1975 Songs: Solitaire

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There’s got to be a morning after, as the song said. (That was 1973, so don’t worry about it showing up this year.) I stayed home today to stay out of the way of the crews cleaning up and restoring power. A good lunch, and now it’s time for the next song from 1975. I promised you he’d be back, and here he is!! Solitaire - Carpenters Yes, Sedaka is back!! Now, Neil has a high voice, but not this high. No, he wrote this great ballad. After his career fizzled in the 60s, Sedaka’s comeback started in England. This song was quite well known there, both by Sedaka and through covers (including Andy Williams ), as far back as 1973. Fast forward to 1975, and the Carpenters are at the tail end of their US success story. This was one of their final big hits. Karen Carpenter could have sung the phone book and made it sound great (if you doubt me, listen to their very ill-advised cover of Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”). She delivered big time on their version of this. As frequently happens with hits, Karen didn’t like this song. Richard picked it to showcase her talent (like that needed any help), but she wasn’t impressed. You can’t tell that through her delivery, though. For the record, Sedaka had a #1 song on his own (“Bad Blood,” previously used) and wrote the #1 song of 1975 (“Love Will Keep Us Together”), and had other hits (this one as a writer and his own ballad version of “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” [which he said was how he originally wrote the song, but his record label at the time didn’t want to ruin his “upbeat song” reputation]), so it was a great year for him as well. Any year with Karen Carpenter’s voice was a great one. Solitaire Written by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody Recorded by the Carpenters From Horizon, 1975 While life goes on around him everywhere: