Weekly Finale: Carole King's Biggest Hit(s)

Another week ends, and another weekly musical finale begins!

This week, I am looking at Carole King's biggest hit, "I Feel the Earth Move":



Or was her biggest hit "It's Too Late"?



The problem with deciding is they were both released on the same single record in 1971, and both reached number 1 in the U.S. charts. But here is the story from Wikipedia:

Given its upbeat nature, Ode Records selected "I Feel the Earth Move" as the A-side to Tapestry's first single. It achieved airplay, but then disc jockeys and listeners began to prefer the slower, lamenting B-side "It's Too Late". Both sides received airplay for a while, but eventually "It's Too Late" dominated. In fact, on the concurrent Cash Box singles chart, which still tracked the progress of both sides of a single separately, "It's Too Late" spent four weeks at number one while "I Feel the Earth Move" did not chart at all. Regardless, since Billboard had declared the record a double A-side and their chart gradually became seen by many as the "official" singles chart, it is generally listed in books and articles that both "I Feel the Earth Move" and "It's Too Late" reached #1.

I suppose it depends on your mood as to which song is better. "I Feel the Earth Move"'s percussive piano opening is infectious, leading into a rich crescendo of musical joy. Whereas, "It's Too Late"'s melancholy jazz sound could appeal to a more mellow mood.

Musical irony of the day: Toni Stern, the lyricist of "It's too Late", claims to have written the lyrics after a breakup with James Taylor. A few years ago, Taylor toured with Carole King, and they performed the song together:


As for covers, although Gloria Estefan's cover is probably the best known "It's Too Late" cover, I personally found the 2015 cover from China Crisis to be the richest and most unusual:



That does reveal an important key to covering Carole King songs: Bring the entire band with you. King's music is beautiful in its simplicity, with usually just a piano and/or a few instruments in most of her songs. Bring the entire band, and you can turn a tasty musical snack into a full seven course meal.

Case in point: Shinedown's cover of "I Feel the Earth Move". This song rocks the house, and really shows how a good cover can deliver on the promise of the original song:



It's too late for me this week, so enjoy your weekend. I will return Monday to move the earth with my blogging. Or at least shuffle a little dirt around.