Carole King made the earth move

Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin

Generations have lived the most significant events in their lives to the soundtrack of Carole King’s songs. Songs such as Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Everybody’s Doing a New Dance Now, and (You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman, the iconic song that ironically—given King’s non-identification with feminism—became something of a global feminist anthem. Then there’s that heart-stirring song played at an infinite number of weddings around the world, You’ve Got a Friend; and So Far Away sung at memorial services around the world, including at Amy Winehouse’s funeral. So many of us can relate to this musical landscape in profound ways, recalling special moments of pain and sorrow, joy and elation.

In 2013, King wrote her acclaimed memoir, A Natural Woman, which triggered renewed interest in her life story and songwriting achievements. That same year saw the premiere in San Francisco of the musical Beautiful based on her early life as an emerging singer-songwriter, and her stellar songwriting collaboration with her first love Gerry Goffin, the first of her four husbands. From that epic premiere in San Fran to a Broadway debut in 2014, and from there in 2015 to a dazzling West End production, the musical had a phenomenal trajectory The musical’s Australian tour began in 2017 in Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, bringing the story of her life and her inimitable music to a new Australian generation. And then came the celebratory Carole King tribute on 6 December 2015 at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, which brought together living legends, such as Aretha Franklin, for whom King and lyricist Goffin wrote Natural Woman, which Franklin performed to deafening applause; and renowned singer-guitarist songwriter James Taylor, who earned a resounding ovation for his rendition of the iconic King-Goffin number On the roof.

With so much acclaim and information on Carole King in the public domain, journalist and university lecturer Jane Eisner has bravely ventured into the realm of non-authorised biography with her book titled simply Carole King: She made the earth move. It is to Eisner’s credit that she has unearthed new material and filled in many gaps in King’s biography that testify to Eisner’s tenacity of purpose, in-depth research and extensive interviews with those who have known, studied and surrounded King at different periods in her life. Impressively, Eisner took piano lessons for two years to understand, from the inside out, the complex melodic structure of King’s melodies, which she documents at some length. Her book on King, published by Yale University Press, follows their Jewish Lives series’ guidelines for their biographies, which are designated ‘interpretative’ explorations, and pathways into the Jewish experience. Eisner follows these twin goals, enabling Carole King fans to learn more about her life and prodigiously successful musical career. Eisner’s factual account of King’s life, work and artistry should appeal to aficionados of all genres but especially lovers of pop, folk and rock music. She fleshes out the bare bones of King’s turbulent life story in a way that will appeal to many readers who value a factual account as well as psychological insights. That said, this biography constitutes a valuable, informative and comprehensive record of King’s life and work. It testifies to Eisner’s journalistic skills, curiosity and, in particular, her ingenuity in ferreting out little-known facts that cast a new light on King and her songs.

Eisner characterises King as an artist whose contributions to American musical culture are unique and lasting. ‘She managed to become an international pop star without becoming a sex symbol, respected for her work alone, not for her appearance or her fashion choices or for the other attributes that too often define women performers,’ she writes. ‘But her ascent from a scrappy neighbourhood in postwar Jewish Brooklyn to the lights of Broadway was also punctuated by conflict, heartbreak, failure, reclusiveness, and resilience.’

King’s family background, her origin story and Brooklyn roots are told in several fascinating chapters that give us insight into Jewish American history and the social, educational and musical milieu of those times. The emergence of superlatively gifted young artists characterised the popular musical youth culture of those early decades—King, Barbara Streisand, Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond, to name but a few—despite the oppressive politics of exclusion in the wider society. King’s parents met while still students, her father Sidney Klein studied chemistry and her mother, Eugenia Cammer, was an English and drama major with music ambitions of her own. Eisner notes that by the time the family settled in southern Brooklyn, ‘they had become part of a thriving working-class Jewish ecosystem that exemplified this new brand of postwar secularism’. In an antisemitic climate that offered few employment opportunities for Jews, Sidney worked as a firefighter and the family struggled financially. Carol (without the ‘e’ added later to differentiate herself from others with that name) Joan Klein was born on 9 February 1942 in Manhattan; and six years later her brother, Richard, was born. Diagnosed as profoundly deaf, at the age of two he was sent to Willowbrook State School, an institution for children with intellectual disabilities. Eisner believes King’s song, ‘Brother, brother’ written in 1971 expresses the love, pain, closeness and distance ‘foundational to their relationship’. King was eleven when her parents separated and divorced, remarrying and re-divorcing in later years.

While still at college, King met Gerry Goffin, an accomplished lyricist and musician. Their musical partnership and love flourished and they married in 1959; Gerry was 20 and Carole 17 and pregnant. In a chapter titled ‘Hits and’ heartbreak’, Eisner traces the diverging trajectories of their lives. While their commercial success and recognition grew, Eisner states, ‘King was also experiencing a quiet dose of pain in her private life that punctured her expectations and ideals’. Goffin was using LSD and his mental state ‘careened into paranoia’. Eisner contends that King’s failure to confront Goffin’s failings and their consequences ‘presaged a dangerous dynamic in subsequent romantic relationships’. Despite divisive and dangerous developments in their personal lives and with King doing most of the parenting of their two daughters, Goffin and King continued to collaborate musically, producing memorable songs, including Natural Woman.

Eisner traces the rocky road of King’s relationships, including her marriage in 1970 to 22-year-old Charlie Larken, with whom she had two children. The wedding ceremony was rich in Jewish rituals. King states in her own memoir, ‘My attachment to Judaism was more about tradition than religion. I liked the chain of familiar rituals that had sustained generations before me, and I didn’t want to break it’. Two further marriages followed, the third a physically abusive relationship, and the fourth a peaceful, isolated and ‘off the grid’ existence with a ‘survivalist’, relationships Eisner describes with sensitivity and understanding.

A central chapter of the book documents the 1971 musical revolution in King’s life with the production and release of her record album Travesty, produced by her trusted friend Lou Adler. The album included the opening number ‘I feel the earth move’, ‘a brave, assertive expression of female sexuality’. Rolling Stone magazine rock critic Jon Landau featured the album prominently. He wrote, ‘it is an album of surpassing personal intimacy and musical accomplishment and a work infused with a sense of artistic purpose’. Swiftly, the album became a global phenomenon in the world of music.

Eisner has written a generous biography. She concludes, ‘King had no choice but to follow her own path. There were no guideposts for her, no role models, no woman who had ever done what she did’; and states that King is ‘possibly the most successful and prized female singer-songwriter in American popular culture’. It is also a courageous biography, given how intimidating it must be to craft this story knowing the subject is still around and potentially critical of the contents. Eisner, however, has stated elsewhere that King ordered several copies of the biography, surely a comforting sign for the author.

Carole King: She made the earth move
By Jane Eisner
Yale University Press, New Haven and London
2025