Song of the Day 5/20: Carole King, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
There’s no question Carole King belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — she’s been there, along with her first husband and lyricist, Gerry Goffin, since 1990. By one standard, she’s the preeminent female songwriter of the second half of the 20th century — she wrote or co-wrote 118 songs that reached the Billboard Hot 100.
This year she was inducted as a performer, and while she had a string of hit albums through the mid-’70s, the tentpole for her performing career was her second LP, “Tapestry,” perhaps the best album to come out of the whole early-’70s singer-songwriter movement and proof that King could write her own lyrics after her 1969 divorce from Goffin. This was one of two previous Goffin-King hits she included on the LP; the backing vocals are by James Taylor and Joni Mitchell.
King and Goffin, who met in college, had their commercial breakthrough with this song, released in late 1960 and one of the top singles of 1961. It was the first No. 1 hit for the Shirelles, whose lead singer Shirley Owens didn’t want to record it because it sounded “too country” to her. The addition of strings won her over. On the first printing the song was titled simply “Tomorrow,” later expanded to its present form, which omits the word “still” for some reason. The song was so popular that when the Shirelles re-released “Dedicated to the One I Love,” which had stalled at No. 83 for them the year before, it went to No. 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3irmBv8h4Tw
‘Dedicated To The One I Love’ was written by Lowman Pauling, a near-forgotten genius who created the 5 Royales. One of the key influences of early R & B.
As featured on SOTD two years ago.
Maybe a reminder of “Pleasant Valley Sunday” will encourage voters to put the Monkees in.
They famously didn’t write most of their own material. Of their songwriters, King is in the Hall, as is Neil Diamond (“I’m a Believer,” “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You”), but not John Stewart (“Daydream Believer’) or the guys who wrote their theme song and several other hits, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.
Plus their career was effectively three years long.
You’re not wrong, but the material released under their name was very good (the Dionne Warwick or girl-group argument?) and few would have heard “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Daydream Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville” etc. if not for the Monkees. They did write some of their songs when they got the chance and Nesmith was a good musician in his own right. I don’t know if that makes them Hall of Famers, but it does make me still want to play their greatest hits album.