About The Song

– Richard Carpenter wrote this with lyricist John Bettis. They were sure the song wouldn’t be a hit, and lost a $1,000 bet to their recording engineer Roger Young when they were proven wrong.

– “Only Yesterday” is a song recorded by the Carpenters. Released on March 14, 1975, the song was composed by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis. “Only Yesterday” peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts,  The Carpenters’ eleventh number one on that chart.

– Cash Box called it a “ballad with its infectious beat” and that “Karen’s dulcet, multi-tracked vocals soar over a dynamic arrangement which should be buzzing over the airwaves for a long time.”

– The song was The Carpenters’ last top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100—though they would have nine more top-ten singles on the AC charts, ending with AC number seven “Make Believe It’s Your First Time”, a few months after Karen’s death in 1983.

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