Summary of Carole King's A Natural Woman

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I was born in 1942 in New York City. My name at birth was Carol Joan Klein. It would take me five decades to realize that my surname was Glayman, which means small in German. My parents met in an elevator at Brooklyn College in 1936, and my father was studying chemistry; my mother’s majors were English and drama.

#2 I was born in Manhattan on February 9, 1942. My father was a fireman, and my mother took care of me and the house. The first piece of furniture in their home was a piano, which my mother eventually taught me to play.

#3 Perfect pitch is when a note matches up consistently with that note in your memory. With relative pitch, you may not be able to sing or identify a note perfectly the first time, but once you know the first note, you can correctly sing and identify the rest of them.

#4 I had begun making up songs when I was three. I would improvise words and melodies while my little fingers pounded out a rudimentary accompaniment on the piano. I learned how to play the piano when I was four.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822537354

IRB Media

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Insights on Carole King's A Natural Woman

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was born in 1942 in New York City. My name at birth was Carol Joan Klein. It would take me five decades to realize that my surname was Glayman, which means small in German. My parents met in an elevator at Brooklyn College in 1936, and my father was studying chemistry; my mother’s majors were English and drama.

#2

I was born in Manhattan on February 9, 1942. My father was a fireman, and my mother took care of me and the house. The first piece of furniture in their home was a piano, which my mother eventually taught me to play.

#3

Perfect pitch is when a note matches up consistently with that note in your memory. With relative pitch, you may not be able to sing or identify a note perfectly the first time, but once you know the first note, you can correctly sing and identify the rest of them.

#4

I had begun making up songs when I was three. I would improvise words and melodies while my little fingers pounded out a rudimentary accompaniment on the piano. I learned how to play the piano when I was four.

#5

My mother enrolled me in kindergarten when I was four. By the end of the school year, I had demonstrated such an exceptional facility with words and numbers that my teachers promoted me directly to second grade.

#6

I loved the radio not only because it was the center of a pleasurable activity that drew my family together, but also because it was the source of a wealth of words, sounds, stories, and music.

#7

I was six when I first watched The Children’s Hour, a show my mother took me to audition for in 1950. I was chosen to perform with a friend, and my mother was ecstatic. I was happy for her, but more excited for myself.

#8

I was ten when I entered seventh grade, and I was intimidated by the apparent popularity of the older kids. I was a little smaller than other seventh graders, and the changes of puberty weren’t even in my thoughts.

#9

The 1950s were a decade of conformity, and I learned from my father that there were two sides to everything: us versus them. The prevailing message was that America’s enemy was the Soviet Union, and that communism would take over the world.

#10

In the 1950s, white teenagers were inspired to form couples and dance to the music of black American performers such as the Penguins and Ruth Brown.

#11

The first event that affected me was when I was almost nine, in 1951, when my two-year-old brother was diagnosed as profoundly deaf and what was then called severely retarded. I didn’t like living as an only child, and I wanted my brother to be normal.

#12

I was both son and daughter to my parents, and I felt I owed it to Richard and my parents to make up for what he couldn’t do. I was proud of my brother’s instinct to challenge authority and his displays of spunk.

#13

I was 11