JBee
Active Member
From what I can tell, Karen's dislike of 'Solitaire' was pretty much instant - in an interview with Ray Coleman from 1975 that's in Randy Schmidt's Yesterday Once More collection, Richard mentions that she didn't like it.
Conversely, Richard has often commented over the years that he thinks 'Solitaire' is one of Karen's finest performances (as mentioned in the notes to the Gold and From the Top compilations), which would be a strange thing to say if he didn't rate the song very highly. As such, I would imagine his own conclusion that it's not that great a song is another opinion that's been revised in more recent years.
I would say it's certainly a good performance by Karen (although not one of her best in my opinion) - she performs it as well as it can be performed - but the song is so leaden and slow that it's not enough to save the track.
I think both things can instantly be true. "Solitaire" is one of Karen's best performances, but the song is such a downer than I can understand she didn't like it. I also, despite it being a clear example of what Karen could do with a so-so song (which lyric wise it is), think it was the wrong choice for the third single off the album coming off a top five (#4) hit in "Only Yesterday" - especially as it was released in the Summer (early August to be exact). It's just not a radio song and particularly not a Summer radio song. It's not what you want to hear on a hot day on the beach with the radio by your side. "Happy" which is an upbeat, happy (if you pardon the pun) song was a better pick (and would have done better on the charts) and even "Desperado" (which is also a showcase for Karen's voice), would have done as well, if not better than "Solitaire".