9/25/2023 0 Comments Goffins![]() The 1960 “ When My Little Girl Is Smiling,” gorgeously produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for Ben E. On Broadway it serves as the virtual theme of Beautiful, played three times during the show.įor the men in Goffin lyrics, women were often precocious temptresses: little girls with dangerous charms. 1 and cued several reassuring “answer” songs, none of them penned by Goffin. A series of questions lingers between doubt and guilt: “Is this a lasting treasure / Or just a moment’s pleasure? / Can I believe the magic of your sighs? / Will you still love me tomorrow?” The song went to No. A woman has just given herself to her boyfriend and, in the postcoital afterglow - or rather, in her gnawing unease - wonders if he’ll stick around for love now that he’s had the sex. Goffin and King’s first hit is one of their immortals: the 1960 “ Will You Love Me Tomorrow” for the Shirelles. (TRY TO FIND: a Goffin-King song on the all-TIME 100 Songs list) 18, 1940) would compose a flock of lasting hits: “Here You Come Again” for Dolly Parton, “Just a Little Lovin’ (Early in the Morning)” for Dusty Springfield, “On Broadway” for The Drifters, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” for The Animals and, for The Righteous Brothers, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” which received more airplay than any song from the 20th century. ![]() Barry Mann (born two days before Goffin) and Cynthia Weil (born Oct. Working in the cramped, smoky warrens of 1650 Broadway, up the block and across the street from the legendary Brill Building, Goffin and King were one of a remarkable trio of young, Jewish, married songwriting teams. Klein, already a minor recording artist, took the stage name Carole King. (Her friend Neil Sedaka had written “Oh Carol” for her.) They married in 1959, when she was 17 and pregnant with their first child, who would grow up to be singer-songwriter Louise Goffin. But as a chemistry major at Queens College he met a freshman, Carol Klein, who was a budding composer in the pop idiom. 11, 1939, and raised in Queens, Gerald Goffin wanted to write Broadway shows. After he and King parted professionally and maritally, Goffin teamed with Michael Masser to write poignant hits for Diana Ross (“Do You Know Where You’re Going To”) and Whitney Houston (“Saving All My Love for You”).īorn in Brooklyn on Feb. His triumph was almost private: the accomplishment of giving performers such as the Monkees ( “Pleasant Valley Sunday”) and balladeer Steve Lawrence (“Go Away, Little Girl”) lyrics that expanded the pop lexicon and often reached a plainspoken profundity. Goffin, who died at his Los Angeles home June 19, at 75, never achieved his ex-wife’s renown. King wrote the music for all those perennials, but Gerry Goffin, her husband in the ’60s, wrote the words. And if people know the writer behind such girl-group classics as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “One Fine Day” and “I’m Into Something Good,” or The Drifters’ “Up on the Roof” or Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” it’s probably because their composer, Carole King, eventually became a pop star - permanent brand for her songs about love, longing and romantic renewal. The composers’ names were just part of the small print on a 45 r.p.m. In the 1960s, before the Beatles made singer-songwriters fashionable, few people cared who wrote the songs they loved.
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