We've Only Just Begun

We've Only Just Begun

Author: BBC Radio 4 July 21, 2021 Duration: 28:31

The Carpenters - brother and sister duo Richard and Karen - were one of the most popular groups of the 1970s.

His outstanding compositions and her stunning vocals created several massive hits including We've Only Just Begun.

Originally written as a TV advert for a bank portraying happy young couples embarking on married life full of hope, they loved it and released it as their third single in 1970. Karen's wistful voice gave the song a melancholy that has long resonated with fans.

After her premature death from heart failure due to anorexia nervosa, the song took on an extra poignancy with lyrics like "so much of life ahead".

Fans tell their stories about the song and how it relates to their own life journeys.

For Professor Karen Tongson (named after the singer), We've Only Just Begun is about growing up in the Philippines where The Carpenters epitomised the American Dream. When she emigrated to the USA, the song became a metaphor for the immigrant experience.

Nomad and writer Jeff Read remembers his childhood in a poor part of Los Angeles brought up by a single mother who eventually died homeless on the street. The song brings back memories of childhood optimism and his longing for a stable family life.

Poet Abigail George recalls seeing a film about Karen Carpenter's life and identifying with the singer's struggles with an eating disorder as she herself had to cope with a difficult family life in South Africa.

Retired policeman John Weiss was reminded of the song when he attended the death of an elderly person at a care home. John looked at the deceased man's wedding photos and was struck by the brevity of life.

The singer Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes always loved The Carpenters and recorded her own version of We've Only Just Begun as part of an album where things don't end well for the young bride. Ironically, her version now features in a commercial for a British bank so the song has come full circle.

Randy Schmidt is the author of Little Girl Blue (The Life of Karen Carpenter).

Versions of the song featured are by

Grant Lee Buffalo Paul Williams Natasha Khan The Carpenters The Carpenters with the Philharmonic Orchestra

Producer: Maggie Ayre

A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in July 2021.


There’s a certain piece of music that, when you hear it, seems to stop time. It might be a melody from your childhood, a song that played at a pivotal moment, or a composition that simply reaches into your chest and grips your heart. Soul Music, from BBC Radio 4, is built around that very phenomenon. This isn’t a program about genres or charts; it’s an intimate exploration of why specific pieces of music carry such profound emotional weight. Each episode focuses on a single, iconic work-from classical adagios to folk ballads, from film scores to pop anthems. The podcast weaves together the voices of people whose lives have been indelibly marked by that music: listeners share personal, often moving stories of grief, joy, love, and remembrance, while composers and performers might shed light on the piece’s creation. You’ll hear the music itself, of course, but framed in a way that reveals its deeper resonance in human experience. It’s a quiet, thoughtful series that reminds us how soundtracks our inner lives. Tuning into this podcast feels like being part of a conversation about the invisible threads that connect us all through notes and rhythms, exploring how a sequence of sounds can become a vessel for collective memory and feeling.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Soul Music
Podcast Episodes
The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:53
'The Boxer' is Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel's 1969 masterpiece. People who have a deep personal connection with the song and its lyrics, discuss what it means to them.Seamus McDonagh is a former boxer. He recalls his tumul…
Farewell to Stromness [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:30
Personal stories about Farewell to Stromness, by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Written in 1980 as a protest against uranium mining in Orkney, the music has touched and changed people's lives. The Orkney landscape which inspi…
Wind of Change [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:29
“I follow the Moskva, down to Gorky Park… listening to the wind of change.”The German rock band Scorpions’ lead singer Klaus Meine was inspired to write Wind of Change at a rock festival in Moscow in the summer of 1989.…
Streets of London by Ralph McTell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:55
Ralph McTell and others discuss a song that was written for a heroin addict, became an anthem against homelessness, and transcended the folk genre to become an enduring classic.Ralph says he’s thought constantly about th…
Back to Black [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:37
Amy Winehouse died in July 2011 aged just 27. 'Back to Black' - the title track of her second and final album - is a torch song to tragic love, addiction and loss. People who loved her and her music talk about how she he…
Let the River Run [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:29
The story of how a song from a classic 1980’s movie became an inspirational anthem for a 21st Century generation.Carly Simon’s ‘Let the River Run’ was originally conceived as the title track for the 1988 movie ‘Working G…
Smile [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:45
Charlie Chaplin wrote the music for 'Smile' in 1935 for the film 'Modern Times', but the lyrics were only added nearly 30 years later. Chris Philips tells the story of how his grandfather was inspired to write the words…
Schubert’s B-Flat Piano Sonata D960 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:31
The B-Flat Piano Sonata D960, which Schubert completed two months before his death, in 1828, is a vast and complex work. It’s the last of a triptych of piano sonatas that Schubert wrote, possibly in response to the death…
Shine On You Crazy Diamond [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:49
Shine On You Crazy Diamond discussed by voices, including David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.Understood to have been written about Syd Barrett, their former band member, it’s both a tribute, and a call for him to ‘shine on’ des…
River [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:49
Soul Music with stories of the lasting impact of Joni Mitchell's song 'River', from her iconic 1971 album Blue. A song about the breakdown of a relationship and of a longing to be elsewhere that has become a melancholy C…