Carole King – Tapestry lyrics

Carole King – Tapestry lyrics

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

Once amid the soft silver sadness in the sky
There came a man of fortune, a drifter passing by
He wore a torn and tattered cloth around his leathered hide
And a coat of many colors, yellow-green on either side

He moved with some uncertainty, as if he didn't know
Just what he was there for, or where he ought to go
Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree
And his hand come down empty

Soon within my tapestry along the rutted road
He sat down on a river rock and turned into a toad
It seemed that he had fallen into someone's wicked spell
And I wept to see him suffer, though I didn't know him well

As I watched in sorrow, there suddenly appeared
A figure gray and ghostly beneath a flowing beard
In times of deepest darkness, I've seen him dressed in black
Now my tapestry's unraveling; he's come to take me back
He's come to take me back

Lyrics taken from /lyrics/c/carole_king/tapestry.html

Songwriters: Carole King

Tapestry lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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+ 8
Cloris Q Von Cracken 2015-10-02 21:44:43

The meaning of CK's songs speak to me in a different way each time I listen, depending on the particular season of life I find myself. The "Tapestry" album is one of my forever favorites - I grew up on it, singing and playing it on the piano, religiously. With age, the lyrics take on deeper meaning, but still sound as fresh as the first time. Thank you Carole.

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+ 6
Unregistered 2012-03-28 14:32:04

'ms king is so intelligent I assure you my simple meaning is worthless, but since you asked--this song is for me the story of my husband. He came from a wealthy family, we met fell in love and had a wonderful family. He had a good job, it was all there for him, but it was all a struggle for him battling his demons of addiction for about 40 years. One day he was murdered by homeless man who robbed him. My life is now totally unraveling and I will go on, but I sure hope there is more out there and I will see him again someday somewhere.

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+ 5
Unregistered 2012-04-13 15:26:21

Ya know, in the early "olden" days of king (& i), "he" was the accepted norm of "he or she", "mankind" did not omit "womenfolk. " feminists of the day saw themselves equal, if not superior, to men, but wanted their distinctive "ms. " I would say, as a part of king's culture of the 70's, which included a romantic return to camelot, the man was just that, who women often expected to fulfill their dreams. Yet he could not shed his noncomformity, and perhaps his own disguised "fortunes," to commit and catch "something golden" with her. Her prince is a toad of a one-night stand. So the man of darkness (depression) comes back to claim her again.

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+ 4
TamaraAnita 2015-08-03 16:40:10

According to King, Lou Adler, who owned King's record company Ode Records, produced the Tapestry album, taking care not to overproduce it. In a 1972 recorded conversation with Adler, Carole King said of this song: "It is typical of the magic that seems to surround that album, a magic for which I feel no personal responsibility, but just sort of happened, that I had started a needlepoint tapestry a few months before we did the album, and I happened to write a song called 'Tapestry', not even connecting the two up in my mind. I was just thinking about some other kind of tapestry, the kind that hangs and is all woven, or something, and I wrote that song. And, you [Lou] being the sharp fellow you are, (giggles), put the two together and came up with an excellent title, a whole concept for the album."

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+ 1
Hana Edelblum 2019-11-03 13:59:59

I interpreted the third eye of the intuitive Ms. King as viewing a beautiful tapestry from a distance and suddenly seeing her "prince" stop near a stream. A romantic image,especially since she is helpless to save him from his past of a bad romantic decision and yet she knows for reasons of his own shallow values, she nonetheless mourns his downfall in life. Her unexpressed longing for him, on one hand, is frustrating since he sounded clueless as to her own intentions at the start, not knowing why he was there. . On the other, he may be a jigalo player, like J.Alfred Prufrock, afraid to ask in polite circles.. An almost welcome darkness and delusion entices her with the dual nature of her infatuation with the prince.She struggles with herself. The dilemma is whether or not to die heroically, faithful to the end.. Viewing her tapestry from a distance is safe place to create a fairy tale worthy of Tcaichovsky's Swan Lake.. The song is beautiful for a lot of people....

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Kholmberg 2008-04-28 13:32:28

I think that the rutted road represents her life. Because rutted roads are unpredictable and have many ups and downs just like everyday life. I also think that when she says that she finds herself within the tapestry she is finding secrurity from reality and that is why she wraps herself in it while she walks down the rutted road (her life). I also think that when she uses He in the like He sat down on a river rock, she is referring to herself because she is confused about her itentity and her sexuality and is trying to find herslef.

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