CAROLE KING - ONLY LOVE IS REAL

ONLY LOVE IS REAL

CAROLE KING

SONGWRITER: CAROLE KING

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: THOROUGHBRED

LABEL: ODE RECORDS

GENRE: POP

YEAR: 1975

 

       Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.

          King's major success began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King's success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut álbum Writer, King scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years.

       King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting. She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.

"Only Love Is Real" is a song written and performed by Carole King. The song was included on her 1976 album, Thoroughbred. The single peaked at number twenty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and was King's fourth and final number one on the Easy Listening chart, where it remained for one week in March 1976. It is ranked as the 40th biggest AC/Easy Listening hit of 1976.

             Thoroughbred is an album by American singer-songwriter Carole King, released in 1976. This is her final effort issued by Ode Records, and also the last album produced by Lou Adler who had been her collaborator since Tapestry.

           The track "ONLY LOVE IS REAL" was released as a lead single from the album, and became her 4th and final chart-topper on the U.S. Billboard AC chart. "High out of Time", a song featuring David Crosby and Graham Nash on vocals, was also released as a single. "There's a Space Between Us" also features harmony vocals by James Taylor.

As I bask in the glow of a just-lit fire

Feeling the warmth as the flames grow higher

I think it's true that nothing

is really new under the sun

Watching a new love grow

from old love's embers

Yesterday's gone but today remembers

Doesn't it seem to come down the same for everyone

(Chorus)

Only love is real

Everything else illusion

 

Adding to the confusion of the way we connive

At being alive

Tracing a line till we can define

The thing that allows us to feel

Only love is real

Childhood dreams like muddy waters

Flowing through me to my son and daughters

Everything I ever thought is confirmed as truth to me

Even as I see the way that I want to go now

Still I had wished I had known what I know now

Maybe I could have spared you

Giving your youth to me

(Chorus)

 

Only love is real

Everything else illusion

Adding to the confusion of the way we connive

At being alive

Tracing a line till we can define

The thing that allows us to feel

Only love is real.