Carole King's "Home Again"

About four months ago, I wrote about Carole King's "It's Too Late."  Instead of transcribing the lyrics myself, I referenced those in the liner notes of Tapestry, and - in doing so - I found an interesting line break in "Home Again."

There's a slight pause after "I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else" before it's completed with "Knows how to comfort me tonight."  Before it's completed, that "nobody else" seems to be the direct object of "need" instead of the subject of an-other clause.  So it could be rendered as "I really need someone to talk to and nobody else."  As long as that pause continues, there's a different meaning to that line.  With "nobody else" as a direct object of "need," "someone to talk to" acquires an exclusivity (something like "I need nobody else but someone to talk to").

Of course, the completion of the line provides that same specificity ("Nobody else / Knows how to comfort me tonight"), but it's artfully done via that pause and the ambiguity of what function "nobody else" plays.

Carole King's "It's Too Late"

A couple months ago, I happened to hear Carole King's "It's Too Late" on the radio.  I hadn't heard it for about five months, and I don't think I'd listened to it that much, but in any case, I noticed an interesting poetic thing about the chorus:

But it's too late, baby, it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Something inside has died, and I can't hide
And I just can't fake it

There's internal rhyme in the third line ("inside," "died," and "hide") which I hadn't noticed, but it doesn't end there.  The "I" in "I can't hide" has the same vowel sound as those "-ide"s.  So there's that internal rhyme, but with the "I" there's also assonance, resulting in four mellifluous elements in the line:  "inside," "died," "I," and "hide."

Listening to the Tapestry album so I could write this post, I also noticed that there are backing vocals ("We can't make it") after the line "Though we really did try to make it."  I don't think I'd really paid attention to those either, but that's the sort of thing I'm always excited to find: instances where the backing vocals are sort of duplicitous when compared to the main vocals.  I'm not sure I would describe the relationship between the main and backing vocals here as duplicitous, but they do have slightly different perspectives.  The main vocals seem sort of regretful that a relationship is ending, but the backing vocals seem more adamant that it can't work.