No. 143 - Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” changed my life
’70s Mexico City, a first kiss, and José Luis Ruiz’s childhood crush
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring weekly essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created (and illustrated) by Grace Lilly.
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Edición especial: Today’s essay was originally written in Spanish by José Luis Ruiz and translated to English by Humberto J. Rocha. Scroll down to read in English, or click the button to read in Spanish.
• 6 min read •
I remember it well, I was barely 13 years old when I was able to save the seven pesos I needed to buy the 45 RPM record, the equivalent to 45 cents today. I ran, literally, to the supermarket known as “Giant,” the first self-service store that opened its doors in Mexico towards the end of the 1970s. Seven pesos was a fortune to me, as it was for most of the kids my age who belonged to the emerging lower-middle urban class. It was Carole King’s record, the one that included “It’s Too Late.” It was the first record that I would gift to a girl in my class, a special someone for whom I first felt something different, indescribable, from the first day that I saw her enter the classroom.
That morning, I can’t remember precisely what day, the teacher introduced her and assigned her a seat in the last row, which, luckily for me, was close by since I sat in the back, where they placed all the incorrigible and none-too-bright students. I was part of that club, despite my mother’s reprimands. Of course, I don’t remember what we talked about that day, or even if we talked, but, just as if it were yesterday, I can’t forget how I blushed at feeling her presence nearby, right next to me.
Naturally, a few days later she was already seated in the first row of our seventh grade class, Group B. She was a good student and, logically, it made sense to separate her from the bad kids in the group, that group of ill repute that I belonged to. Even so, without trying, the flame of empathy started burning between us.
A few weeks after her arrival, her mother organized a class get-together in the small apartment where her family lived. She had three sisters and one brother, all of them very serious, with baby faces. They wore glasses and were well put together, in stark contrast to me. That day, her father was in charge of the music and his taste was, of course, purely ’70s. It was very clear that he enjoyed ruling over the record player and browsing his record collection, which included many of the singers that I liked listening to at home. His collection contained all types of bands, like Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, Steely Dan, Tommy James, Santana, Malo, and Fleetwood Mac, among many others, plus singers like Al Green, Marvin Gaye, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and James Brown.
They were all already in my musical universe, which kept growing thanks to my father’s musical influence, who, at any moment, and mostly when we were with him in the car, would tune into Radio Capital or Radio Mundo, to hear the song of the moment, and the one which he identified with not through its lyrics, which were in English, a language he couldn’t understand, but through its beat and rhythms. “Music is felt, enjoyed,” he’d say to my brothers and me with such frequency that this phrase of his stayed in our memories. Of course, he loved boleros from Mexican composers who took over the world, for example those of Consuelito Velazquez and her song “Besame Mucho” that was translated into various languages and covered by the greats from that era and today. But he also enjoyed TROVA and Cuban sound, from the rhythms of Caribbean music to salsa, as well as Frank Sinatra, Charles Aznavour, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, and an endless list of mythical singers from all over the world.
And then there was the day of that kiss, the first kiss, in that class get-together, which was nothing more than the union between her lips and mine, furtively, rushed, by the bathroom door, both of us so excited and nervous. And just at that moment, by complete randomness, her father put on the record with the song “It’s Too Late” by Carole King, whose lyrics I didn’t understand but that united us forever through this immaculate memory. Its significance to us wasn’t that it was “Too Late,” but that it was just the now, the moment, with its implicit message, that of hope.
There’ll be good times again for me and you,
But we just can’t stay together, don’t you feel it too?
Still I’m glad for what we had, and how I once loved you
However I could, I gathered the seven pesos needed to buy the record, the one that she kept safe in her bedroom’s wardrobe, she confessed to me years later. This revelation left me in a divine limbo. I couldn’t believe that something as simple as a 45-cent record could be of such importance to her. Since then, I’ve also appreciated those small details that life occasionally gives you.
I continue to enjoy the music of that time and the memory of that girl who, after some years, I never saw again. Without a doubt, “It’s Too Late” was a watershed in my life, my formation — not only musically, but existentially.
I still remember the cover of the full 1971 album Tapestry, in which Carole King sits at the sill of a grand window inside her Los Angeles home, accompanied by her beloved cat, Telemaco. It’s a record that in time I was able to buy, not because I could, but because of a magnanimous and infinite endearment.
I was born in 1960, the year in which many significant changes began to take form across the world, transformations that are still like lightning today on the horizon, and which profoundly marked me in my coming of age. I’m privileged to be part of a generation that has witnessed such diverse social phenomena, and of the accelerated evolution of technology that in my childhood and teenage years seemed so far away that it was almost utopian.
I followed on TV the landing of a man on the moon in 1969 (there is still the controversy over whether this really happened), in a black and white transmission, and now the journey of Artemis II to our beloved natural satellite, 57 years later. Of course, both of these events continue to amaze me and confirm to me that the human being continues to be an inexhaustible fountain of creativity.
Music is a living example of this, and it’s still there accompanying changes, refreshing the world. In the 1970s, it was Marvin Gaye’s iconic song, “What’s Going On,” that most resounded during those convulsive years. Today, it’s Bad Bunny’s unique phrasing that releases passions in the intrepid era of cultural, political, and social networks.
When I hear music from the 1970s I reflect over its social legacy, in all of its ways, and I don’t think that anyone can scratch that era’s contribution to a neverending form of human expression.
I’ve always felt a sense of loss, and even though I certainly was not conscious of how important it was to have someone by your side, I knew that what this girl and I had made us happy. For me, music became a sort of banner and “It’s Too Late” became a hymn that has accompanied me through time; a hymn that, curiously, I listened to in the solitude of the house following the departure of someone who is still very important in my life.
Today, I still listen to Carole King’s song, along with many others from that great artist, and I still shudder from the memories that it evokes, memories which take me on a journey of illusion and fantasy towards those earlier years that are now so far from my life.
Although it’s true that the lyrics of the song talk about how late it can be to fix something, they’re also a window of opportunity that opens up towards hope. This song will always live within me because I know that it’s never too late for love nor for reconciliation. ◆
About José Luis
José Luis Ruiz lives in Mexico City, where he encounters something new and surprising every day. He is a journalist by training, but above all, by conviction. Communication is now his field of action. He enjoys music, cinema, baseball, and literature. His list of favorite authors is long and varied. He is a wanderer and an avid reader.
X @jlruiz10
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Categories
Friendship • Family • Coming of Age • Romance • Grief • Spirituality & Religion • Personal Development • LGBTQ+
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