Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation

Author: Linda Lowen

A couple of days ago on my morning walk with a friend in the neighborhood, I started to describe a book I'd just read by an author I was scheduled to interview. "Girls Like Us is a biography about the lives of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon," I began.

But as soon as I mentioned Carole King, Mary's eyes grew distant and an odd mix of emotions flickered across her face, taking her back some thirty-odd years.

"I love Carole King," she said, sounding as if she were confessing a long-held secret. "She saved my life. I wouldn't have survived my preteen years if it weren't for her album Tapestry."

As Necessary as Breathing

Mary wasn't being dramatic. That's what music means to us during our volatile, fragile, every-moment-is-fraught-with-meaning adolescent years. (I see this happening with my own daughter. She disappears into her room after school where she listens to her favorite songs at top volume. If she doesn't immerse herself in music, it's as if she can't breathe.)

"I Hear That a Lot"

Later that day, when I told Sheila Weller what Mary had said about Carole King and Tapestry, I could almost feel her nodding on the other end of the phone. "I hear that a lot," the author of Girls Like Us admitted. If it's not Carole King, it's Joni Mitchell's lyrics that strike a chord. Or Carly Simon's liberated stance on relationships and love. Almost every woman of a certain age has a strong emotional connection to one, two, or all three singer-songwriters.

Each came from different backgrounds and achieved success under very different circumstances. Each wrote songs that reflected their unique experiences. Yet all three were part of a generation that re-imaged women's roles in society. All three journeyed along their own paths to overcome their respective dark moments and step into the light with a distinct narrative voice.

Not Just Their Story, But Ours Too

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation isn't simply a book about three singer-songwriters. It's about Mary's preteen life. It's about my own growing awareness of how the women's movement was reshaping society and broadening the opportunities that lay ahead. It's about my best friend who kept a folded sheet of paper with Joni Mitchell's The Same Situation lyrics in a wallet.

It's about what saved us. What helped us to breathe. What made us feel real.

Only love is real
Everything else illusion
Adding to the confusion of
The way we contrive to just stay alive
Chasing a line 'til we can define
The thing that allows us to feel
Only love is real.
-- "Only Love is Real" by Carole King

Still I sent up my prayer
Wondering who was there to hear
I said "Send me somebody
Who's strong, and somewhat sincere"
With the millions of the lost and lonely ones
I called out to be released
Caught in my struggle for higher achievements
And my search for love
That don't seem to cease.
-- "The Same Situation" by Joni Mitchell

You say we can keep our love alive
Babe, all I know is what I see
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love's debris.
You say we'll soar like two birds through the clouds
But soon you'll cage me on your shelf
I'll never learn to be just me first
By myself.
-- "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" by Carly Simon