I watched Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection last night on Prime, because, well, I’ve loved Karen Carpenter since I heard her on the radio when I was four years old.
My parents always had the radio on in the car; at home, my mother’s record cabinet was a treasure to be taken care of—I knew how to put a record on from an early age (and always put them back when done). Despite her eclectic collection, anything from Heart, Kiss, Foreigner, The Doors, The Beatles, West Side Story, and Christopher Cross, no Carpenters records sat in that cabinet.
Mom explained: “The Carpenters were played so much on the radio it was difficult to like them. Stations even advertised Carpenter-free weekends.”
By the time I was old enough to start singing the words to songs, “We’ve Only Just Begun” was a decade old, but it was the first song I remember to have declared as a favorite (that and Heart’s “Magic Man”). The Carpenters must have been relegated to old people’s stations by 1981 when we moved to Utah. In our U-Haul, Kiss’s “I Was Made for Loving You,” Heart’s “Crazy on You,” and REO Speedwagon’s “Riding the Storm Out” played on a constant loop, every radio station between Ames and Salt Lake City overplaying songs that were already a few years old. The Carpenters were not heard on such rock stations.
Yet “We’ve Only Just Begun” was the song I begged Mom to play every time she sat at the piano, the sheet music appearing in the Greatest Songs of the ‘70s book. While I undoubtedly loved love songs, Karen Carpenter’s voice drew my four-year-old self to her, with its beauty, yet melancholy tone. I knew a good voice when I heard it even at four years old—never mind that I couldn’t sing and wouldn’t fully learn how to play the piano (although in junior high, I memorized how to play all ten pages of “Bohemian Rhapsody”).
Hearing Karen Carpenter’s voice on the radio was more than just a delight, considering I was at the mercy of the randomness of the DJs. When I started watching MTV by the time I was just five or six years old, I hoped to see The Carpenters in action on my television screen. Even though MTV played Rod Stewart every hour and the occasional Christopher Cross, The Carpenters would not be aired on MTV.
When Karen Carpenter died in 1983, I don’t know if I knew that it had happened. I have no recollection of her death. Maybe I saw it while standing in the grocery story check out, but I don’t remember. Only that once I was a little older, I eagerly watched the TV movie starring Cynthia Gibb—and adored Lifetime when they started showing such movies-based-on-true-stories on repeat. I felt a connection with Karen Carpenter on some odd level, like I understood her need for perfection, how she was invisible (and liked it that way at times), yet she didn’t really know what she wanted.
In sixth grade, I replaced our Eighties records with CDs once Mom bought me a CD player for Christmas. Madonna’s Like a Prayer and The Lost Boys soundtrack were my first two CDs; every Christmas I unwrapped dozens, many of them greatest hits compilations by that time: Duran Duran, Chicago, Billy Idol. And then the tsunami of commercials advertising CD collections—Mom ordered Time Life’s Sounds of the Eighties for me, which would cover most of the one-hit wonders we never even bought the records for: A-ha, Tommy Tutone, Dead or Alive. But the one I begged the most for: The Carpenters Love Songs.
When I unwrapped what was obviously a CD and revealed its white and silver cover, I couldn’t wait to play it. As much as I loved “We’ve Only Just Begun,” my favorite would become “Rainy Days and Mondays.”
Even though Mom bought her own CDs, she frequently borrowed those from me or my sister. When I came home from school, she had The Carpenters Love Songs sitting on her stereo tower. I teased her since she never bought their albums. Mom admitted, “Karen does have a lovely voice.”
A couple years later, I would ask for The Carpenters’ Christmas Collection, a staple in my month-long blaring of Christmas music—“Sleigh Ride” will forever be my favorite.
I still have both The Carpenters’ CDs, even though I have downsized several times in my middle age. I kept only one of my Sounds of the Eighties CDs, yet still, in the small drawer in my entertainment center, sits both my Carpenters CDs, in the stack with Madonna, thirtysomething, and Jewel’s CD single “You Were Meant for Me.”
It goes without saying I was glued to my television for the 140 minutes of Starving for Perfection.
I already knew much of what was said by those who knew her: Olivia Newton-John and Suzanne Sommers. It was interesting to hear Carol Burnett’s experience working with The Carpenters—Karen could be quite the ham. Carnie Wilson discussing Karen’s musical abilities and even Belinda Carlisle describing the days of being fat-shamed melded together the impact of Karen Carpenter’s life: her music, her anorexia, her legacy. I was most delighted by Cynthia Gibb’s contribution, although I already knew that Richard had demanded she wear Karen’s actual wardrobe, that she could squeeze into everything but the tiniest dress which was left unzipped when they filmed. I didn’t know that Richard had the real paramedics—the ones who carted Karen to the hospital in her final moments—reenact their part for the movie. Cynthia Gibb and the writer of the movie, Barry Morrow, both gave a unique family perspective as Agnes—the Carpenters’ mom—and Richard were hovering over every scene filmed.
The documentary even brought up the Barbie doll movie called Superstar, which I also knew about. Although I didn’t learn a ton of new information, the documentary was worth the watch, With Karen’s voice heard throughout (both in song and in interviews), it was put together beautifully, although I thought it could have been developed even more.
One of the contributors in the documentary wrote a biography of Karen, Randy L. Schmidt. Before I crawled into bed, I ordered his book. I squealed a few years ago when I found The Carpenters’ authorized biography at a used bookstore. I knew it would be biased if Richard had placed his seal of approval on it, but I bought it anyway, even keeping it on my bookshelves. I cannot wait to read a more objective biography on Karen’s life.
It’s strange how novel anorexia was at the time. It’s so commonplace now, which is both a blessing and a curse—that we know more about the illness and are more open about it, yet its prevalence is frightening. I stopped eating my senior year of high school because that was the only thing I felt I could control. Sometimes I wonder had I not known about Karen Carpenter would I have dealt with life’s conflicts differently? That I adored her so much, even before I watched The Karen Carpenter Story when I was twelve, maybe it never would have made a difference. It’s her voice that drew me to her, her voice that led me to her tragic story, one that ended her life way too soon.