The cover that Carole King couldn’t stand: “I hated what you did to my song”
In the early 1960s, the romantically involved songwriting duo of Gerry Goffin and Carole King were rattling off hits like no tomorrow. Before productivity started to drop off as things got tempestuous at the end of 1966, in five short years, they cooked up 68 hits for others. Sadly, the only ones that floundered were the tracks sung by King herself.
That disparity highlighted a curious tension at the heart of King’s early career. As a songwriter, she had an almost unmatched instinct for melody and structure, crafting songs that others could turn into chart-topping hits with ease. Yet when it came to stepping into the spotlight herself, there seemed to be a disconnect, as if the industry had yet to recognise her potential as a performer in her own right.
It also speaks to the way artists were often boxed into specific roles during that era. King was celebrated behind the scenes, but rarely encouraged to break beyond that mould, leaving her contributions somewhat detached from her own voice. That would eventually change, but in those early years, it created a sense that her full artistic identity was still waiting to be realised.
However, that would all change when the pair divorced amid Goffin’s struggles with LSD, mescaline and subsequent electroshock therapy in 1969. Determined not to sink into a slump and say that her best years were behind her, King launched herself as a solo artist in her own right with the masterful all-killer, no-filler 1971 sophomore record Tapestry.
She had now escaped the shadow of her ‘songwriter’ tag and was able to make her melodies into hits by herself. However, that didn’t stop artists from that period from having the songwriter hand over her finest work and the disgust she felt when some of those songs were mistreated by a set of contemporaries she rarely connected with. Sadly, for Eric Burdon, his band, The Animals, cover of ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ was one that irked her and then some.
“I didn’t realize that it was a Goffin, King song until I was in a doctor’s office in Beverly Hills, and Ms King came in and sat next to me,” he told Songfacts. “I didn’t know it was her, I was just reading a magazine and she turned to me and said, ‘You know, I hated what you did to my song’.” We can only hope that his subsequent diagnosis wasn’t that bad and the blow was cushioned.
“I didn’t know what to say, so all I said was, ‘Well, sorry’,” he recalled. “And then as she got up to go into the doctor’s office, she turned around and said, ‘But I got used to it’.” With over 70 songs ending up in other people’s hands, it’s not surprising that she learned to live with it. However, it’s understandable that ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ was one she was particularly precious about (although most would think that The Animals’ version is actually rather brilliant).
It would go on to be a hit, reaching six in the UK and 12 in the US. Fuelled by a rollicking organ riff by Dave Rowberry, the pulsing soul bed was primed for the Geordie singer’s powerful tones, which bring a searing quality to lyrics of romantic despondency, in lines like: “When you complain and criticise, I feel I’m nothing in your eyes.”
However, in King’s eyes, Burdon had some making up to do. A few years earlier, The Animals had released the track ‘Story of Bo Diddley’, one of the rare efforts that they had written themselves. This early anthem saw Burdon wax lyrical about his love of American blues, and in the process, he seemingly mocked the Goffin, King pop hit, ‘Tale Good Care of My Baby’, along the way.
Thus, it’s perhaps no surprise that King got sore down the line when The Animals actually tackled one of their tracks, twisted the arrangement, and didn’t even know who the songwriters were in the first place.
