2. CarpentersYesterday Once More

This was the soundtrack of my early childhood. While my dad listened to The Kinks, my mum would sing along to The Walker Brothers and, more often, to Carpenters albums while ironing, driving, or cooking dinner. She knew all the words to every one of their songs, and, as a result, so did my sisters and I. Karen Carpenter’s voice was so otherworldly, so perfect in tone and control, and, in my opinion, remains unmatched to this day for timbre and her ability to convey vast depths of sorrow. I was 10 years old when Karen’s death was announced on the radio. Mum was devastated, and as I watched her mourn someone she’d never met, but who had touched her life so immeasurably, I immediately understood the strength of the singer-audience connection. Karen was an extremely talented drummer and reluctantly became the frontwoman. I later learned the reasons for her early death and how fragile the human psyche can be when facing an industry that offers very little support and harms its most talented. 

Lucy O’Brien’s beautiful book, Lead Sister: The Story Of Karen Carpenter, is well worth reading. After attending her book launch in 2023, I started playing this album again, always my favourite of theirs, having shelved it for so long. On first listen after many years, I was transported back in time to my mum driving my siblings and me home from our swimming lesson, eating crisps, with towels wrapped around our heads, listening to mum’s and Karen’s lovely voices as they took us home along the winding roads of the Dorset countryside. Such is the power of music.