Carole King It's Too Late: Written by a Total Stranger

By Charlie · Published September 3, 2026

Carole King It's Too Late sits on the same single as a completely different song.

Both sides of that record hit number one together in the summer of 1971.

Carole King didn't write the breakup lyrics on the A-side everyone remembers.

A poet she barely knew wrote them, in a single day, about her own breakup.

This is the chart-verified story behind both songs on that record, built from this site's own Billboard data and outside chart history.

Carole King seated at a piano in a 1971 Ode Records publicity photo, the year It's Too Late hit number one

Carole King, Ode/A&M Records publicity photo, 1971.

Image credit: Ode/A&M Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Carole King It's Too Late Started as Two Separate Songs

Ode Records released "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move" as a double A-side single on April 16, 1971.

Both tracks came from Carole King's 1971 album, recorded that January at A&M Studios in Hollywood.

Producer Lou Adler oversaw both sessions.

Billboard tracked the two songs as one combined entry on the Hot 100, the standard treatment for a double A-side.

That single chart line hides just how different the two songs actually are underneath it.

Most fans just call the whole record Carole King It's Too Late and leave it at that.

One Album, Two Very Different Moods

"I Feel the Earth Move" opens that album with a driving piano riff and blunt, physical lyrics about attraction.

One period critic called it the most sexually direct track on the whole record.

"It's Too Late" closes side one with a slower, resigned account of a relationship already over.

Radio stations often played them as a matched pair, one song right after the other.

Listeners in 1971 rarely heard just one side without the other.

The Lyricist Who Wasn't Carole King

Carole King wrote the music for "It's Too Late."

She didn't write its words.

Painter and poet Toni Stern wrote the lyrics, and she wrote them fast.

By her own account, Stern finished the words in a single day, right after her own relationship with singer James Taylor ended.

King then set Stern's finished lyrics to music, working from a breakup that wasn't hers.

The most famous heartbreak lyric of King's career came from someone else's heartbreak entirely.

A Songwriting Partnership Built on Trust

King and Stern had worked together before on other songs.

Stern trusted King enough to hand over deeply personal lyrics without steering how they'd sound.

King, in turn, never rewrote Stern's words to fit her own experience.

"I Feel the Earth Move" went the opposite direction entirely.

King wrote both the words and the music for that song alone, with no outside lyricist involved.

One single, one shared album, two completely different songwriting processes.

The Musicians Behind Both Sides of the Single

Both sessions leaned on the same small circle of musicians King used throughout that album.

Carole King It's Too Late needed the fullest arrangement of the two songs to carry its slower, resigned mood.

"It's Too Late" carried the fuller arrangement of the two, built around a saxophone solo that became one of the song's signatures.

Carole King: piano, vocals
Curtis Amy: soprano saxophone
Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar: electric guitar, congas
Charles Larkey: bass guitar
Joel O'Brien: drums
Ralph Schuckett: electric piano

"I Feel the Earth Move" used a leaner lineup built for a harder, rhythmic groove.

Carole King: piano, vocals
Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar: electric guitar
Charles Larkey: bass guitar
Joel O'Brien: drums

Larkey wasn't just a session player.

He was King's boyfriend at the time and later became her husband, the same year the single topped the chart.

Hear both sides for yourself at It's Too Late / I Feel the Earth Move on the Music of the 70s jukebox.

Five Weeks at Number One, Four Different Charts

This site's own weekly Billboard data confirms Carole King It's Too Late held that number one spot for a full run on the Hot 100.

It held the top spot for five straight chart weeks, from June 19 through July 23, 1971.

That run also shows up clearly on other charts tracked at the time.

It's Too Late / I Feel the Earth Move across every chart it hit in 1971
Chart	Peak Position	Notes
Billboard Hot 100 (US)	No. 1	Five weeks, June 19 to July 23, 1971
Billboard Year-End Hot 100 (1971)	No. 3	Confirmed by this site's own year-end data
Billboard Adult Contemporary (US)	No. 1	Topped the era's easy listening chart the same summer
Cash Box Top 100 Year-End (1971)	No. 2	Cash Box's own competing year-end recap
RPM Top Singles (Canada)	No. 1	Matched its US Hot 100 run
UK Singles Chart	No. 6	King's strongest UK single showing of the decade

A Platinum Single From a Diamond Album

The RIAA certified the single platinum, for sales of a million copies.

The BPI certified it gold in the UK, for 400,000 copies.

The album itself sold even further, becoming the best-selling record of the entire decade.

Carole King It's Too Late helped carry that album to fifteen straight weeks at number one on the Billboard 200.

Explore how that chart run compares to other number ones of the era with the Random 70s Song Generator.

One Grammy Award for Two Songs

The 14th Annual Grammy Awards took place on March 14, 1972.

Carole King It's Too Late won Record of the Year that night.

The award went to that side of the single specifically, not to "I Feel the Earth Move."

The distinction matters, since most listeners think of the single as one inseparable record rather than two separately credited songs.

The Recording Academy later inducted "It's Too Late" into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, a separate honor from the original win.

Rolling Stone has ranked the song among its 500 greatest songs of all time in more than one published version of that list.

See how the Grammy year stacks up against the rest of Carole King's catalog with the Mood Song Matcher, which tags her music reflective and nostalgic.

The Cover Version an Earthquake Ended

"I Feel the Earth Move" got a second life in 1989, nearly two decades after the original topped the Hot 100.

Singer Martika recorded a dance-pop version and released it that August.

Her cover reached number 2 in Australia.

It also hit number 7 on the UK Singles Chart, a real hit in its own right.

A Title That Turned Into a Problem

On October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck Northern California during the World Series.

Radio programmers pulled Martika's cover from rotation within days.

A song called "I Feel the Earth Move" was the last thing stations wanted playing after a real one.

The cover's chart run collapsed almost immediately afterward.

Carole King's original never ran into that problem, since nothing like it happened in the summer of 1971.

The song remains part of the wider 70s soft rock scene King helped define that year.

Head back to Music of the 70s to explore more of the charts this single once ruled.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Carole King's song It's Too Late actually about?

Carole King wrote the music for It's Too Late, but poet Toni Stern wrote the lyrics about the end of her own relationship with James Taylor.

Stern wrote the words in a single day.

King set them to music separately, so the breakup the song describes was Stern's, not King's own marriage.

Did Carole King write It's Too Late by herself?

No, Carole King wrote only the music for It's Too Late.

Toni Stern wrote the lyrics.

King did write I Feel the Earth Move, the song's other side, entirely on her own.

Words and music both came from her alone, making the single a mix of solo and collaborative songwriting.

How many weeks did Carole King's It's Too Late spend at number one?

The double A-side single spent five consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

That run lasted from June 19 through July 23, 1971.

Billboard's year-end recap for 1971 ranked the single third for the whole calendar year.

Did It's Too Late win a Grammy Award?

Yes, It's Too Late won Record of the Year at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in March 1972.

The award went to that side of the single specifically, not to I Feel the Earth Move.

The Recording Academy inducted It's Too Late into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003.

What happened to Martika's cover of I Feel the Earth Move?

Singer Martika released a dance-pop cover of I Feel the Earth Move in August 1989 that reached number 2 in Australia and number 7 in the UK.

Weeks later the Loma Prieta earthquake struck Northern California, and radio stations pulled the song from playlists because of its title, ending its chart run.