Today’s classic soft rock song of the day is “For All We Know,” made famous by the Carpenters. This single, released in January of 1971, reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #1 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart.
“For All We Know” was written by Fred Karlin (music) and the team of Robb Royer and Jimmy Griffin (lyrics) for the 1970 movie, Lovers and Other Strangers. Larry Meredith performed the song on the film’s soundtrack and it won an Oscar for Best Original Song.
Richard Carpenter watched the movie, heard the song, and decided it would be a good one for the Carpenters to record. Musicians on this track included Earle Dumler on oboe, Joe Osborn on bass, and Hal Blaine on drums. Richard Carpenter played all the keyboards (acoustic piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, and Hammond organ) and arranged the vocals and strings. Karen Carpenter sang lead, of course, and she and Richard performed all the background vocals.
Interestingly, that oboe in the intro was originally intended to be an acoustic guitar solo, performed by Jose Feliciano. Feliciano actually recorded the solo, but the next day his manager called up Richard and requested to erase his part from the recording, for whatever reason. Richard replaced that guitar into with an oboe solo by Earle Dumler, and that was perfect.
Speaking of perfect, today’s daily bonus video of the day is Karen and Richard Carpenter performing “For All We Know” live at the BBC on November 6, 1971. Man, I love her voice.
