For more than a decade, The Carpenters had hit after hit on the radio. The duo, made up of siblings Richard Carpenter and Karen Carpenter, was a mainstay on the charts for years. Their legacy in music was cut tragically short when Karen Carpenter passed away in 1983 from the effects of her struggle with anorexia nervosa.
Among The Carpenters’ many hits are these four songs, which sound just as good today as they did when they were released.
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“(They Long To Be) Close To You”
The Carpenters’ first No.1. single, “(They Long To Be) Close to You” is on their sophomore Close To You record. The song is written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Herb Alpert recorded a version of “(They Long To Be) Close To You”. He gave Richard Carpenter the lead sheet but did not let him hear his recording.
“He said, ‘I have a recording of this, but I don’t want you to hear it,’” Richard Carpenter recalls. “‘I don’t want anything to influence what I may come up with. Just keep, at the end of the first bridge, two piano quintuplets.’ That record, that song, the arrangement, all of it, is misleading to the uninitiated, because it sounds simple. And it’s anything but simple.”
“Rainy Days And Mondays”
On Carpenters, their third studio album, is “Rainy Days And Mondays”. Written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, Richard Carpenter later said he wanted his sister’s stunning vocals to be prevalent in the song, which is why the production on the song is not as full as some of their other songs.
Before “Rainy Days And Mondays” got to The Carpenters, it was pitched to The 5th Dimension. Fortunately, they passed on “Rainy Days And Mondays”, making it one of The Carpenters’ biggest hits instead.
“Top Of The World”
Richard Carpenter and John Bettis penned “Top Of The World”. The song appears on their fourth studio album, A Song For You.
Although “Top Of The World” is written by Richard Carpenter, it wasn’t a single for them initially. Instead, Lynn Anderson first had a hit with “Top Of The World” in 1973, making it the title track of one of her albums. Buoyed by Anderson’s success with the song, The Carpenters released their own version.
“We’ve Only Just Begun”
One of their most popular songs is “We’ve Only Just Begun”. On Close To You, Williams and Nichols are the two writers of the song. Credited with helping The Carpenters’ popularity increase, “We’ve Only Just Begun” began as a commercial.
In 1988, “We’ve Only Just Begun” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Photo by Roger Jackson/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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