This might be the first more or less contemporary #1 hit I remember hearing as a child - I was just shy of three when it topped the charts. I've always thought this was a perfect rainy day song. There's something about the muted sound of it, jazz and even blues tinged and poignantly sad. After a decade as one of the finest songwriters on the planet, "It's Too Late" finally made King the superstar she probably should have been all along. Dusty Springfield famously said she, "couldn't top the acetates" that King had recorded and sent to her over the years to demonstrate her latest compositions. Both sides of this record make it clear King was as formidable as a performer as she was as a composer. Is this one of the last big two-sided hit singles? Apparently the label felt A-side "I Feel The Earth Move" had hit potential, but when DJ's started spinning the B-side "It's Too Late" instead sales and plays really took off. Both tracks became staples of pop and oldies radio over the years, and I've always loved them. DJ's would also stray beyond the singles to start playing other cuts from the Tapestry album, which became a fixture on the album-oriented radio of the day. "So Far Away" and "Smackwater Jack" made for another double A-side single, while album cuts like "Home Again", "Beautiful", and King's version of "You've Got A Friend" all got significant radio exposure. As a result Tapestry sold by the warehouse, becoming one of the biggest albums of all time and heralding the arrival of the decade's thousand pound pop gorilla, the singer songwriter movement. As if in some cosmic sign of how that rise to prominence was meant to be, while King was recording Tapestry at A&M Studios, Joni Mitchell was across the hall cutting her own landmark recording, Blue. The times they were a changin', and for the first time in pop history it was women who were on the vanguard of the new sound. The impact of these two records would continue to reverberate for decades, both critically and commercially.
Ah, what a classic. I was only 6 going on 7 when it came out, and I'm pretty sure 1971 is when I first started forming the concept of a song being everywhere. "It's Too Late" and "My Sweet Lord" seemed to always be on the radio. It must've gotten into my "wiring" because to this day hearing either song instantly hijacks my brain and makes everything groovy for five minutes.
It definitely always takes me back to my hometown, our little shack of a house, and the aesthetic of the very early '70s. Break out the macrame, iron your hair (thank you, Peggy Lipton), pull on some bell-bottoms and slap "It's Too Late" on the Magnavox record player (where I no doubt heard it often - my uncle had the single). It doesn't make everything groovy for me, though - the song always gave me a melancholy feeling. It's really unique for a song that was such an enormous hit - definitely more literate than some of its more formulaic predecessors over the past 16 months or so. Not gloomy or epic, a la "The Long And Winding Road" or "Bridge Over Troubled Water", very personal yet also somehow universal. Really, a testament to King's abilities as a songwriter - it's as much an earworm as any of her '60s hits, but seems to hit much closer to home emotionally.
I love Carole King's "It's Too Late" too. It reminds me of being very young, riding around with my grandmother and mother, 3 or 4. "It's Too Late" is proof of a timeless record yet one that is utterly part of its time. Like the others have described, this takes me back to 1971-72 every time I hear it.
I always preferred "I Feel The Earth Move" to "It's Too Late." And I really like "It's Too Late," but if I was putting money in a jukebox, it was the other side. Love the intro to it. JcS
Yeah, I Feel The Earth Move for me, too. They're both great tunes though. My first memory of Tapestry is buying it from Sears for 2.99. Ah, youth.
I think that's a shame. It's one of Karen's better performances. Certainly more #1-worthy than some cuts that made it to the top. Harsh! OK, it is a bit syrupy, even for The Carpenters.
This was the second of five times Karen and Richard got stopped at #2, which has to be at least close to a record. (They only hit #1 three times as a result). Man, that pumping piano just gets my pulse going.
The Carpenters definitely elicit strong feelings for and against. I'm a fan and remember well this one stalling at #2. In fact, for the next couple of years, they were the CCR of soft pop, always a bridesmaid. That would change and really, there's no shame in multiple top five hits. Frustrating? Yes.
This is actually my favorite from Tapestry... it doesn't get much play on radio anymore, but it used to.
Don't listen to radio much so wouldn't know. Always loved "Smackwater Jack". As I've grown older I think my favorite cut from the record has become "Home Again". It's just drenched with those trademark warm Carole King chords:
I've shared the story before of the greatest bargain I've ever scored: The summer I was 15, I was at my best friend's place when his mother came home pissed off about an argument with her boyfriend and kicked me out of the house. On my way home, I happened across a yard sale where I got a copy of Introducing the Beatles for a quarter - every cloud has a silver lining! I also got my first copy of Tapestry at that yard sale, and for the same price. I'd read about it, and I'm sure I'd heard "It's Too Late" on the radio at some point, and I figured it couldn't miss with me. It didn't. What a great album! I don't feel it's aged a day since then, either. These days it's usually the Carnegie Hall Concert CD I reach for, which has most of the songs on Tapestry (I think all except the title track and "Where You Lead," neither of which were ever among my favorites) plus some very well-rendered songs from her previous album, Writer and some other classics-to-be. But I do still see Tapestry as her masterpiece. As you might guess from my story above, that friend and his mother had a terrible relationship. I literally can't recall him having one nice thing to say about her. But I do have exactly one memory, in all the years when we were friends, where they at least almost bonded over something. That something was Tapestry: I brought my copy over once to listen to while we were playing chess or something like that, and she overheard it. "Carole King!" she exclaimed with uncharacteristic approval for our musical tastes (which were about 95% Beatles at the time). "I used to listen to this in college!" As things later went from bad to worse, and ultimately he ended up living on the streets for a while as even that was preferable to putting up with his mother, I always did - and still do - treasure that slight but sweet memory.
Tapestry was the album to beat and went on to an extremely successful uninterrupted run on the album charts for the better part of the decade. It's one of those rare albums where there really are no clunkers from those iconic piano chords that open the record right through to the heartfelt sentiments of the title track which also serves as it's closer. Pretty much everyone loved this record in '71 and though it may not have ushered in the singer/songwriter craze of the early 70s, it's mega success certainly opened up the floodgates. The tendrils of this album would weave their way through the top spot again in short order.
Oh yeah! Radio played both sides of that record like crazy! I liked "It's Too Late" and my sister liked "I Feel The Earth Move". But, we never bought any of her music until I bought "Jazzman" in 1974. I didn't own the "Tapestry" album until I bought the "A Natural Woman - The Ode Collection 1968-1976" boxed set in the early 90s, which contains the entire album. Crazy to know that the album was basically a demo with slight overdubs added to parts of it to flesh it out. The company executives thought the demos were good enough to be released as is, and, boom! Brill Building songwriter and producer Carole King was suddenly a superstar in her own right.
There were at least four different variations of the label on this, all having to do with label typesetting: Columbia's three plants in Pitman, Terre Haute and Santa Maria; and Monarch via Alco Research. For me, the "go-to" is Pitman's. There were two ways the label was printed, and each way is on a different side. That was actually the follow up single . . . . . . coupled with "So Far Away":
There were two label variants of this one - Richard credited as arranger/orchestrator . . . . . . and him only credited as arranger . . . Natch', I have the former. And in the CBS Pitman type you see. But there would be a few more double-sided #1's (including one this year we'll get to at the appropriate time) over the next few years.
What can I say? Tapestry is one of my favorite albums of the 70's - really of all time. Just a brilliant collection of tunes. It's Too Late was everywhere and for a long time too, it had longevity, and appealed to a wide audience. While I'm a fan of Carpenters, RD&M is way inferior to It's Too Late/I Feel The Earth Move.
"Rainy Days And Mondays," though, is the stronger of the two sides of that Carpenters' 45. Don't believe me? . . . listening to Richard on the flip, one wonders if he has some kind of thing in his speech reminiscent of Dash Crofts of Seals & Crofts . . .