Carole King Wrote the 1st Girl Group Song to Reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100
Carole King wrote classic rock songs for many artists. For example, she co-wrote the first girl group song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Subsequently, King discussed why she felt the song’s lyrics were so brilliant.
Carole King felt her most famous girl group song had great lyrics (which she didn’t write)
King wrote many songs with Gerry Goffin. She wrote the melodies while he wrote the lyrics. According to The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, they co-wrote The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” also known as “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” It was the first girl group song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
During a 2012 interview with NPR, King was asked when she knew Goffin was going to be her lyricist. “And what made him so extraordinary as a lyricist was his ability to say in really simple words big ideas, big feelings, big thoughts,” she said. “And the thing — for example, ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow,’ you just listen to the lyric of the first verse — ‘Tonight you’re mine completely. You give your love so sweetly. Tonight the light of love is in your eyes, but will you love me tomorrow?'”
King explained why she thought those lines were so brilliant. “Is that not what every teenage girl is thinking?” she asked. “You know, it’s — he — and he had the ability, he’s, you know, he’s a straight man, and he had the ability to get inside a woman’s head and say the things women were thinking.”
How Carole King reacted to hearing her girl group song on the radio
King was asked if she remembered when she first heard one of her songs on the radio. “It was ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow,’ and Gerry and I were in what was his and then became our, ’56 Mercury Monterrey,” she said. “And we’re listening to this coming out of the tinny speakers and we’re like, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe this.'”
King said the thrill of her hearing her songs on the radio never went away. She later did an album called Love Makes the World. When she heard the title song from that album on the radio, she was elated.
How ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ performed
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. It spent a total of 12 weeks on the chart.
The success of Goffin and King inspired others to dream big. The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon includes an interview from 1971. In it, John said he and Paul McCartney wanted to be the English version of Goffin and King. This ambition inspired the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership to write bubblegum pop songs at first.
The tune also inspired quite a few covers. Amy Winehouse recorded a version that appears on her posthumous album Lioness: Hidden Treasures. Her version of the song is considerably slower and sadder than the version of the song that hit No. 1. Taylor Swift, Linda Ronstadt, and even King herself put their own spins on the track.
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” is one of the most famous girl group songs and it wouldn’t be the same without King.
