“Of course she wants to record that song – it’s the best song written by a human being”: James Taylor explains how he had to tell Carole King that he’d recorded one of her greatest songs without her knowing, and before she’d released her own version..
For more than 50 years, James Taylor and Carole King have shared one of the most enduring friendships in popular music. But at the very start of their creative relationship, things might easily have become awkward — when they found themselves recording the same song at almost exactly the same time.
That song was “You’ve Got A Friend” — a jewel in the crown of King’s landmark 1971 album Tapestry, and also a chart-topping hit for Taylor that same year.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Taylor recalled how the unusual overlap came about. Back when King was still primarily known as a staff songwriter — crafting hits with her then-husband Gerry Goffin — Taylor admits he was unknowingly absorbing her musical sensibility.
“I channelled a lot of Carole without even realising it,” he said.
By the late ’60s, both artists had become central figures in California’s Laurel Canyon scene. Their friendship deepened, and collaboration followed. King contributed piano and backing vocals to Taylor’s breakthrough album Sweet Baby James, and the two would go on to share stages on tour.
It was during a residency at The Troubadour in Los Angeles — a modest club with an outsized reputation — that King first unveiled the song that would become “You’ve Got A Friend.”
“We were on our second or third run there,” Taylor remembered. “And she broke the seal on this brand-new tune.”
The impact was immediate. Taylor was convinced he already knew it — not because he’d heard it before, but because it felt like a standard from the very first listen.
“It sounded like a classic instantly,” he said. “I was so sure I knew it that I ran to grab my guitar so I could play along.”
What could have been a moment of rivalry instead became a testament to their shared musical language — two artists so closely aligned that a song written by one felt instinctively like it belonged to them both.