Who wrote it

You've Got a Friend

Written by Carole King — James Taylor had the hit single

James Taylor’s recording went to No. 1 and won him a Grammy, and for most listeners it simply is ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. But he didn’t write it, and he wasn’t the first to record it: Carole King wrote every word and note, and released her own version on Tapestry the same year.

The credit

Who wrote it

Written by
Carole King
Written
1971 (sole writer)
First recording
Carole King, Tapestry (February 1971)
The hit
James Taylor, single (April 1971)

Definitive version James Taylor’s 1971 single — his only US No. 1, and the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.

How we traced it

The song is credited solely to Carole King on both recordings and in its 1972 Grammy win for Song of the Year — an award that goes to the writer, not the performer.

King recorded it herself for Tapestry, released in February 1971. James Taylor cut his version around the same time — with King playing piano on it — and released it as a single that April; it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 that summer.

Taylor won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance (Male) for the recording; King won Song of the Year for the writing. The two awards, to two different people for the same song, are the cleanest record of who did what.

You've Got a Friend — song history
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Context

Why the singer gets the credit

This is not a case of anyone being wrongly credited — James Taylor really did record ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, and it’s one of his signature performances. What gets lost is that the song is Carole King’s, top to bottom.

It’s an easy thing to lose. A hit single puts a face and a voice to a song, and that pairing is what sticks; the person who wrote the words at a piano months earlier rarely does. King and Taylor were close collaborators — she played on his record, he sang on hers — which makes the split especially easy to blur.

Two Grammys, one song: Taylor for singing it, King for writing it.

The songwriter

Carole King

b. 1942 · American singer-songwriter

One of the most successful songwriters of the 20th century, first with Gerry Goffin in the Brill Building era and then on her own. Tapestry (1971), which includes her own recording of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, was one of the best-selling albums of its decade.

The definitive recording

James Taylor

b. 1948 · American singer-songwriter

His 1971 single of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ became his only US No. 1 and won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male. He wrote much of his own catalogue — but not this one.