Karen Carpenter’s Voice

God makes amazing people

One of the things I do at bedtime is play music. I have it on a timer and usually I am deep asleep long before the music cuts off. Sometimes I play symphonies, sometimes piano sonatas, or classical guitar. Some of this music I own because I know how generally unpopular it is, but other more popular selections I listen off a streaming service. This means I want the selection managed by someone else. After all, my main interest at these times is to fall asleep pleasantly.

Last night I selected The Carpenters Remastered Forty Biggest Hits. Although enjoyable it didn’t put me to sleep. Instead I lay there listening and thinking about life back then, pondering the question of why this music was so popular and whether or not younger people enjoy it today. Has it stood the test of time?

My short answer is probably not in general. It was toe-tapping pleasant but sort of formulaic. I mean each song had a top-hits life span of maybe a year and then predictably faded into the nostalgic background. Part of being a teenager in our culture is some sort of need to find our own music. But even back then not everyone was a Carpenters fan. I think a lot of this had to do with the fact many of our parents liked it. As for me? I liked it, but primarily for one reason I will get to in a moment.

If I had to describe in general the songs Karen Carpenter sang I would say they were light pop, nice, clean, not rebellious, with the most common topic being young people in love. Also I would describe them as well arranged, thanks primarily to her older brother Richard. Listen to any and all of them and you will find perfectly crafted pieces. Nothing really spontaneous. Even the flute, sax, and piano riffs were technically flawless which meant I’m guessing countless rehearsal hours. Even when watching their television performances it is pretty clear they were lip syncing. The sound is too good for the lack of microphones on stage. I’m not saying they weren’t playing or singing, but whatever was heard in the studio or on stage wasn’t what was heard coming out of televisions around the country. Also, I’m not saying this was unusual. It is part of creating the image they wanted created. It was the level of performance control they felt comfortable producing, which is the opposite of jazz, for example, where improvisation is the name of the game.

So now here is to me the stand out feature.

Karen’s voice.

Take any popular female singer and have her sing these songs and I don’t think they would have had the same impact. It was her voice, her lower than average three-octave range, her purity of relaxed tonal production that separated her from everyone else. It was a gift. Something she certainly trained to some extent, but not completely. And they new it. If you were to take away all the instruments and listen to her acapella I believe her effect would be the same. So what did they do? They turned down the instrumentals. They pushed her voice out more and it is for this reason so many today know the lyrics and can sing along.

Karen’s voice was warm, kind, and encouraging. That’s why even though she sang about some boy so special because the angels got together and essentially created something new (a forgivable heresy by a love-struck girl) all the boys who heard her sing this believed it true about her.

Well, she died at 32 after years suffering with anorexia nervosa. She was finalizing a divorce from her only marriage that lasted about a year. It is safe to say the happiness she sang about had not quite worked out for her. We mortals are all so complicated

Is there a lesson here? For me it is simply that God makes amazing people whose gifts are often a rich blessing even to strangers. Also that relationships matter and must be deeper in our lives than our favorite love songs.