Carole King

Carole King – It's Too Late

(1971 – Included on the album "Tapestry", Epic, 1971)

Sweet Carole, a tangle of unruly curls hiding her shyness. Carole by the window in the half-light, bell-bottoms and bare feet, alone with her cat, keeping a safe distance from the stage lights she'd feared ever since her debut. They call it stagefright, and not even a suitcase full of hits will ever let her fully shake it off. Carole's surname is Klein, but King sounds better. A regal name, fit for the talent of that piano prodigy who had bewitched Neil Sedaka at Queens College (he dedicated his famous "Oh, Carol" to her). A still water that moves rocks, young Carole from Brooklyn first pierced the heart of Paul Simon, then (above all) that of songwriter Gerry Goffin, whom she married, pregnant, at just 17. The couple had two daughters and produced an astonishing run of hits, largely destined for the vocal groups of the era (from the Everly Brothers to the Shirelles), but also for Aretha Franklin, as in the case of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". Together with the duo Bacharach-David, they became the most successful songwriting team of the Sixties. So what is Carole doing, then, gazing out that window with a lost, melancholy look, in the year 1971?

Time had left painful marks on that fresh-faced, schoolgirl countenance. California and its star-shredding machine, her marriage to Gerry in ruins, followed by divorce and a second marriage to bassist Charles Larkey (himself soon left behind too). A period of personal crises and artistic setbacks, like her debut solo album ("Writer", 1970). There were chasms of melancholy to cross. So Carole sits back down at the piano and fills her sheet music with torment and regret. Because it's too late: It's too late. Too late to mend the threads of a finished relationship, too late to recapture that feeling of freshness from the early days of love (“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”). Words written by the young songwriter Toni Stern (by her own account, right after the end of a fling with James Taylor), yet they seem to fit perfectly with the notes and feelings pouring out of Carole's piano. That music in a minor key, that aching, Tin Pan Alley-style melody, and that voice so clear and sincere – free of filters or artifice – combined with soft, jazz-tinged arrangements, always kept in a bare, understated setting, sharpen the sense of regret and nostalgia. So that the disillusionment over a love affair reaching its end (“And it’s too late, baby, now it’s too late/ Though we really did try to make it/ Something inside has died and I can’t hide/ And I just can’t fake it”) seems almost to turn into the sense of resignation of an entire generation, one that had dreamed of truly living the Age of Aquarius and instead found itself suddenly thrown into the disenchantment of the Seventies, of realignment, and of the end of hippie utopias.

But while stretching the meaning of "It's Too Late" too far can be misleading, it's not inaccurate to call the song a generational anthem, a manifesto of an era. In its sound, first of all, which set a defining standard for the entire decade of the Seventies (the more intimate, melancholy strain of singer-songwriter music, à la James Taylor, to be clear), but also in its words: feminist, according to some, since it's a woman who ends the relationship; even too mature and honest, according to critic Robert Christgau, who wrote: "If there's an honest song about a breakup, it's 'It's Too Late' - the world (or at least AM radio) isn't ready for this yet". But he would be wrong, at least on the second point: released as a single in April 1971, "It's Too Late" shot to No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary chart, becoming the third best-selling single of the year and winning a Grammy for Best Record of the Year. And it didn't stop there, because the song would soon achieve classic status, complete with the inevitable covers and appearances in Hollywood soundtracks (from "Fandango" to "The Lake House" and "Invincible") and even in recent TV series like "Glee".

And the credit also lies in a musical construction that reveals the full extent of Carole King's compositional skill. As James Perone points out ("The Words and Music of Carole King", 2006), "the melody is made up of syncopated rhythmic motifs, which are altered and combined throughout the song, unlike many songs in which rhythmic phrases are simply repeated". According to Perone, another factor that makes the melody so catchy is the intuition of "fixing the highest note by repeating it several times before the melody descends to the tonic, imprinting the highest and lowest notes on the listener's ear". Finally, there's one last emotional trick: "the melody doesn't end on the tonic note, leaving a lingering sense of incompleteness".

But what decisively reinforces the song's feeling, beyond Carole's voice and piano, are also Danny Kortchmar's refined guitar arpeggios, Curtis Amy's sax flourishes, and Charles Larkey's incisive bassline. All ingredients dosed with balance and mastery.

"It's Too Late" would become one of the key tracks behind the success of "Tapestry", the masterpiece by Carole King, bolstered by many other timeless hits (from "You've Got A Friend" to "So Far Away") and by the outstanding collaborations of her friends Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. It would go on to become one of the best-selling albums in history, with 10 million copies sold in the US and 25 million worldwide. Other years and other songs would follow. But Carole, now a magnificent woman in her seventies, will always remain, in everyone's imagination, that shy girl in a sweater and bell-bottoms, staring out the window with eyes clouded by melancholy. A sensitive, sincere girl who, even when she's leaving you (and she's left quite a few...), knows how to use the right words: “There’ll be good times again for me and you/ But we just can’t stay together, don’t you feel it too/ Still I’m glad for what we had, and how I once loved you”. If it's ever possible to find peace after a love has ended, thinking back on these lines can certainly help.

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28/02/2026