I too like them. Perhaps it is a yearning for simpler times, but I usually find their music to be very sweet and uplifting.
I too love the Carpenters and have since they first came on the scene. “Superstar”, “Rainy Days and Mondays”, heck, even “Sing” still get me singing along in the car (thank you, satellite radio '70s channel!). In fact, about the only songs by them I don’t care for are “Close to You” (dunno why, just annoys me) and their insipid cover of "Please Mr. Postman."BTW, how come everyone uses “We’ve Only Just Begun” as a wedding song when “For All We Know” is, IMHO, far superior musically and lyrically?
Another fan checking in. I think “Good-bye to Love” is one of the saddest songs ever written especially sung by Karen whose sad demise seemed to fit the lyrics. Such a sweet, sad haunting voice at least in my opinion.
When I graduated eighth grade “Top of the World” was our class song reworked with new lyrics. “We are the class of 78 looking back upon the years, we have many reminiscent tales to tell of the friends we have made and the plans have we have laid (alternate lyrics were girls or boys we have laid;) ) St. John’s we would like to thank you tonight.”
For one, the lyrics of WOJB are fairly explicitly about a wedding/new marriage (“white lace and promises”). If the made-for-TV movie is correct and memory serves, WOJB was originally a commercial for a bank, which used wedding imagery.
FAWK seems to me to be more about the beginning of a romantic relationship, or perhaps a friendship that may turn into a romantic relationship. The singer is asking Love to look at them, because love may develop but only with the passage of time will it be known if they will actually fall in love (“and love may grow / for all we know”).
From Allmusic.com:
One of the coolest Carpenters recordings is their Burt Bacharach medley. The vocal harmonies are outstanding and the piece is actually somewhat complex. Top 40, it ain’t.
Damn, now it is stuck in my head.
I am pleased to be counted as a fan of the Carpenters. It always seemed odd to me that Karen wanted to be considered a drummer first (and a competent one, too) and a vocalist second. I am convinced she did not realize herself just how hauntingly powerful her voice was (is).
Just in case he doesn’t see this thread, Clothahump is a Carpenters fan, too.
It’s not exactly a wedding song - “and love may grow, for all we know” doesn’t seem like quite the line to sing when you’ve already decided to tie the knot! - but I agree it’s definitely better than WOJB. It’s one of my favorites, along with “Yesterday Once More” and “Rainy Days and Mondays.”
Glad to know I’m not alone as a Carpenters fan - my friends consider me a walking anachronism when it comes to my music tastes. (Simon & Garfunkel, Cohen, Baez, Dylan… I was born 20 years too late.)
She felt more comfortable sitting behind the drum kit so people couldn’t see how fat she was.
Sad, I know, but that’s really how she thought. Her body image was that screwed up. Anything that helped to hide her body was a comfort to her. She didn’t like being in front of the band, in the spotlight, on display.
I love the Carpenters too. Karen’s voice was so richly textured and beautiful, they had the discerning taste to choose great songs (and Richard wrote some pretty good ones too).
Richard’s arrangments were unique and interesting- his arrangment for “Ticket to Ride” totally reinvents the song (I don’t really like what he did with the backing vocals on this song, but the rest of it, particuarly the piano intro and the verses are beautiful).
I still have all my original Carpenters albums as well as the CDs. For years while I was in school the Carpenters were my guilty pleasure, one I shared with my mother. Very few of my peers at the time could appreciate the music and the talent it took to create it. Fortunately I had a mother who did and it was her that made me appreciate the depth of the gift that *both *of the Capenters held. Most people never really paid that much attention to Richard, seeing him as just the piano player, but that man was gifted just as much as Karen was. I think my mother admired him more than she did Karen, being a pianist herself. I honestly mourned when Karen died, as much for the complete waste of a life as for the loss of her voice and the future music they would never play. The music cataloge they left us with is pitifully small to what it could have-and should have- been.
I got into the Carpenters as a child, when I used to play my mom’s old records. I found her Carpenters albums and got hooked. (This was after Karen had died, sadly).
Another Carpenters fan here. Nothing much to add except whatever happened to Richard?
This thread has had “Superstar” going through my head so often that today I declicked and denoised my single mix of the record, because it’s different from the mix you get on CD now. I have it on 3 different CDs, and they’re all remixes. I discovered that it starts out flat, gains normal pitch in the middle and goes flat again at the end! So I fixed that, too.
How you do that, especially the clicks? I put my Very Nearly Perfect Tommy on CD last night (not just a vinyl fan but also cheap) and the absolutely minimal surface noise does not bother me but there are some disks that could stand fixing.
Dammit, Sam, I thought I could usually agree with you when we got away from politics, but she DID do quality stuff. Superstar was far too good to waste on Top 40. This Masquerade was one of the great Pop Masterpieces–Leon Russell couldn’t even ruin it when he sang it. And how dare you insult Perfect Pop Masterpieces; you’d know how hard it is to write one if you tried. 
Can you IMAGINE how great she’d be? Better yet–had she been born twenty or thirty years earlier and placed in the care of, say, Nelson Riddle…the mind boggles!
See this thread where I went through the procedure in excruciating detail with Fenris last year. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
There’s nothing I like better than excruciating detail. thanks!
What, there are people who DON’T like The Carpenters? I mean, I guess they must exist, but I thought they would be a minority. Hopefully a persecuted one.
When they get to the part where he’s breaking her heart, it can really make me cry, just like before…
I, too, adore the Carpenters, and used their recordings to extend my vocal range. So now I’m a second alto instead of a first soprano, and I love it! Last night my son and I went for a drive to the store, and We’ve Only Just Begun came on…I was in heaven! He had to endure, because the driver controls the radio! Now if I could just locate sheet music for the the little interlude thing they did on one album…I use it as a warm-up piece, and I’d love my choir to sing it since the harmonies are so cool… can’t remeber the name right noe, but it goes
For those whose eyes would see,
render them in faith to me.
For all those seeking peace,
In my arms their strife will cease.
And place in me the agony you bear,
Nothing can impair
The perfect love I bring
In a simple…
Well, I read somewhere we’re not supposed to post complete lyrics, so I’ll leave it there, but I remembered the title…
Offering
Darn it, I was wrong, it’s ** Invocation**, not Offering…Offering was an album title.
I’m sorry but that lyric sucked! 