It's Too Late

Album

Tapestry

Label

Ode Records

Genre

Soft Rock

Composer(s)

Carole King;Toni Stern

Entered Chart

May 8, 1971

Peak Date

Jun 19, 1971

Released

April 16, 1971

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Ode 66015

B-Side

I Feel The Earth Move

Carole King wrote this with Toni Stern, a free-spirited painter and lyricist from Los Angeles who complemented King very well. Said Stern: "I'm sure there was a California quality in me that appealed to Carole. She was moving from a familial, middle class lifestyle to Laurel Canyon, where she started to let her hair down, literally and figuratively. We worked off our contrasts." Stern would usually agonize over lyrics, but she wrote these very quickly. Stern also worked with King on the Tapestry track "Where You Lead." This intimate song is a great example of the singer/songwriter sound that King helped popularized. Over a moody melody, King sings about how she realizes her once-promising relationship is over. While she's putting on a brave face, she's feeling tormented inside. This was released as the B-side to "I Feel the Earth Move." After a few weeks of continuous airplay with "I Feel the Earth Move," many DJs all over the States decided to give "It's Too Late" an equal amount of airplay. Soon, it came to the point where everyone preferred "It's Too Late," which ended up topping the charts by May of 1971. "I Feel the Earth Move" never charted. In the "You're So Vain" vein, this song was rumored to be about James Taylor, who was good friends with King and played on the Tapestry. In early 1971, Taylor and King toured together with King the opening act. Many people tended to think that this song was about a short romance between the two. King never confirmed these rumors, and Taylor later dated and married Carly Simon. Toni Stern, however, did have a relationship with Taylor and wrote the lyrics after they broke up and he moved on to Joni Mitchell, but she won't confirm it's about the troubadour. "I won't say who 'It's Too Late' is about," she told Sheila Weller, author of Girls Like Us. "I don't kiss and tell." This song won a Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1972. In addition, her song "You've Got a Friend" won a Grammy for Song Of The Year, and her album Tapestry won Grammys for Album Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Report an ad Some people saw a political message in this song, as the idealism of the '60s had faded and the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968 had left a young generation jaded, believing that "It's too late" to change things. Other artists who have covered this song include Gloria Estefan, Denise LaSalle, Johnny Mathis, The Stylistics, Kyle Vincent and Andy Williams. >> This was used in the 2006 movie The Lake House starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. >> Curtis Amy played sax on this song, and his wife at the time, Merry Clayton, sang backup on some songs for the album. Amy played the sax solo on The Doors' "Touch Me." Amy Grant recorded this for the 1995 album Tapestry Revisited: A Tribute to Carole King.

Stayed in bed all mornin' just to pass the time
There's somethin' wrong here, there can be no denyin'
One of us is changin', or maybe we've just stopped tryin'

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no, no, no, no
(No, no, no, no)

It used to be so easy, livin' here with you
You were light and breezy, and I knew just what to do
Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no

There'll be good times again for me and you
But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it, too?
Still I'm glad for what we had and how I once loved you

But it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no, no, no, no

It's too late, baby
It's too late now, darling
It's too late