Close to You

 

Something for the weekend.  After this week we all need some mellow.  Time to turn to the Queen of Mellow, the late and great Karen Carpenter, singing Close to You (1970).

For All We Know

 

Something for the weekend.  For All We Know (1970).  When I am in the mood for mellow I turn to the late, great Karen Carpenter.  Originally written for the film Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), it attained hit status with the cover by the Carpenters in 1971.  The lyrics are simple but there is a great deal of truth in them, at least so they seem to me from my vantage of 38 years of being happily married.  All successful marriages are the triumph of hope over fear and doubt, and such triumphs are ever to be celebrated in our journeys through this Vale of Tears.

 

Love, look at the two of us,
Strangers in many ways.
We’ve got a lifetime to share,
So much to say and as we go from day to day
I’ll feel you close to me.
But time alone will tell.
Let’s take a lifetime to say,
I knew you well,
For only time will tell us so.
And love may grow for all we know.

Love, look at the two of us,
Strangers in many ways.
Let’s take a lifetime to say,
I knew you well,
For only time will tell us so.
And love may grow for all we know

We’ve Only Just Begun

 

Something for the weekend.  We’ve Only Just Begun (1970) sung by the brother and sister duo of Richard and Karen Carpenter.  It was the second million dollar single by the Carpenters and was considered by them to be their signature song.  It was played endlessly on the radio in the Seventies but I never tired of hearing it.  It has been said that personal suffering can lead to great art.  I don’t buy that, but Karen Carpenter could be put forward as an example by a proponent of the theory, although I suspect that Miss Carpenter would have had a much happier, and much longer, life if she had never sung a note in public.  Art sometimes demands far too much from an artist and that was certainly true in her case.

 

Of Rainy Days and Mondays

 

 

 

 

Something for the weekend.  Rainy Days and Mondays (1971).  Lots of rain here in Central Illinois this week as October comes in quite wet.  The Carpenters, siblings Richard and Karen, recorded this song in 1971, and it was their fourth number one song.  Actually I rather like rainy days and Mondays are great for me, as any trouble they bring can be written off since it is a Monday and the start of the work week for most, and therefore comes predestroyed as it were.  I always enjoyed Karen Carpenter’s voice and thus was saddened when in 1983 she died of anorexia nervosa and the details of her often sad life came out.  However her art remains and that is not a bad legacy for any artist.