![Righteous Brothers – [You’re My] Soul And Inspiration](http://img.youtube.com/vi/mzrPs-hLKmM/0.jpg "Righteous Brothers – [You’re My] Soul And Inspiration")
| “You’ve Got a Friend” | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Scandinavian single with “Beautiful” on the B-side
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| Song by Carole King | ||||
| from the album Tapestry | ||||
| Released | 1971 | |||
| Genre | Soft rock | |||
| Length | 5:09 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) | Carole King | |||
| Producer(s) | Lou Adler | |||
| Tapestry track listing | ||||
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“You’ve Got a Friend” is a 1971 song written by Carole King. It was first recorded by King, and included in her album Tapestry. Another well-known version is by James Taylor from his album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. His was released as a single in 1971 reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on the UK Singles Chart. The two versions were recorded simultaneously in 1971 with shared musicians.
“You’ve Got a Friend” won Grammy Awards both for Taylor (Best Male Pop Vocal Performance) and King (Song of the Year). Dozens of other artists have recorded the song over the years, including Dusty Springfield, Michael Jackson, Anne Murray and Donny Hathaway.
“You’ve Got a Friend” was written by Carole King during the January 1971 recording sessions for her own album Tapestry, and James Taylor‘s album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. King has stated that “the song was as close to pure inspiration as I’ve ever experienced. The song wrote itself. It was written by something outside myself, through me.” According to Taylor, King told him that the song was a response to a line in Taylor’s earlier song “Fire and Rain” that “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.” King’s album was recorded in an overlap with Taylor’s, and King, Danny Kortchmar, and Joni Mitchell perform on both. The song is included on both albums; King said in a 1972 interview that she “didn’t write it with James or anybody really specifically in mind. But when James heard it he really liked it and wanted to record it”.
Taylor’s version was released as a single, and reached number 1 on the BillboardHot 100 and number 4 on the UK Singles Chart. The James Taylor version also spent one week at the top of the Easy Listening charts. Billboard ranked it as the No. 17 song for 1971.
During the recording process, Taylor also offered to his Apple Records labelmate Mary Hopkin a chance to record the song, which she turned down, a decision she later said she strongly regretted.
James Taylor and Carole King performed “You’ve Got a Friend” together in 2010 during their Troubadour Reunion Tour. In 2015, Taylor performed an acoustic rendition of the song at Hôtel de Ville, Paris at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in tribute to the victims of the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks.
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