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In Memoriam: Gerry Goffin (1939-2014)

June 19, 2014 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Gerry Goffin - Back Room BloodWhen this old world starts getting me down, a sure way to cheer me up is to play a Gerry Goffin lyric.  Songs like “I’m Into Something Good,” “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “The Loco-Motion” all are filled with youthful optimism and unfettered joy, qualities that Goffin could lyrically impart with abundant heart and craftsmanship.  These songs can raise the spirits (and the pulse!) in the way that only the most transcendent music can.  Goffin passed away today at the age of 75, but lived long enough to see his songbook – one that ranks among the finest in American popular music – justly celebrated in every conceivable medium including the Broadway stage.  The Tony Award-winning Beautiful is subtitled The Carole King Musical after Goffin’s first wife and most frequent songwriting partner, but it might as well bear the name The Goffin and King Musical.

Gerry Goffin was inspired by the Broadway greats of yesteryear, including Richard Rodgers’ first partner Lorenz Hart, when he set out with his young wife Carole King to write songs and in the process shaped the sound of pop music.  Forget those revisionists who claim that the terrain of popular song was a wasteland between the birth of rock-and-roll and the coming of The Beatles.  Between 1960 and 1963, Goffin and King turned out such songs as “Chains,” “Go Away, Little Girl,” “It Might as Well Rain ‘Til September,” “Hey Girl,” “One Fine Day,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” and a pair of breathtaking standards: “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Up on the Roof.”  The former, the duo’s breakthrough and first chart-topper, showed startlingly unusual sensitivity.  Goffin wrote from the perspective of a teenage girl worried that her boyfriend won’t love her once she gives up the near and dear prize she’s been withholding.  It was a situation many young girls had doubtless experienced, given voice with eloquence, vulnerability, honesty and universality.  Though barely out of his own teen years, Goffin’s understanding of the human condition was already apparent.  His ever-developing maturity was never more apparent than in his lyric to “Up on the Roof,” a sophisticated yet dreamy ballad that stunningly romanticized the urban landscape.  Who hadn’t wished for a place for their cares to drift right into space?  Gerry Goffin’s lyrics transcended age, gender and status.

Something Good Carole KingGoffin found beauty and poetry in anguish. Think of the sublimely artful despair of “Hey, Girl,” “No Easy Way Down,” “Just Once in My Life,” “I Can’t Make It Alone,” “The Right to Cry” and scores of others songs that were as much soul as pop.  When The British Invasion hit American shores and The Brill Building scene began to wane, Goffin adapted, reinventing his lyrical style and taking inspiration from Bob Dylan and beyond.  “Porpoise Song” was trippy psychedelia and “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was a scathing indictment of suburbia.  The evocative, haunting imagery of “Snow Queen” was light years removed from “Take Good Care of My Baby” but just as exhilarating.  The marriage of lyricist and composer between Goffin and King was a perfect one, even if their real-life marriage wasn’t.

Yet even as he battled personal demons in the later days of their union, Goffin was able to pen an anthem like “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman,” so memorably delivered first by Aretha Franklin and later by Carole King herself on Tapestry.  That epochal singer-songwriter album, incidentally, featured three songs with lyrics by Gerry Goffin including the atypically humorous “Smackwater Jack.”  Goffin reinvented himself yet again in partnership with writers like Barry Goldberg (“I’ve Got to Use My Imagination”) and Michael Masser (“Saving All My Love for You,” “Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),” “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You”).  In 1995, Goffin released the solo LP Back Room Blood in which he co-wrote a pair of songs with none other than Bob Dylan.  What greater testament is there to Goffin’s artistic rebirth than to note that Dylan also served as sideman and co-producer?

As one of his lyrics goes, Gerry Goffin “wasn’t born to follow;” he carved his own path.  It goes without saying that his timeless and vibrant songs – including roughly sixty Top 40 hits – will live on, discovered by each subsequent generation.  No doubt the local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn a Gerry Goffin song.  I’d like to think Mr. Goffin is smiling down.

Categories: News

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Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with Real Gone Music, has released newly-curated collections produced by Joe from iconic artists such as Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Chet Atkins, and many others. He has contributed liner notes to reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, B.J. Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, and Andy Williams, and has compiled releases for talents including Robert Goulet and Keith Allison of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray. Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.

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Comments

  1. Bill says

    June 19, 2014 at 9:56 pm

    Thanks, Joe. Great tribute.

    Reply
  2. Ken says

    June 20, 2014 at 3:25 am

    A lovely tribute to a very underrated song writer.Gerry had the ability to write lyrics from a female perspective that were totally believable. A sad loss.

    Reply
  3. "Vinyl Connection" says

    June 20, 2014 at 3:58 am

    I had no idea Goffin wrote the wonderful "Porpoise Song" for The Monkees.
    Very nice tribute. Thanks.

    Reply
  4. Steven says

    June 20, 2014 at 5:57 am

    Wonderfully written, as Gerry certainly deserved. He also produced many of the more obscure records he wrote with Carole in the Brill Building days. May his soul rest in peace.

    Reply
    • Ken says

      June 21, 2014 at 11:39 am

      Sorry Steven but Gerry and Carole worked for Aldon Music and were based at 1650 Broadway and not the Brill Building (1619 Broadway) BBC 4 in the UK showed a tribute to Carole last week where she actually corrected this very often quoted mistake!

      Reply
  5. ronfwnc says

    June 20, 2014 at 7:56 am

    Nice piece. I find it appalling that many of the headlines I've seen refer to Goffin as "Carole King's ex-husband." Yes, he was that, but he was also one of the most accomplished lyricists of the last six decades. He wrote the words that people continue to sing to this day and deserves recognition for that achievement.

    Reply
    • mackdaddyg says

      June 20, 2014 at 8:28 am

      Right on. I saw the title "Carole King's ex-husband dies" and thought "hmm...which one?"

      Once I clicked on the link and saw the info about Goffin, I just shook my head. The songs he helped create is much more important than who he was married to (although they did write a bunch of songs together).

      Nice piece on Goffin. Thanks for sharing.

      Reply
  6. Spencer says

    June 20, 2014 at 10:22 am

    Nice tribute, Joe!

    Reply
  7. John H says

    June 20, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    Very nice. Unlike Carole King, he didn't make it as a solo artist, and perhaps that's why the tributes today seemed oddly subdued. But as a songwriter, he's immortal.

    Reply

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