The single line that made Carole King write a classic: “I’ve seen lonely times”
When Carole King finished penning the masterful lyrics to ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, it instantly changed everything as she became hailed as the definitive songwriter for a generation. In reality, however, she was really only returning a favour.
Indeed, when it came time to explain herself for just how she managed to produce such an anthem, all King could do was candidly admit: “The song was as close to pure inspiration as I’ve ever experienced. The song wrote itself. It was written by something outside myself, through me.” As it turns out, that “something outside” herself was actually James Taylor, whose words were the true muse for a tune that bound the two artists together in an unbreakable chain lasting forevermore.
It’s a well-known story that both King and Taylor recorded versions of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ at the same time as each other in 1971 while she was creating the iconic Tapestry, with the two takes of the same track gaining equally massive acclaim. But Taylor didn’t just happen to be there in a sliding doors moment of pure coincidence – it was because, put simply, the song would never have happened if it weren’t for the lyrical trails he had placed down first, and for that, King owed him a debt of gratitude.
However, perhaps a little oddly, King would not tell Taylor of her inspiration until many years later, and so had him close-by in the recording studio under somewhat false pretences. The truth was that the whole genesis of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ rested on the single lyric of “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,” from Taylor’s seminal ‘Fire and Rain’ released a year earlier. From that one simple emotive lyric, King clearly felt compelled to elicit a response – and, in turn, it would be one that would also change the life of its original creator.
After eventually coming clean about her inspirations – even though it took her the best part of three-and-a-half decades, until 2007 – Taylor later told Stereogum that he was honoured by King’s nod as: “That came as a real revelation to me. It sort of filled in a blank for me about what had really motivated her to write that tune. I’m really glad she told me, and I’m also glad she didn’t tell me at the time.”
Truthfully, he was probably right, because performing a major hit while knowing it was already based on one of your previous tunes would have only proved to be a boiling pot of mounting pressure.
It was quite a shame that despite the success of both versions of the song, Taylor went on to massively outsell King at her own game. His version went to number one in the United States and number four in the UK, shifted a million copies – King sold 500,000 – and even got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year before hers, in 2001. He had a lot to owe his friend for this lifetime of success, but then again, she also had a lot to owe him.
It makes the legacy of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ all the more seismic, knowing that there was a true duty-bound friendship at the heart of it; the response to a call that ultimately changed the world. On one hand, it rocketed King to an unparalleled league, and on the other, it boosted Taylor on his already stratospheric climb. It just shows what stars can really do when they put ego aside to give each other a hand.
