Tunic (Song For Karen)

Album: Goo (1990)
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Songfacts®:

  • Karen Carpenter, the lead singer and drummer of The Carpenters, died of anorexia aged just 32. Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon wrote this powerful homage to Karen, imagining her happy in heaven, looking down at her brother Richard.
  • Kim Gordon paid tribute to Karen Carpenter in 2015, telling Mojo: "Her voice was amazing. And her death made you look back at the lyrics. She didn't write them, but she made them her own. How did they pick a song like Superstar?"
  • Directed by Tony Oursler, the video for "Tunic (Song for Karen)" is a deliberately raw, dreamlike piece built around Karen Carpenter's struggles with anorexia, showing Kim Gordon lying alongside dolls while the band performs around her. Multimedia and installation artist Oursler, a close friend of Kim Gordon, brought his signature lo-fi, psychodramatic style to the clip, and it is now held in the New York Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.

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