The 1971 song Carole King said wrote itself: “It just sort of came out”
“Every song, like every human being on this earth, is different,” Carole King said, and the sentiment rings true for all kinds of art.
In this wide world, the one thing that truly remains a mystery is inspiration. No one knows where it comes from, no one really knows how to conjure it. Really, the only thing we can do is try our best to capture it.
But just as every song is unique, every artist is too. When history’s greatest songwriters have shared their processes, each one has been different. Some, like Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen, treat songwriting like carving a statue. It takes time, work and patience. For Cohen, it could take years, as he would draft and redraft again and again until the song finally felt right.
For other artists, though, that would kill the thing. For someone like Patti Smith, art is all about spontaneity. So much of her best songwriting was improvised right there in the studio, captured as the idea struck her.
For Carole King, one of the most influential and powerful songwriters on the planet, it’s a bit of everything. “Some of them, like ‘You’ve Got A Friend’, just sort of came to me,” she said, “And other songs, I have to work really hard.”
King’s insights into songwriting are always interesting. She has had a unique career that has shaped many others. Starting out as a songwriter, King played a major role in defining the classic sound of the 1960s and ‘70s. Even artists like John Lennon and Paul McCartney were influenced by her, once saying they wanted to be “the Goffin-King of England”, inspired by King and her writing partner, Gerry Goffin.
By now, plenty of artists do what she once did. It is no longer unusual to find someone who fronts their own band or solo project while also writing songs for other performers. King helped pave the way for that, building a bridge between artistry and a time when songwriting was seen as a backroom job, handled by contracted writers whose names were rarely known to the public.
She changed that with the way that her great songs would be recorded both by her and by other artists. That’s how the initial idea for ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ began, in a way, as she explained, “I was sitting at a piano. I was working mostly with James [Taylor] at the time and I don’t know that I especially wrote it for him, it was a general feeling, but it just sort of came out almost the way you hear it.”
Perfectly summarising the kind of flow state that a strike of inspiration can send an artist into, King speaks to the experience any writer will know well. When an idea hits, it feels like a race against the clock, as she said, “It was almost as if something was writing through me rather than me writing it, and I just wanted to make sure that I got it and could remember it.”
Trying to get it down as the words were coming fast, her hit ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ was born fast and, as she admitted, without really any work. Sometimes it just happens like that – or perhaps it’s just proof of her incredible talent.
