President Obama wiped a tear from his cheek. King, watching from the balcony, was overcome with joy. Her still-potent voice building to a crescendo, she slipped out of her coat and dropped it to the floor while raising a hand towards the ceiling. Wearing an ankle-length fur coat, Franklin began the song at the piano before stepping to the center of the stage for a big finish. In the days since Franklin’s death, her impassioned performance of the song at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors ceremony has become an internet sensation. “I can relate to it (the song) very easily,” Franklin once told Vogue. Although the song was written as a thank you of sorts from a grateful woman to her lover, Aretha turned it into a broader statement about the power of a confident woman who is at peace with herself. So what does it mean to be a “natural woman?” Scholars have debated this question, but nobody seems to know exactly. How about writing a song called ‘A Natural Woman?’ ” The songwriting couple, who were married at the time, went home that night and came up with the music and lyrics. King says she and Goffin were walking down the street in New York one day when music producer Jerry Wexler, a top exec at Atlantic Records, pulled up in a limo, rolled down the window and said, “I’m looking for a really big hit for Aretha. This top-10 hit, a key part of Franklin’s repertoire, was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
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