Saturday 9: I Feel the Earth Move

Saturday 9: I Feel the Earth Move(recommended by Blue County Magic) (That's me!)

If you're not familiar with today's song, you can hear it here.

1) This song is from the album Tapestry, one of the all-time best-sellers (more than 25,000,000 copies sold worldwide). Is it in your collection?

A. I have certain songs from it in my Amazon cloud. I also sometimes listen to it on youtube. You can hear the entire album here.

2) It's about that glorious passion you feel when you first fall for someone. How many times have you been in love?

A. I think just once, and it became a 31-year marriage in which I am still involved.

3) San Francisco radio stations briefly removed "I Feel the Earth Move" from their playlists after the 1989 earthquake. Have you ever been in an earthquake and literally felt "the earth move under your feet?"

A. I was disappointed when there was an earthquake here in Virginia on August 23, 2011, and I did not feel it. I was driving down the interstate at the time and missed it completely. However, the thing shook the east coast from New York to North Carolina.

4) Carole King is the first and only woman to win the Gershwin Prize for songwriting from the Library of Congress. Here's your chance to brag a little -- tell us about an accolade you have received.

A. I have won eight Virginia Press Association awards for my writing for newspapers. The very first one was for a write-up I did in the first person of a hot-air balloon ride I took in 1986. Another was for a three-part series I did on the failing government in a nearby county. I also have won for sports writing, which is not my specialty. The others have all been in government reporting or feature writing, which are my specialties. A few months ago, I placed in a local poetry contest.

5) Carole wrote "You've Got a Friend," which was a mega hit for her good pal, James Taylor. King and Taylor have known one another for more than 40 years, but have never been romantically involved. Do you have any platonic friends of the opposite sex?

A. Many of my husband's friends are also my friends. One of his cousins is a fellow I can count on if I must. My editor and I are also friends, though there is that business thing going on, but after working together for nearly 30 years how could you not be friends? And there are many others.

6) Like more than 80% of the population, Carole is right handed. Are you right handed, left handed (10%) or that most rare of all, ambidextrous (less than 10%)?

A. I am right handed.

7) One of Carole King's earliest hits was Little Eva's "The Loco-Motion." Little Eva was the teenager King hired to care for her young children. Tell us about a sitter who cared for you when you were little.

A. My grandmother was the babysitter I was with most often. She also had two young boys at home still, including one who was a year younger than I (and he was the youngest of six children; my mother was her firstborn). The other boy was four years older than I was, and then my brother came along, and he is three years younger than I am. So she had her hands full but she took good care of us. When we needed some extra loving, she would pull us into her lap and rock us in her rocking chair, all the while singing, "Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy, all for the love of you."

8) Beautiful is the title of the Broadway play about Carole King's life. If we were producing your lifestory, what would you want us to call it?

A. Strong Enough.

9) Carole wrote "Pleasant Valley Sunday," the Monkees' song about conspicuous consumption. When Crazy Sam looks at her crowded shelf of hair products (paraben-free conditioner, keratin-restoring conditioner, hair masque, hot oil conditioner …), she realizes she's guilty of it herself. Have you bought anything recently that you later decided was a waste of money?

A. I have far too many magazine subscriptions. I am trying to either convert them to digital (which is harder than you'd think it would be, especially since many of these were gifts) or let them lapse. The only ones I really want to keep are O!, Writer's Digest, and Reader's Digest. But I also receive the print editions of Redbook, Woman's Day, Taste of Home, Better Homes & Gardens, Progressive Farmer, Onsite Septic Tank Installer (those last two are my husbands, but still), and a few others. They really pile up and I am tired of having to recycle them.