Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon–And the Journey of a Generation
Sheila Weller
Atria Books, 2008 (hardcover) (ISBN 0743491475 / 9780743491471)
Biography/music/history, 592 pages
First Sentence: One day after school,
fourteen-year-old Carole Klein sat on the edge of her bed in a room
wallpapered with pictures of movie stars and the singers who played
Alan Freed’s rock ‘n’ roll shows at the Brooklyn Paramount.
enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct.
Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York
City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly
Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They
collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath
of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories
trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation — female version —
but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché.
The history of the women of that generation has never been written —
until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs.
are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating
biography reads like a novel — except it’s all true, and the heroines
are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each
woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new
information.
to break tradition and become what none had been before them —
confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul.
Comments: When I was offered this book for review, the PR e-mail had this to say:
“(T)his book isn’t just for women who were kids when Carole King wrote the music for ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?'”
It’s for women who just love pop music. Women who may not love music so
much, but heard the songs of King, Mitchell and Simon as the soundtrack
to their personal lives and struggles. The daughters of those women,
who want to understand their mothers better. Fans of pop culture. And,
not least, the men who love those women — or that music.
GIRLS LIKE US can appeal to such a cross-section of readers because
it’s really two books in one. The first is a dishy triple biography
that will keep readers awake — and turning the pages — late at
night or on the laziest beach day. The second is a social history of
the women’s movement in America; it’s a chronicle of a thousand
crazy-quilt changes in relationships, careers and expectations.”
A sales pitch, of course, but as it turns out, not an oversell.
During my childhood and early teens in the early- to mid-1970’s, I
remember frequently hearing Carly Simon and Carole King on the radio,
and Joni Mitchell to a lesser extent; at the very least, we knew
Carly’s song “Anticipation” from those commercials for a very slow
ketchup, and Carole’s “You’ve Got a Friend” from youth group. And although my consciousness of the world, and what place I
might have in it as I grew into an American woman, was being formed at
that time, I wasn’t aware of how these women were part of what was
re-shaping that world. The generational “journey” that frames Girls Like Us is that of the generation just a bit before my own.
The context of social change and how it impacted women at that time,
particularly the ones emerging into adulthood, gives the book
substance, but the stories that it tells within that context are what
make it a page-turner. Weller has done a lot of research and made good
use of secondary sources in developing this parallel biography of three
women who have more in common than you might have realized.
Weller does discuss each woman’s particular musical career in (mostly
objective) detail. Carole was barely out of high school in Brooklyn
when she started out as a professional songwriter and arranger, and was
a seasoned pro when, ten years later, she became a hugely successful
singer-songwriter. Canadian Joni was always driven toward artistic
expression, both musically and visually, and on her own terms. Carly’s
privileged Manhattan upbringing led to a relatively late start on her
career, as it interfered with her being taken seriously. As Weller
discussed the writing of various songs, quoting lyric passages here and
there, I found that a lot of them were coming back to me, even if I
hadn’t thought of them in years.
The context is enlightening and the work is interesting, but the book
is also a biography, and it’s in these women’s personal stories that
the real fascination – and fun – is. While I didn’t feel that Weller
struck a gossipy tone at all, much of anyone’s biography involves their
relationships, and these three women definitely have had many of them
in their lives. Carole was a teenage working mother, and played a
maternal role with many of her friends as well – and this tendency was
probably also a factor in her attraction to younger men (she’s been
married four times, and all except her first husband were younger).
Both Carly and Joni were rarely without male companionship unless it
was by their own choice, and both have been part of musical power
couples at various times. Joni was the inspiration for Crosby, Stills,
and Nash’s song “Our House” (she and Graham Nash were living together
when he wrote it), and later was James Taylor’s girlfriend. James and
Carole were platonic friends, but eventually Carly became his wife. The
overlaps in all three women’s social and artistic circles are
interesting, if a little confusing. I really felt like I’d gotten to
know all of them pretty well by the time the book wrapped up, and I
enjoyed having the opportunity to do so.
Girls Like Us is put together well, and rarely dull
reading, even if you’re not a huge fan of these artists (not a big Joni
fan, to be honest; I appreciate a lot of her songwriting, but never
liked her much as a singer, and while her “beauty” is often mentioned
in the book, I guess I just don’t quite see it), although I think some
familiarity with them will make it more enjoyable. It’s a thick
hardcover, though, so keep that in mind if you tend to carry your
reading material with you.
Rating: 4/5
I used to listen to Carly Simon all the time growing up. I’m familiar with the other two but less so. I don’t normally read books like this, but it does sound like a good one.
Literary Feline – I like memoirs, but I don’t read many celebrity bios, because many of them are just so gossipy in tone. The fact that this one really wasn’t (although there was certainly plenty of gossip fodder in these women’s stories) was one of the things I liked best about it; the other was fitting those stories into the second-wave feminism context.