit in having written that song. I kind of wish I hadn’t written any part of that song, but Gerry wrote that lyric… And I think in some ways – I’m only speculating – that for some women, that may be the only manifestation of what they perceive as love. And that’s certainly true for the woman in that song. And you know, that’s all wrong. So, again, that’s one song I kind of wish I hadn’t had any part of writing.”
‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’ received minimal radio play after its release because of the shocking message inside the song, and it didn’t become a hit, but its legacy lives on. The late Amy Winehouse cited it as an inspiration for Back to Black. Rather than see it as a glorification of domestic violence, which is how most people perceived it to be, Winehouse deeply connected with the victim in ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’, once saying, “There’s only a certain percentage of people that would understand what that’s about; most people would be like: ‘How dare you promote domestic violence,’ but to me, I’m like: ‘I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean’.”
Nevertheless, ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’ is a song that King still wishes to erase. The esteemed songwriter’s career has largely avoided controversy, but this track represents a rare lapse of judgment on her behalf. Despite Goffin penning the lyrics, if King could turn back time, she would never have allowed her name to be attached to the project.
