Before Paul Simon became one-half of the folk music phenomenon, Simon and Garfunkel, he worked briefly with a different female partner whom he met as a fellow freshman entering Queens College in 1958. Simon and his long-time duo partner, Art Garfunkel, were already writing songs under the moniker “Tom and Jerry,” one of which, “Hey Schoolgirl”, was a hit. To make extra money while studying, Simon began cutting demos with this other partner, who was still going by Carol Klein at the time.
“Paul and I soon became friends,” she later wrote in her memoir. “Among the things we had in common were a similarity of age and a desire to stay involved in writing and recording popular music. Hoping to earn some extra cash, we began making demos together as the Cousins. Some songs were hits, some were mine, and some were written by other people. The income was negligible, but we would have done it for nothing.”
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The Carol Klein behind those songs she and Simon recorded would, of course, become Carole King. According to Simon, their “negligible” rate was $25 a session. But the experience they gained in the studio would prove to be invaluable. “That’s where I learned how to stack voices and do overdubs,” Simon later said. “How to make records.”
Paul Simon and Carole King’s Partnership Didn’t Last Past the Cousins
Paul Simon and Carole King are both responsible for some of the most iconic hits of the mid-20th century. So, to imagine the two of them tackling the mainstream music world together seems like a match made in heaven. But it proved not to be so simple. As history would show, the pair didn’t collaborate much—if at all—beyond their time as “the Cousins,” cutting demo versions of singles for other people to record. As is so often the case, the explanation for this split changes depending on who you ask.
Per Simon, watching a young King’s songwriting career take off after he had been trying longer and with less success was difficult. “One moment, we’re making demos,” Simon said. “The next, she was making $150,000 a year writing No. 1 hits. It was very demoralizing to me.”
King was none the wiser. Years later, in 2006, King finally asked Simon why they never collaborated outside of the studio. “I’m still stunned when he says this,” she recalled in a 2012 conversation with the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. “He said, ‘I was never really good at collaborating, and I didn’t really think I was a very good lyricist until ‘Sounds of Silence’ went to number one.’ So, opportunity missed, I guess. But opportunity found because I did meet Gerry Goffin at Queens College.”
In a 2013 interview with NPR, King said what made her hit-making songwriting partner so “extraordinary as a lyricist was his ability, in really simple words, big ideas, big feelings, big thoughts. He had the ability—he’s a straight man—to get inside a woman’s head and say the things a woman was thinking.”
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