You've Got a Friend

King wrote it during the January 1971 sessions for Tapestry, while Taylor was recording his own album. She has said the song was as close to pure inspiration as she had ever experienced. Taylor said King told him it answered a line in his Fire and Rain, the one about seeing lonely times when he could not find a friend. In a 1972 interview she said she had not written it with Taylor or anyone in particular in mind. Both recorded it for their albums, and Taylor and Danny Kortchmar play on both. On King's version Taylor plays acoustic guitar, Kortchmar congas, Charles Larkey string bass, with strings from Barry Socher, David Campbell and Terry King.

Taylor's single, with Joni Mitchell on backing vocals, was his only number one and reached number four in Britain. At the 1972 Grammys King won song of the year for it, and Taylor won best male pop vocal. Jon Landau called it King's most perfect new song. Pitchfork wrote that her take amplified its hope almost to a shout. Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway released a single on the same date as Taylor's, and it reached 29 on the Hot 100. Other versions include Aretha Franklin's on Amazing Grace in 1972, the Brand New Heavies in 1997 and McFly in 2005, a British number one for Comic Relief.

King sang it with Taylor on their 2010 Troubadour Reunion Tour, with Celine Dion, Shania Twain and Gloria Estefan on VH1 Divas in 1998, and at the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. At Hyde Park in 2016 the Guardian described an extraordinary mass cry-along.