Carole King’s remarkable metamorphosis from teen mom songsmith to Earth Mother poetess.
She composed the soundtrack of our times on her piano, and wrought the template of our times with her life.
234: Carole King, ‘Up On the Roof’ (Live, 1971)
234: Carole King, ‘Up On the Roof’ (Live, 1971)
215: Joni Mitchell, ‘Blue’
A close reading of the harrowingly intimate Joni Mitchell masterpiece, ‘Blue’.
Continue reading...205: James Taylor, ‘Something’s Wrong’
James Taylor: “When you’re 20, you’ve just been issued the equipment you’re going to be using for a whole lifetime—the body, the mind, the skills, the talents, the appetites…” It’s also when you face the awful truth about this life: Something’s Wrong.
Continue reading...139: The Swingle Singers, ‘On the 4th of July’ (James Taylor)
This week we talk about the United States’ bar mitzvah, how we discovered Bach, the history of The Swingle Singers, the marvels of Scandinavian a cappella festivals, and older people falling in love.
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046: James Taylor, ‘Never Die Young’
“Never Die Young”, for me, is the multifocal prism through which I squint at the golden days of my youth. It contains all the love and pain and hopes and disappointments and optimism and disillusionment that my hoodlum friends and I have traversed, like all golden boys grown old. But we were fortunate enough to be children of a very special time.
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