Week five came for me with a vengeance, and in those brief moments of respite (procrastination) I tried to carve out, I found myself returning to the same comforting album: Carole King’s 1971 masterpiece, Tapestry. It helped me through week five, it helped the listeners who first came to it in the seventies, and it might just help you too.

“Tapestry has a plain-speaking and confessional immediacy that invites listeners into its rich and royal hue”

To my mind, it’s probably one of the best autumnal albums ever created – the perfect remedy to the short days and long nights that are bringing us all down. So, whilst Week 5 has been beaten and banished for another term, there’s always an easy crisis lurking, and you may still find yourself feeling glum. This album might just be what you’re looking for.

A bit of context for starters: Tapestry was released in the same year as the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers and Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, and it sat at the top of the charts for 15 weeks. Unlike the brashness or excesses of 1970s rock, Tapestry provided a calming alternative, embracing the personal singer-songwriter movement and, quite literally, being an antidote to the blues.

Some songs are instantly familiar – ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ was first written by King for Aretha Franklin, but on Tapestry, they are reimagined. The emotion remains, but without the wall-of-sound or added flourishes; it’s an intimate experience. She simply sings at her piano and tells her story – and we listen.

Those rare moments of flourish, though, are truly exciting. One of my favourite parts of the album comes in ‘Way Over Yonder’, where a brilliant saxophone solo seamlessly moves us into the second half of the record. The saxophone has an uplifting, warming quality and brings a moment of real force to an album that is otherwise more stripped-down in its composition. This subtlety isn’t a weakness – Tapestry has a plain-speaking and confessional immediacy that invites listeners into its “rich and royal hue”. Take ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ as an example: an ode to unconditional friendship, offering with sympathy, solace, and company.

Even the album cover draws us in. Carole sits on a windowsill in her knitted jumper, her cat Telemachus for company. The image radiates a peaceful comfort and self-assurance, immediately focusing attention on the album’s subject: King herself. This calm confidence carries into the album’s opener. ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ has an immediate piano hook that commands attention before it literally “tumbles down”, destabilising the self-assured opener and introducing the vulnerable honesty that makes Tapestry such a cathartic listening experience. This momentary instability is followed by the more meditative ‘So Far Away’, with its peaceful flute outro providing relief. What remains consistent as we move through the tapestry is King and her piano, telling her story.

Tapestry is an internal album, unconcerned with theatrics, unlike many of its peers in the charts. It’s a deeply honest reckoning with life as it is experienced, rough or smooth. I first discovered Tapestry a few years ago while rooting through my grandparents’ record collection, and it’s never lost its appeal. Listening to it is invariably restorative, as though being invited into a secret, peaceful world that only King and her listeners can access.

Decades later, Tapestry still confronts stress with its quiet strength and powerful simplicity, offering reassurance as we try desperately to hammer out that last essay. From your first listen, it will feel immediately comforting and help lift you out of whatever gloom Cambridge has in store.