We’re continuing our celebration of Women’s History Month with a look at one of the most influential songwriters of our time: Carole King. She penned her first No. 1 Billboard hit, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” for The Shirelles when she was just 17 years old. Her output with then-husband Gerry Goffin defined the sound of the ’60s with songs like “Take Good Care Of My Baby” (Bobby Vee, 1961), “The Loco-Motion” (Little Eva, 1962), “Up On The Roof” (The Drifters, 1962), and *You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin, 1967). 

According to her website, King has had more than 400 of her compositions recorded by more than 1,000 artists, resulting in 100 hit singles. That’s not even mentioning her 1971 solo album, “Tapestry,” which has sold more than 30 million units worldwide. 

“You’ve Got a Friend” is a song she wrote for the album and has since become a modern standard. Nestled in the heart of “Tapestry,” the song distills everything that makes King’s music so powerful: a quietly sophisticated chord palette, plainspoken lyrics, and an intimate arrangement. She translates the simple words “I’ll be there” into a much deeper connection, one that carries comfort and solidarity across generations. 

“You’ve Got A Friend” was inspired by a lyric by James Taylor, with whom King had been working. The chorus in his hit “Fire and Rain” includes the line “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.” Taylor told Stephen Colbert that King wrote the song to tell him that he did have a friend. The guitarist and singer recorded it for his own album, “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon,” and scored a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit. 

“That song, pure and simple, came through me,” King told NPR in 2012. “I sat at the piano; the song came through me. People say, ‘Did you write it for James Taylor?’ No, no, I didn’t. I wasn’t writing for him, because God knows he didn’t need other people’s songs. But his voice was in my brain, and he had such a profound influence on my writing.”

King’s own version of the song is driven by the piano. Written in Ab, the verses tend to favor the vi chord – Fmin – to reflect the emotional tug of lyrical phrases like “When you’re down and troubled.” When the chorus comes around, the Ab chord sounds like the sun breaking through dark clouds. 

The song prominently features suspended chords, which are a hallmark of King’s style. Suspended chords don’t contain a major or minor third. Instead, they have either a second or a fourth in its place. By subverting the major or minor sound of a chord, you can soften its tension. 

“Substituting a sus chord for the dominant seventh can be a great technique to suggest the dominant harmony without the sound of the third taking over,” LANDR blog states. 

King connects an Ab chord in the verse back to the minor chord progression with a G7sus4, which adds an air of suspense without detracting from the vocal line. 

Check out King performing “You’ve Got a Friend” from “Welcome to My Living Room” in 2017 and follow along with sheet music.