WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 So I want you to picture the year 1962. OK, the 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:07.740 classic AM radio era. Exactly. Millions of teenagers 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.480 across the country are crying in their bedrooms. 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:13.580 They're dancing at sock hops and basically falling 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:15.839 in love to all these songs pouring out of their 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:17.739 radios. Right, the soundtrack of their youth. 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:20.379 Yeah. And when you think about the person pulling 00:00:20.379 --> 00:00:22.859 the strings of all that intense emotion, you 00:00:22.859 --> 00:00:25.420 naturally picture, I don't know, a glamorous, 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:28.120 untouchable pop star. That's the image, yeah. 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:30.199 But the reality is completely counterintuitive. 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:33.219 The person engineering the soundtrack of those 00:00:33.219 --> 00:00:36.119 teenagers' lives wasn't a star at all. No, not 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.479 even close. It was a 20 -year -old mother. sitting 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.840 in a cramped, noisy office in Manhattan, basically 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:43.939 treating songwriting like a nine -to -five factory 00:00:43.939 --> 00:00:46.679 job. It is such a fascinating contrast. It really 00:00:46.679 --> 00:00:49.020 is. So, welcome to the Deep Dive. We are taking 00:00:49.020 --> 00:00:51.500 a comprehensive stack of source material today, 00:00:52.119 --> 00:00:54.859 specifically a detailed biographical look at 00:00:54.859 --> 00:00:58.280 Curl King to explore the ultimate musical architect. 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:01.939 The woman behind the curtain. Exactly. A woman 00:01:01.939 --> 00:01:04.120 who wrote the foundational soundtrack of the 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:07.079 20th century, long before she ever actually stepped 00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:09.319 up to a microphone to sing it herself. It's a 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:11.700 remarkable narrative to unpack, really, because 00:01:11.700 --> 00:01:14.819 her life is not just some straightforward timeline 00:01:14.819 --> 00:01:17.840 of hit records. When we really analyze these 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:20.650 sources... we're looking at a profound study 00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:24.109 of creative resilience. It's basically a masterclass 00:01:24.109 --> 00:01:26.349 in how the music industry ruthlessly evolved 00:01:26.349 --> 00:01:29.950 from the factory line pop of the 1950s and 60s 00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:32.469 to the hyper -personal singer -songwriter era 00:01:32.469 --> 00:01:35.150 of the 1970s. It was a massive tectonic shift. 00:01:35.329 --> 00:01:37.689 It was. And right at the center of that shift 00:01:37.689 --> 00:01:40.769 is one person. transitioning from a completely 00:01:40.769 --> 00:01:44.450 invisible behind -the -scenes prodigy to a generational 00:01:44.450 --> 00:01:46.829 icon. Okay, let's unpack this because I really 00:01:46.829 --> 00:01:49.090 want to give you, the listener, a sense of the 00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:51.209 sheer mathematical scale of what we're talking 00:01:51.209 --> 00:01:53.030 about here. The numbers are staggering. They 00:01:53.030 --> 00:01:55.930 really are. According to her biography, Carole 00:01:55.930 --> 00:01:59.950 King wrote or co -wrote 118 songs that charted 00:01:59.950 --> 00:02:02.769 on the Billboard Hot 100. Yeah, let that sink 00:02:02.769 --> 00:02:07.400 in. 118 times she cracked the code of what the 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:09.500 American public wanted to hear. That's not just 00:02:09.500 --> 00:02:12.400 luck. That's a science. Exactly. And she sold 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:16.479 over 75 million records worldwide. But to understand 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.039 how anyone builds a catalog of that magnitude, 00:02:19.419 --> 00:02:21.560 we have to look at the foundation. We have to 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:24.659 go back to a gritty working class environment 00:02:24.659 --> 00:02:27.500 in New York long before the name Carole King 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:30.439 ever even existed. Right. So she was born Carole 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:33.939 Joan Klein in 1942 in Manhattan. And honestly, 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.319 the story of her parents tells us pretty much 00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.080 everything we need to know about her work ethic. 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:40.900 How so? Well, they met in a literal elevator 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:44.560 at Brooklyn College in 1936. Wait, a literal 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.460 elevator? Yeah, just a random chance meeting. 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:48.819 Her father was a chemistry major, and her mother 00:02:48.819 --> 00:02:51.620 was an English and drama major. But they got 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:53.659 married right in the suffocating grip of the 00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:56.379 Great Depression. Oh, wow. That's tough timing. 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:00.379 Exactly. Survival had to trump ambition, so they 00:03:00.379 --> 00:03:03.000 both dropped out of college. Her father took 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:05.580 a job as a firefighter, her mother became a teacher, 00:03:05.699 --> 00:03:08.699 and they managed to buy this modest little duplex 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:11.120 in Brooklyn. They actually rented out the top 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.120 floor just to make ends meet. So it's the quintessential 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:17.219 New York survival story. Very much so. They gave 00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:19.939 up their own academic dreams to build a stable 00:03:19.939 --> 00:03:22.740 floor for their daughter. And I guess that stability 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:25.300 allowed for something magical to happen. It did. 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:28.199 Her mother had learned piano as a child and brought 00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:30.979 one into the house. And by the time Carol was 00:03:30.979 --> 00:03:33.460 three, she was showing this insatiable curiosity 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:35.800 about the instrument. Just three years old? Yeah. 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:38.580 And then when she was four, her parents discovered 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:41.900 she possessed absolute pitch. Oh, wow. Absolute 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:43.800 pitch. Yeah. And for those who aren't familiar, 00:03:44.020 --> 00:03:45.780 you know, absolute pitch isn't just having a 00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:47.960 good ear. Right. It's a specific thing. It means 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:50.759 she could hear a fire engine siren roaring down 00:03:50.759 --> 00:03:53.400 a Brooklyn street and instantly tell you it was 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:57.129 blaring in an F sharp. It's a really rare neurological 00:03:57.129 --> 00:04:00.879 phenomenon. Yeah. So her mother immediately started 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.419 giving her real lessons. But, you know, she's 00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:06.460 four years old. She was so tiny that they literally 00:04:06.460 --> 00:04:09.340 had to stack thick, heavy telephone books on 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:11.860 top of the piano stool just so her hands could 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.580 reach the keys. That's an amazing mental image. 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:17.420 Just a tiny kid on a stack of phone books. Exactly. 00:04:17.579 --> 00:04:20.560 But she absorbed music like a sponge. By the 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:22.420 time she was in high school, she had changed 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:24.680 her name to Carole King, formed a band called 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:28.300 the Cosines, and she was regularly taking the 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:30.740 s— subway into Manhattan to cut demo records. 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:32.959 Wait, with who? With her high school buddy, Paul 00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:34.839 Simon. Paul Simon? Yeah, they were doing it for 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:37.139 $25 a session. OK, wait. I have to push back 00:04:37.139 --> 00:04:39.420 on this trajectory for a second. Sure. Because 00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:42.360 talent is common, right? Especially in New York. 00:04:43.060 --> 00:04:47.319 If she had absolute pitch at age four and a prodigy 00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:49.639 level grasp of music theory before she even hit 00:04:49.639 --> 00:04:52.899 puberty, why on earth did she end up writing 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:56.129 keen pop songs? It's a fair question. Because 00:04:56.129 --> 00:04:58.910 usually when parents discover that kind of elite 00:04:58.910 --> 00:05:01.589 one in a million talent, they push their kids 00:05:01.589 --> 00:05:04.170 straight into grueling classical conservatories. 00:05:04.949 --> 00:05:07.769 What kept her from burning out like so many heavily 00:05:07.769 --> 00:05:10.810 pressured child prodigies do? Well, what's fascinating 00:05:10.810 --> 00:05:13.269 here is the psychological environment her parents 00:05:13.269 --> 00:05:15.750 created. It was remarkably healthy for the era. 00:05:15.889 --> 00:05:18.750 Really? Yeah. Her mother never forced her to 00:05:18.750 --> 00:05:22.430 practice. There was no intense, overbearing stage 00:05:22.430 --> 00:05:25.170 parent dynamic demanding she play Mozart for 00:05:25.170 --> 00:05:27.420 four hours a day. Oh, that's refreshing. King 00:05:27.420 --> 00:05:30.180 herself actually noted that she didn't need external 00:05:30.180 --> 00:05:32.540 pressure because she possessed a massive amount 00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:35.699 of intrinsic motivation. She just loved it. Exactly. 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:38.459 She was simply obsessed with the popular songs 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:40.699 pouring out of the radio. She wanted to figure 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:43.079 out how they worked. She approached pop music 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:45.529 the way a mechanic looks at an engine. You know, 00:05:45.589 --> 00:05:47.689 she wanted to take it apart and rebuild it. That 00:05:47.689 --> 00:05:50.290 makes total sense. So her drive was fueled by 00:05:50.290 --> 00:05:53.329 pure unadulterated joy, not familial obligation. 00:05:53.569 --> 00:05:56.370 Precisely. And she combined that joy with the 00:05:56.370 --> 00:05:58.490 intense grit she inherited from her Depression 00:05:58.490 --> 00:06:01.879 -era parents. And that combination is really 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:04.759 the secret ingredient to her unparalleled stamina. 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.240 I mean, breaking into the music industry as a 00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:10.100 teenager is brutally difficult. To survive it, 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:12.600 you need more than just a good ear. You need 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:14.860 the endurance of a marathon runner. Right. And 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:17.160 she was going to need every ounce of that endurance 00:06:17.160 --> 00:06:19.339 for what came next. Oh, definitely. Because how 00:06:19.339 --> 00:06:21.420 does a teenager with a stack of phone books and 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:24.500 a piano actually break into the cutthroat recording 00:06:24.500 --> 00:06:27.240 industry? By turning her own life into the product. 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.339 Yes. By turning her own high school romances 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:33.439 and teenage struggles into literal chart toppers. 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:36.959 So she enrolls at Queens College where she meets 00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:40.959 a young man named Jerry Goffin. And the timeline 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:43.420 moves incredibly fast here. Very fast. She gets 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:45.160 pregnant and they get married when she's just 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.759 17 years old. Barely out of high school. Right. 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:50.360 And echoing the exact history of her parents, 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:52.759 they both drop out of college to survive. They 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:55.680 take day jobs. She works as a secretary. He works 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:57.660 as an assistant chemist. And in the evenings, 00:06:57.680 --> 00:06:59.860 they sit down and write songs together. There 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:02.459 is a fantastic anecdote from this period that 00:07:02.459 --> 00:07:05.319 highlights how deeply embedded they were in this 00:07:05.319 --> 00:07:09.180 specific New York teenage ecosystem. Oh, I know 00:07:09.180 --> 00:07:12.100 the one you mean. Right. So Neil Sadaka, who 00:07:12.100 --> 00:07:14.800 is King's high school ex -boyfriend, had just 00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:18.779 written the massive hit song, Oh, Carol, entirely 00:07:18.779 --> 00:07:20.980 about her. Which is just so funny to think about. 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:24.620 It is. So Goffin, her brand new husband, decides 00:07:24.620 --> 00:07:28.779 to write a playful answer song called Ooh. for 00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:32.000 King to record and sing herself. And it completely 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.699 spectacularly flopped. Oh, totally bombed. It 00:07:34.699 --> 00:07:37.439 went absolutely nowhere. But that failure was 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:39.519 really just the workup act because the real breakthrough 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:41.980 was right around the corner. King and Goffin 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.240 write a song called Will You Love Me Tomorrow 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:46.300 and give it to a group called the Shirelles. 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:48.720 Such a classic. And it becomes the very first 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:50.980 number one hit by a black girl group on the Billboard 00:07:50.980 --> 00:07:53.560 charts. It changes their lives overnight. They 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:56.459 finally made it. Yeah. They quit those day jobs 00:07:56.459 --> 00:07:59.199 and go to work full -time at Don Kirchner's Dimension 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:02.639 Records, operating out of 1650 Broadway. And 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:05.420 this is the absolute epicenter of the legendary 00:08:05.420 --> 00:08:07.629 Brill building sound. The Brill Building Era 00:08:07.629 --> 00:08:10.089 is one of the most fascinating periods in American 00:08:10.089 --> 00:08:12.709 music history. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:15.509 because it's like a modern tech startup. They 00:08:15.509 --> 00:08:17.810 were basically moonlight coding, but instead 00:08:17.810 --> 00:08:20.310 of software, they were writing the foundational 00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:23.689 code for 1960s pop music. That's a great analogy, 00:08:23.910 --> 00:08:25.769 because if we want to understand how they worked, 00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:28.569 we shouldn't think of it like a modern, relaxed 00:08:28.569 --> 00:08:31.129 recording studio. No, not at all. Think of it 00:08:31.129 --> 00:08:34.480 more like a Detroit auto assembly line. but for 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:37.080 human emotion. The building was packed with these 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:40.820 tiny windowless cubicles. Inside each cubicle 00:08:40.820 --> 00:08:43.080 was an upright piano. Sounds claustrophobic. 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:47.240 Very. You had incredibly talented songwriting 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:49.639 duos packed in next to each other, separated 00:08:49.639 --> 00:08:52.440 only by thin walls. You could literally hear 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:54.600 your competitors writing their songs through 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:56.820 the drywall. The pressure must have been unbelievable. 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:59.639 It was a very intense, manufactured culture. 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:01.940 Kirschner would pit the teams against each other. 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:05.059 He'd say, we need a hit for the Drifters by tomorrow 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:07.419 morning. And whoever wrote the best song got 00:09:07.419 --> 00:09:09.799 the cut. In this environment, King and Goffin 00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:13.019 operated like a perfectly oiled machine. King 00:09:13.019 --> 00:09:15.139 would build the musical chassis, the complex 00:09:15.139 --> 00:09:17.820 chords and sweeping melodies born from her classical 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:20.320 training, and Goffin would paint it with lyrics 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:23.600 that spoke directly to teenage angst. And their 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:25.980 output in this environment becomes almost unbelievable. 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:30.139 They wrote the locomotion for their actual babysitter, 00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:33.019 little Eva, and turned her into a star. Just 00:09:33.019 --> 00:09:35.039 incredible. They wrote up on the roof for the 00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:37.190 drifters, they wrote Chains, which the Beatles 00:09:37.190 --> 00:09:40.190 recorded, and they wrote the absolute soul classic, 00:09:40.309 --> 00:09:43.190 You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman for Aretha 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:46.190 Franklin. Anthems, really? Yeah. If you ever 00:09:46.190 --> 00:09:48.570 found yourself belting out a natural woman in 00:09:48.570 --> 00:09:51.649 your car, you are experiencing a specific emotional 00:09:51.649 --> 00:09:54.350 algorithm that Carole King mathematically figured 00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:57.090 out in a cramped office when she was barely in 00:09:57.090 --> 00:09:59.549 her 20s. But notice the inherent tension in this 00:09:59.549 --> 00:10:02.009 dynamic. The Brill building was an assembly line 00:10:02.009 --> 00:10:04.490 of feeling. Goffin and King were voicing the 00:10:04.490 --> 00:10:07.610 universal experiences of youth, of longing, of 00:10:07.610 --> 00:10:10.350 heartbreak, and love. They were intimately telling 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:14.029 the stories of millions of teenagers, yet despite 00:10:14.029 --> 00:10:16.830 being the primary architect of all this emotion, 00:10:17.259 --> 00:10:20.220 Carol King was completely invisible to the public. 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:22.360 Just a name in the liner notes, if that. Exactly. 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:24.519 She was the secretary turned songwriter hiding 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:26.360 behind the curtain while other people took her 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:30.019 melodies and became massive, wealthy stars. Well, 00:10:30.059 --> 00:10:32.840 when you write the soundtrack of an entire generation, 00:10:33.379 --> 00:10:36.100 but you are voicing other people's stories, a 00:10:36.100 --> 00:10:38.379 breaking point is inevitable. It has to happen. 00:10:38.580 --> 00:10:41.740 Right. What happens when the assembly line is 00:10:41.740 --> 00:10:44.889 no longer enough? And more pressingly, what happens 00:10:44.889 --> 00:10:46.909 when the marriage that built that assembly line 00:10:46.909 --> 00:10:50.470 collapses? Because by 1968, the Goff and King 00:10:50.470 --> 00:10:53.250 marriage is over. They get a divorce. And this 00:10:53.250 --> 00:10:55.649 personal earthquake triggers a massive geographic 00:10:55.649 --> 00:10:58.210 and creative shift. King takes her two daughters 00:10:58.210 --> 00:11:00.610 and moves clear across the country to Laurel 00:11:00.610 --> 00:11:02.690 Canyon in Los Angeles. A completely different 00:11:02.690 --> 00:11:05.230 world. Exactly. To understand this transition, 00:11:05.429 --> 00:11:07.730 you have to picture the contrast. The Brill Building 00:11:07.730 --> 00:11:10.470 in New York was a corporate environment. Songwriters 00:11:10.470 --> 00:11:13.210 wore suits and ties, clocked in, and wrote in 00:11:13.210 --> 00:11:15.909 cubicles. Very nine to five. But Laurel Canyon 00:11:15.909 --> 00:11:19.509 in the late 1960s was a bohemian enclave of open 00:11:19.509 --> 00:11:22.330 doors, acoustic guitars, and sprawling living 00:11:22.330 --> 00:11:24.970 room jam sessions. It was a completely different 00:11:24.970 --> 00:11:27.590 musical paradigm. And she tries to adapt to this 00:11:27.590 --> 00:11:30.149 new world by reactivating her own recording career. 00:11:30.769 --> 00:11:33.600 She forms a trio called The City. with a bassist 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:36.320 named Charles Larky, who she later marries, and 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:38.899 a guitarist named Danny Korchmar. But it doesn't 00:11:38.899 --> 00:11:42.440 quite work out. No, the band fails. And the biographical 00:11:42.440 --> 00:11:45.059 sources point out exactly why. Carole King was 00:11:45.059 --> 00:11:47.539 deeply reluctant to perform live. She suffered 00:11:47.539 --> 00:11:49.720 from crippling stage fright, meaning they couldn't 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:52.279 tour to promote the album, and it just fizzled 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:54.779 out into nothing. It is a striking irony. I mean, 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:57.240 the woman who literally wrote the song A Natural 00:11:57.240 --> 00:12:00.419 Woman felt utterly unnatural standing on a stage 00:12:00.419 --> 00:12:02.580 in front of a crowd. It's wild. She had spent 00:12:02.580 --> 00:12:05.179 her entire adult life safely hidden in small 00:12:05.179 --> 00:12:07.879 rooms. Exposing her own voice felt terrifying. 00:12:08.179 --> 00:12:10.100 So how does someone go from hiding from live 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:12.840 gigs, watching her own band fail out of fear 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:15.659 to what she eventually does, which is playing 00:12:15.659 --> 00:12:18.519 a free concert for an estimated 100 ,000 people 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:21.409 in Central Park just a few years later? It really 00:12:21.409 --> 00:12:23.830 comes down to the nurturing community she found 00:12:23.830 --> 00:12:26.129 in Laurel Canyon. She starts spending time with 00:12:26.129 --> 00:12:29.090 peers like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Legends. 00:12:29.330 --> 00:12:31.730 Right. Taylor actually plays acoustic guitar 00:12:31.730 --> 00:12:36.169 on her debut solo album, Writer, in 1970. And 00:12:36.169 --> 00:12:38.549 this wasn't Don Kirschner demanding a hip by 00:12:38.549 --> 00:12:42.340 Tuesday. No more cubicles. Exactly. This was 00:12:42.340 --> 00:12:44.580 a supportive network of artists who began to 00:12:44.580 --> 00:12:47.019 coax her out of her shell. They convinced her 00:12:47.019 --> 00:12:49.720 that her voice, not a polished, manufactured 00:12:49.720 --> 00:12:53.179 pop voice, but her real, imperfect, authentic 00:12:53.179 --> 00:12:57.100 voice, had deep value. And that realization is 00:12:57.100 --> 00:13:00.200 the catalyst for 1971. That is the year she releases 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:03.320 Tapestry. Ah, Tapestry. You almost have to whisper 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:04.940 the title. It carries such monumental weight 00:13:04.940 --> 00:13:07.860 in music history. The source data on the success 00:13:07.860 --> 00:13:11.059 of this album is just staggering. It was an instant 00:13:11.100 --> 00:13:13.360 cultural phenomena. Changed everything. It held 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.299 the number one spot on the Billboard albums chart 00:13:15.299 --> 00:13:18.120 for 15 consecutive weeks. It stayed on the charts 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:21.299 for nearly six years. It won four Grammys and 00:13:21.299 --> 00:13:23.240 Kane became the very first woman to win Song 00:13:23.240 --> 00:13:25.019 of the Year for the track, You've Got a Friend. 00:13:25.419 --> 00:13:27.379 There is a brilliant detail about You've Got 00:13:27.379 --> 00:13:30.019 a Friend that highlights the collaborative magic 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:32.519 of Laurel Canyon. She didn't actually write it 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:34.539 specifically for James Taylor. Wait, really? 00:13:34.759 --> 00:13:36.860 I always thought she did. A lot of people do. 00:13:37.100 --> 00:13:38.879 But no, they were just recording their respective 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:41.139 albums in the same studio complex at the same 00:13:41.139 --> 00:13:43.860 time sharing musicians. Taylor heard the song, 00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:46.860 loved it, asked to record it, and had a number 00:13:46.860 --> 00:13:50.000 one hit with it concurrently. The synergy was 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.840 just effortless. It's a beautiful moment of worlds 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:57.299 colliding. But why did Tapestry connect so deeply 00:13:57.299 --> 00:13:59.779 when her previous attempts at stepping to the 00:13:59.779 --> 00:14:02.220 front didn't? What was the mechanical difference 00:14:02.220 --> 00:14:04.919 in the music itself? Well, Tapestry succeeded 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:07.460 on such a massive scale precisely because it 00:14:07.460 --> 00:14:10.860 was the anti -brill building record. The 1960s 00:14:10.860 --> 00:14:13.740 pop factory was all about polish, perfection, 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:17.200 massive orchestrations, and, you know, mathematically 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:20.600 targeting a demographic. Tapestry sounded completely 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:22.840 different. The production was stripped down and 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:24.500 minimalist. The piano was pushed to the front. 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:28.179 It feels very intimate. Very. They intentionally 00:14:28.179 --> 00:14:31.139 left vocal imperfections and slight cracks in 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:33.580 the recording. It didn't sound like a broadcast. 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:36.120 It sounded like a friend sitting in your living 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:38.320 room pouring her heart out to you over a cup 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:41.399 of coffee. I love that. She stopped writing what 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:43.679 she thought teenagers wanted to hear on the radio 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.720 and she just started writing her own unvarnished 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:50.100 truth as a recently divorced single mother navigating 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:53.879 a very complex world. And by abandoning the broad, 00:14:53.879 --> 00:14:55.879 universal plot formula that has been getting 00:14:55.879 --> 00:14:59.120 hyper -personal, she actually became more universal 00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:01.519 than ever before. Exactly. The architect finally 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:03.279 decided to live in the house she had spent her 00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:05.360 life building, and the whole world wanted to 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:07.519 come over and visit. That's a beautiful way to 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:09.340 put it. But when you hit an album that stays 00:15:09.340 --> 00:15:11.720 on the charts for six years, you are no longer 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:15.259 just an artist. You are an institution. and institutions 00:15:15.259 --> 00:15:17.179 have a very hard time staying relatable. They 00:15:17.179 --> 00:15:19.799 really do. Once you reach the absolute pinnacle 00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:22.860 of music, what on earth do you do with that platform 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:26.320 for the next 50 years to avoid becoming a museum 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.799 piece? Well, you have to adapt and you have to 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:32.360 survive. The latter half of Carole King's career, 00:15:32.539 --> 00:15:35.679 as outlined in the sources, is a profound story 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:39.100 of resilience in the face of deep trauma and 00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:42.299 a refusal to be frozen in the amber of the 1970s. 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.759 Right. And the sources are very candid about 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:47.019 the fact that her personal life remained incredibly 00:15:47.019 --> 00:15:49.600 difficult. She was married four times in total. 00:15:50.139 --> 00:15:52.259 Her third marriage was to a songwriter named 00:15:52.259 --> 00:15:55.620 Rick Evers. A very dark chapter. It was. In her 00:15:55.620 --> 00:15:58.460 2012 memoir, she revealed that Evers physically 00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:01.580 abused her on a regular basis. It was a harrowing, 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.000 dangerous situation that ended when Evers died 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.620 of a cocaine overdose in 1978, just days after 00:16:07.620 --> 00:16:10.340 they had separated. It is an incredibly traumatic 00:16:10.340 --> 00:16:12.980 period of her life, yet professionally she continuously 00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:15.659 finds ways to reinvent herself and connect with 00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:17.940 entirely new generations. So what does this all 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:19.950 mean for her legacy? I kind of look at her later 00:16:19.950 --> 00:16:21.850 career like an open source software developer. 00:16:21.950 --> 00:16:24.330 Oh, how so? Well, she allowed her music to be 00:16:24.330 --> 00:16:26.850 remixed and reinterpreted by others, like how 00:16:26.850 --> 00:16:28.870 she brought her music to a totally new, younger 00:16:28.870 --> 00:16:31.710 demographic in the year 2000. Ah, yes. Gilmore 00:16:31.710 --> 00:16:34.549 Girls. Exactly. She was approached to record 00:16:34.549 --> 00:16:37.929 a version of her 1971 song, Where You Lead, for 00:16:37.929 --> 00:16:39.809 the theme of this brand new television show. 00:16:40.330 --> 00:16:42.029 And instead of just handing over the old tape, 00:16:42.389 --> 00:16:44.669 she went into the studio. rewrote some of the 00:16:44.669 --> 00:16:47.549 lyrics to make the song specifically about a 00:16:47.549 --> 00:16:50.110 mother -daughter relationship, and she sang the 00:16:50.110 --> 00:16:52.970 new version as a duet with her own daughter, 00:16:53.269 --> 00:16:55.830 Louise Goffin. Her adaptability is really her 00:16:55.830 --> 00:16:58.129 superpower. She isn't precious about her legacy. 00:16:58.269 --> 00:17:00.570 Not at all. She operates almost like an elder 00:17:00.570 --> 00:17:03.610 stateswoman who planted a massive beautiful garden 00:17:03.610 --> 00:17:06.369 and now she is thrilled to let other people walk 00:17:06.369 --> 00:17:08.609 through it and pick the flowers. Right. Whether 00:17:08.609 --> 00:17:10.390 it's letting her daughter sing with her for a 00:17:10.390 --> 00:17:13.390 TV theme song or writing and singing back up 00:17:13.390 --> 00:17:16.089 on the reason for Celine Dion in the late 90s 00:17:16.089 --> 00:17:18.990 or giving her blessing to the incredibly successful 00:17:18.990 --> 00:17:21.829 Broadway musical about her own life called Beautiful. 00:17:22.069 --> 00:17:24.000 She just lets the music breathe. and evolve. 00:17:24.190 --> 00:17:26.309 And this raises an important question about how 00:17:26.309 --> 00:17:28.529 she viewed her platform off the stage as well. 00:17:28.789 --> 00:17:31.109 Her legacy isn't just the 75 million records 00:17:31.109 --> 00:17:33.849 sitting on a shelf. It's how she utilized her 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:36.210 voice when she wasn't singing. She got very involved 00:17:36.210 --> 00:17:39.450 in advocacy. She did. After she moved to Idaho 00:17:39.450 --> 00:17:43.150 in the late 1970s, she became a fierce, dedicated 00:17:43.150 --> 00:17:45.470 advocate for the environment. She didn't just 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:48.009 lend her name to a cause. She worked for decades 00:17:48.009 --> 00:17:50.210 alongside groups trying to pass the Northern 00:17:50.210 --> 00:17:53.190 Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, even traveling 00:17:53.190 --> 00:17:56.579 to to testify on Capitol Hill multiple times 00:17:56.579 --> 00:17:59.660 and she also stepped heavily into political activism. 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:03.039 the biographical sources document that she supported 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:05.480 and actively campaigned for several Democratic 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:08.220 candidates over the decades, including John Kerry, 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:11.579 Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ed Markey, Joe 00:18:11.579 --> 00:18:14.859 Biden and Kamala Harris. And just to be completely 00:18:14.859 --> 00:18:17.839 clear to you listening, our goal here isn't to 00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:20.359 take any political sides, endorse or condemn 00:18:20.359 --> 00:18:22.579 any candidate or viewpoint. Right. Absolutely. 00:18:22.839 --> 00:18:24.819 We are strictly looking at her timeline as a 00:18:24.819 --> 00:18:27.299 matter of historical record. Exactly. We're maintaining 00:18:27.299 --> 00:18:29.910 total neutrality here, but observing this from 00:18:29.910 --> 00:18:31.990 a biographical standpoint, it is fascinating 00:18:31.990 --> 00:18:34.289 to see how she chose to leverage the immense 00:18:34.289 --> 00:18:36.730 cultural capital she earned from her music to 00:18:36.730 --> 00:18:39.089 support the civic causes she personally believed 00:18:39.089 --> 00:18:41.789 in. She simply wasn't content to sit by a pool 00:18:41.789 --> 00:18:43.970 in Los Angeles and count her royalty checks. 00:18:44.509 --> 00:18:47.009 She engaged deeply with the world around her. 00:18:47.049 --> 00:18:49.750 She really did. There's this striking image from 00:18:49.750 --> 00:18:52.490 the sources. She marched in the Women's March 00:18:52.490 --> 00:18:56.049 in Stanley, Idaho in 2017, carrying a handmade 00:18:56.049 --> 00:18:59.680 sign that simply said, one small voice. That's 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:02.400 powerful. Yeah, she later wrote an op -ed explaining 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:05.380 her belief that one small voice when combined 00:19:05.380 --> 00:19:08.400 with millions of others is the only way you actually 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:11.299 change the world. which perfectly encapsulates 00:19:11.299 --> 00:19:14.380 her entire life's philosophy. It traces the exact 00:19:14.380 --> 00:19:16.900 same mechanism as her songwriting, really. You 00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:19.400 take a single, isolated melody played on a piano 00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:21.359 in a small room, and you use it to influence 00:19:21.359 --> 00:19:23.779 the culture of the entire globe. It's incredible. 00:19:23.980 --> 00:19:26.480 And in 2013, she became the first woman ever 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:28.799 to receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:31.480 for popular song, cementing that influence in 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:34.039 the historical record. We have traced an incredible 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.900 arc today. From the four -year -old girl sitting 00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:39.319 on a stack of telephone books in a duplex in 00:19:39.319 --> 00:19:42.119 Brooklyn, meticulously figuring out the piano 00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:45.559 keys, to the invisible, overworked architect 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:47.839 in the Brill Building, mathematically coding 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:51.839 the sounds of the 1960s. To the terrified, reluctant 00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:54.220 solo artist. Yes, who finally found the courage 00:19:54.220 --> 00:19:56.559 to stand in front of 100 ,000 people in Central 00:19:56.559 --> 00:20:00.049 Park. And finally, to the elder stateswoman accepting 00:20:00.049 --> 00:20:02.650 the Gershwin Prize at the White House. It is 00:20:02.650 --> 00:20:05.230 a masterclass in not just discovering your authentic 00:20:05.230 --> 00:20:07.930 voice, but finding a way to keep it relevant 00:20:07.930 --> 00:20:11.269 across decades of massive cultural and personal 00:20:11.269 --> 00:20:13.930 upheaval. As we wrap up this exploration, I want 00:20:13.930 --> 00:20:16.210 to leave you with a thought inspired by the citation 00:20:16.210 --> 00:20:18.650 read by James H. Billington, the Librarian of 00:20:18.650 --> 00:20:20.890 Congress, when King won that Gershwin Prize. 00:20:21.049 --> 00:20:23.509 What did he say? Well, he praised her ability 00:20:23.509 --> 00:20:25.809 to communicate the universal human emotions of 00:20:25.809 --> 00:20:28.849 love, joy, pain and loss. But when you look at 00:20:28.849 --> 00:20:31.650 the entirety of the sources we cover today, consider 00:20:31.650 --> 00:20:34.430 the ultimate beautiful paradox of Carole King's 00:20:34.430 --> 00:20:37.589 life and art. How is it that one person's highly 00:20:37.589 --> 00:20:41.269 specific, deeply personal pain, enduring bad 00:20:41.269 --> 00:20:43.950 breakups, the collapse of multiple marriages, 00:20:44.549 --> 00:20:47.369 and surviving severe physical abuse, somehow 00:20:47.369 --> 00:20:50.009 became the universal comfort blanket for millions 00:20:50.009 --> 00:20:52.130 upon millions of absolute strangers? That is 00:20:52.130 --> 00:20:54.930 the paradox, isn't it? It is. And it suggests 00:20:54.930 --> 00:20:57.569 a profound truth about human connection. The 00:20:57.569 --> 00:20:59.470 best way to connect with the whole world isn't 00:20:59.470 --> 00:21:01.410 to write something generic and broad designed 00:21:01.410 --> 00:21:04.029 to please everyone. The best way to reach everyone 00:21:04.029 --> 00:21:06.809 is to bravely write something undeniably painfully 00:21:06.809 --> 00:21:09.250 true about yourself. That is something to truly 00:21:09.250 --> 00:21:11.130 mull over the next time you hear one of her songs 00:21:11.130 --> 00:21:13.769 come on the radio or the next time you find yourself 00:21:13.769 --> 00:21:16.289 singing along to tapestry. The most personal 00:21:16.289 --> 00:21:19.849 blueprint builds the strongest shelter. Thank 00:21:19.849 --> 00:21:21.809 you for joining us on this deep dive into the 00:21:21.809 --> 00:21:24.130 life of the ultimate musical architect. Until 00:21:24.130 --> 00:21:24.589 next time.