Girls Like Us

Having grown up listening to Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and to a lesser extent, Carly Simon, I was thoroughly captivated by this triple biography by Sheila Weller. The title tells it all: Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon -- And the Journey of a Generation, although I was born a little too late (and with no musical talent) to experience life in the '60s as they did. The book provides back stories for many of my favorite songs. Like, did you know that when Joni Mitchell wrote "Carey" and "California", she was fleeing from what she had come to see as a smothering love affair with Graham Nash (who wrote "Our House" about their relationship)? Or that she wrote "Circle Game" in response to Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain"?

This book is full of titillating stories about not only the three women, but many other musicians who filled the airways with the music I still love - James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Crosby Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne -- the list goes on and on. I was reminded of the time (it must have been in the early '70s) when I went to see James Taylor. Carole King, whom I had never heard of, opened for him and and blew everyone away.

The book isn't all gossip - Weller also provides some insight into the music industry, the process of songwriting, and how our society and culture changed over the last four decades of the 20th century. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am still humming tunes from these three great women in music.