Episode 17: These Are Their Confessions: 70s Singer-Songwriters
Carole King and Telemachus the Cat at their Laurel Canyon home. Rock and roll photographer Jim McCrary took this photo, which became the cover of Tapestry. The album has sold over 25 million copies since its release in 1971.
SHOW NOTES
What was it about the Seventies that made musicians want to make the pop charts our national confessional?
01:16 Amy plays an interview with an Australian reporter and Cat Stevens in August 1972. Cat said that he felt like he owed it to his fans to reveal as much about himself as he could in his music. Here is a video clip of that interview, which begins around the 2:50 mark.
02:35 Amy give a brief history lesson on songwriting in the U.S. For much of that time, pop songs were written by hired guns and sung by someone else. in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Tin Pan Alley in New York was the hub of songwriting until it gave way to The Brill Building in the 1960s. If you wanted to make a record, you could get just about all phases accomplished there. Carole King and her husband, Gerry Goffin, were one of the most successful songwriting teams in the Brill Building.
05:40 The Beatles broke through the notion that bands did not write their own songs. There was much drama, at times, about whether John Lennon or Paul McCartney actually wrote a song since they shared the writing credits. Amy suggests that George Harrison might have been the better songwriter of the three, anyway.
06:40 “Let it Be,” which is indisputably McCartney’s song, is autobiographical. “Mother Mary" is his mother, who died when he was 14.. Does knowing that it was his mother who went to him, speaking “words of wisdom,” change or deepen the meaning of the song for you? It might.
09:10 McCartney didn’t event the confessional or autobiographical song lyrics. He was the product of an era that saw Baby Boomer singer-songwriters grow older and more introspective. Amy discusses The Willis Test, named for pop critic Ellen Willis, which can give you a clue if you have just written a misogynistic song.
10:18 Amy plays another interview with Cat Stevens, who explains that he does reveal a lot about himself in his music. However, he also recognizes that his fans “associate” with his music and, sometimes, he needed to consider the meaning they put on his songs above his own.
11:53 Amy discusses The Willis Test, which can give you a clue if you have just written a misogynistic song Amy plays “Wild World” by Cat Stevens to illuminate The Willis Test. (It does sound kind of creepy now.)
14:45 Amy makes the observation that autobiographical music created more space for women. They expressed themselves in a way not heard since the early blues artists, especially about romance and breakups.
15:45 Carole King never cared about being famous. Being a singer was just the fastest way she knew of how to get her songs out.
16:35 Is there a better break up song than “It’s Too Late?”
18:00 Tapestry has sold millions of copies and the powerful lyrics, written by Toni Stern, drove the sales. The messaging in the album resonated with many people, even if it was the people driving down the road with the car radio blasting, singing about a dying relationship at the top of their lungs.
20:00 The Seventies is littered with autobiographical songs. James Taylor is kind of the singer-songwriter poster boy. He revealed thoughts on a friend’s death and his heroin addiction in “Fire and Rain,” but he doesn’t have a pop music theory named for him the way his ex-wife does.
20:23: Chuck Klosterman’s Carly Simon Principle asserts that some of the greatness in pop music comes from the fact that fans put meaning into songs that they know are based in truth. This desire for sincerity from the creator is not expected from any other artistic form. In other words, we can agree that “You’re So Vain” is great but we tend to think it is even greater when we know it is autobiographical.
21:15 Amy plays “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon, which sparked a national obsession with who the song is about. It really might be more great because we know it is about a real guy. That guy is NOT the guy doing background vocals, Mick Jagger.
23:05 More Carly Simon Principle — “Layla.” Do you like it more knowing that Eric Clapton wrote it because he was in love with Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s wife? How do you feel about “Wonderful Tonite?” Clapton wrote that one for her, too, but he had married her by then.
25:16 Judy Kutulas’s theory about the obsession over “You’re So Vain” is that Baby Boomers were kind of confused about love and relationships and they trusted pop and rock singers more than anyone else.
26:44 David Brackett wrote that Joni Mitchell is the best at this type of confessional music. If you have watched “Love Actually,” you have been exposed to Joni Mitchell’s album, "Both Sides Now.”
27:55 Amy plays Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me” and reads an awesome quote from a columnist named Mike O’Connor from Ohio. He wrote (about 50 years ago): “Although I prefer the heavier beer or rock and roll, the sweet white wine of Joni Mitchell is welcome.”
30:00 A lot of Baby Boomers turned 30 in 1978, including Jackson Browne. That was the year he released Running on Empty. Thirty is often an age that gives one pause, if only to acknowledge how fast time goes. “Running on Empty,” the title track, turns the metaphor of the road as life on its head. It sounds very melancholy for a rock and roll song.
33:05 Autobiographical music did not go away after the Seventies. Confessions wormed their way into rock. In fact, rock stars like John Mellencamp and Melissa Etheridge based their careers on it.
34:00 NBC’s Dick Ebersol paid $50,000 to find out that “You’re So Vain” is about Warren Beatty.
PLAYLIST
“Let it Be” -- The Beatles (1970)
“Wild World” -- Cat Stevens (1970)
It’s Too Late” — Carole King (1971)
“You’re So Vain” -- Carly Simon (1972)
“Layla” -- Derek and the Dominoes (1971)
Help Me -- Joni Mitchell (1974)
“Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne (1977)
SOURCES
Brackett, David. Editor. “The Sound of Autobiography” in The Pop, Rock and Soul Reader, 2nd Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 2009.
Beviglia, Jim. “Behind the Song: Jackson Browne, Running on Empty.” American Songwriter. October 2019. https://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-song-jackson-browne-running-on-empty/jim-beviglia/
Frith, Simon. Sociology of Rock. London: Constable and Company. 1978.
Klosterman, Chuck. “The Carly Simon Principle: Sincerity and Pop Greatness” in This is Pop: In Search of the Elusive at Experience Music Project. Eric Weisbard, Ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2004.
Kutulas, Judy. ""That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be": Baby Boomers, 1970s Singer-Songwriters, and Romantic Relationships." The Journal of American History 97, no. 3 (2010): 682-702. Accessed January 16, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40959939.
Landau, Jon. “James Taylor.” Rolling Stone. April 19, 1969. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/james-taylor-188231/
O’Connor, Mike. “Joni Mitchell is Sweet White Wine.” The Journal-News (Hamilton, OH). Feb. 3, 1974.
SachaTheEvilOne. “o2-08-1972 Cat Stevens GK interview.” YouTube. Online video. April 28, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBLfQq2oTkk
SachaTheEvilOne. “Cat Stevens GTK Interview 1974.” YouTube. Online video. April 28, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufN7vFnUmLs
Willis, Ellen. “But Now I’m Gonna Move” in Out of the Vinyl Deeps. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 2011.
Cat Stevens, 1972
Joni Mitchell, December 1974
Carly Simon, 1972