Neil Sedaka – Oh! Carol

todayAugust 28, 2019 91 3

Oldies '60s

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“Oh! Carol” – Single by Neil Sedaka from the album Neil Sedaka Sings Little Devil and His Other Hits
Released in 1959.

Neil Sedaka named this song for the songwriter Carole King. They went to Abraham Lincoln High in Brooklyn, New York along with Neil Diamond. Carol (as her birth name of Carol Klein, before she picked the stage-surname of “King”) first came into Neil Sedaka’s life as a member of the Linc-Tones, the first group that Sedaka hustled together out of high school. Despite what impression Neil might have left, they did not date.

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Neil Sedaka’s career was on the rocks before this song. At Aldon music, producer and longtime friend Don Kirshner gave Sedaka the following advice: “Write a song with the girl’s name in the title. Talk in the middle like The Diamonds did in ‘Little Darlin’.'”

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“Oh! Carol” was co-written with Howard Greenfield, a longtime collaborator of Sedaka. In the aforementioned book, the story is that Sedaka and Greenfield were neighbors as kids; Sedaka would play piano in his apartment, and Greenfield’s mother urged him to go meet him. Thus, they first worked together when Sedaka was 13 and Greenfield was 16.

The ladies singing falsetto behind Sedaka’s middle spoken bridge are The Kittens, a girl trio group who Al Nevins had hanging around the studio. When Sedaka recorded, everybody thought something was missing. Nevins turned to The Kittens and asked them to fill in.

Carole King released an answer song later in 1959 called “Oh, Neil,” which was written by Sedaka, Greenfield, and King’s husband, Gerry Goffin. That one begins:

Oh Neil
I’ve loved you for so long
I never dreamed
You’d put me in song

Neil Sedaka "Oh Carol"

Lyrics:
Oh! Carol, I am but a fool
Darling, I love you, though you treat me cruel
You hurt me and you make me cry
But if you leave me, I will surely die

Darling, there will never be another
Cause I love you so
Don’t ever leave me, say you’ll never go

I will always want you for my sweetheart
No matter what you do
Oh! Carol, I’m so in love with you

Oh! Carol, I am but a fool
Darling, I love you, though you treat me cruel
You hurt me and you make me cry
But if you leave me, I will surely die

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