I Wanna Be A Guitar Hero (Carpenters - Goodbye To Love)

LXXXII
"And all I know of love is how to live without it, I just can't seem to find it"

GOODBYE TO LOVE

Carpenters

A Song For You

A&M

1972

This one is pretty much like mine

(ESPAÑOL ADELANTE) This week I'm going retro. Today's song takes me way back to my childhood. I used to listen to this Carpenters' album on my old pop-style Philips record player on and on. I was only eight or nine years old, but I already considered the songs beautiful though a bit cloying. All except one. The track that closed the A side started a bit like the rest but ended in a most peculiar way. At that time, the Carpenters were famous in Spain because of A Song for You and especially, Top Of The World, but no-one had really paid much attention to Goodbye To Love. Just a few days ago, when reading about Gustavo Santaolalla, the Argentinian composer nominated for best soundtrack at the Goya Awards for his score in Biutiful, I learned that the guy that produced his former Award-winnning Brokeback Mountain was a Tony Peluso, who happened to have been the guitarist for the Carpenters since the day Karen Carpenter called him on the phone to ask him to play a guitar solo in one song. The song was Goodbye To Love and the story tells that Richard Carpenter urged him not to play it soft and sweet, but strong and powerful. And the result was breathtaking. This way the song developed into the first ballad ever to have a fuzz guitar solo in it. You just have to listen to it once to perceive the uniqueness of it all. It also showed the way to most rock ballads written in the years that followed. The epic solo is now part of the history of rock, but the name of Tony Peluso, who died in 2010, must be written alongside with the Carpenters in order to do real justice.

Esta semana toca retro. La canción de hoy me hace recordar mis años de infancia, cuando escuchaba música en un viejo tocadisco Phillips que en aquel tiempo era el colmo de la modernidad. El disco de los Carpenters era uno de los que más escuchaba, aunque ya por entonces consideraba sus canciones algo empalagosas. Todas menos una. La pista que cerraba la cara A empezaba un poco como las demás pero el final era de lo más peculiar. Los Carpenters eran famosos en España por A Song For You y especialmente, Top Of The World, pero no mucha gente había reparado en la excepcionalidad de Goodbye To Love. Hace unos días, mientras leía información sobre Gustavo Santaolalla, el compositor argentino nominado en los premios Goya por la banda sonora de Biutiful, me enteré de que le productor de su exitosa Brokeback Mountain era un tipo llamado Tony Peluso, quien había trabajado con los Carpenters. En realidad, había empezado su colaboración cuando Karen Carpenter le llamó para hacer un solo de guitarra en Goodbye To Love. Richard Carpenter le animó a que no lo hiciera de forma suave y dulce, como se podría esperar en una balada, sino que el final sonara fuerte y potente. Así lo hizo, y el resultado es de los que pone los pelos de punta. De esta forma, Goodbye To Love ha pasado a la historia de la música como la primera balada que contiene un solo de guitarra con efecto fuzz. Eso la hace única. Cientos de bandas recogieron ese testigo y hoy en día es un elemento común de las baladas rock. Es de justicia que el nombre de Tony Peluso, que murió en 2010, brille con luz propia junto al de los Carpenters.

Enlaces/Links:
Carpenters' official website: www.richardandkarencarpenter.com