Was there a hidden political message in Carole King’s ‘It’s Too Late’?
The dawn of the 1970s left many musicians without a sense of resolve. Some ruminated on this, on all things lost, while others leaned into the inevitability of change. There’s a reason why Carole King’s Tapestry became one of the best records in history, and it wasn’t just the fact that many suspected she was singing about James Taylor.
One of the things that makes Tapestry still hold up today is how wonderfully King poeticised love and loss in relationships. Speaking during a recent interview with Nardwuar, Sabrina Carpenter discussed one of the many reasons the current generation is growing so attached to the 1971 masterpiece: how much she blended emotion with timeless melodies. Songs like ‘It’s Too Late’ – which Carpenter has also covered – anchor the unrelenting nature of a breakup, and how melancholy it can feel walking away from something that was once everything.
Naturally, many thought the song was about James Taylor and King ending their relationship. But Toni Stern also wrote the lyrics the day after her relationship with Taylor ended, and she moved in with Joni Michell, meaning that if it was about him, it’s unclear which angle the sadness was coming from. Better still, when asked about it, she was reluctant to answer. “I won’t say who ‘It’s Too Late’ is about,” she explained. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
It’s not too much of a stretch, considering the specificity of some of its lyrics: “It used to be so easy living here with you / You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do / Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool.”
That said, some saw something deeper in its lyrics, in the way King sang with such raw emotion when the lyrics themselves appeared resigned, despairing, almost. As though, with the dawn of the new decade and all its uncertainties, she reflected in earnest, embracing the broken nature of the world and the fact that things just were the way they were. There was nothing anybody could do about it – because it’s, quite literally, too late.
“And it’s too late, baby, now it’s too late,” she sings. “Though we really did try to make it / Something inside has died / And I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it.”
At the time, political and societal disillusionment made people feel like ‘It’s Too Late’ held something far heavier, appearing ambiguous enough to be an anthem for people feeling that something was awry. It spoke about a relationship ending, that much was clear. But it did so with such a downbeat detachment that it could have just as easily been King or Stern lamenting the difficult way of the world and the sense of malaise it brought about in the process.
And at that point, there was much to force you into a state of dismay. Especially when you think about all that the end of the 1960s brought about. Beyond Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy’s deaths, there was also a cloud over the blissful, peace-laden counterculture scene. A general sense of unease that made some, like Joni Mitchell, discover a new artistic direction, while others were left by the wayside.
But King nor Stern ever commented on such a reading. But maybe that’s where its hidden message thrives; in the ambiguity of not knowing whether society was such a heavy influencing factor. Or whether it was truly simply about a breakup and nothing more.
