Up on the Roof

Lyrics by Gerry Goffin, Music by Carole King
© Screen Gems – EMI Music, Inc.

when this old world starts getting me down
and people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
and all my cares just drift right into space
on the roof it’s peaceful as can be
and there the world below can’t bother me

when I come home feelin’ tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet
I get away from the hustlin’ crowds
and all that rat race noise down in the street
on the roof’s the only place I know
where you just have to pray to make it so
oh, let’s go up on the roof

Instrumental verse

at night the stars put on a show for free
and you know you can share it all with me

keep a-tellin’ you that
right smack dab in the middle of town
I’ve found a paradise that’s trouble proof
so if this world starts getting you down
there’s room enough for two
up on the roof
up on the roof
oh, everything is all right
up on the roof
oh, come on up

Notes

This Influencer Series entry is one that I must have performed a thousand times: “Up on the Roof,” words and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It was first recorded by the Drifters in 1962, reaching high on the US charts in 1963. It was recorded by many other artists, of course, including Laura Nyro in 1970, Carole King herself in the same year, and James Taylor—who had also played guitar on Carole’s version—in 1979. And now the lowly me, in 2024.

The version I learned was Carole’s, which is no surprise, since I sang along with Carole as much or more than any other singer, even Dionne, because her songs were in a good key for me, and let’s face it, they were just so darned singable! I used this song to open many of my concerts in the late 70s and early 80s. For me, it was the ideal opener, because it invited listeners to come with me to a quiet place where we could get away from Here (as John Steinbeck writes in his Travels with Charley), and leave the world behind. A special place where we could think and wish and pray. A place where anything was possible.

Speaking of wish and pray, since the very beginning, I’ve always substituted the second word for the first. Maybe because wishing and praying have always been intertwined for me, way back to the days when I used to climb the willow tree by our house, now gone, and dreamed and wished and prayed, asked God why I didn’t seem to fit in with this world, and told him how I longed for a best friend. They were all part of the same thing for me, I guess: dreaming, wishing, praying. And looking back, I suppose the obliging willow was my “roof,” since we had an old, two-story farmhouse, and there were no stairs to the top. Up in the swaying arms of the willow I could always get away from Here.

I heard somewhere a long time ago that wish and pray were the same word in Hebrew, which is why I felt justified changing the lyric in the first place. But since I decided to finally record this, I’ve been trying to find that reference, and I couldn’t. It seems the source I heard it from may have been mistaken (or perhaps I remembered it differently). But wow, what a rich study it is to compare the two words in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. It’s actually in Greek that the two words can sometimes be the very same, although the word for pray most often has a prefix attached which is like a directive.

In fact, the consensus seems to be that the biggest difference between the two is this directive aspect; prayer is directed at someone, it’s a communication with someone; wishing doesn’t necessarily extend beyond ourselves. The directee of prayer is most often a deity, of course. For me, it was Jesus.

Many treat prayer like a wishlist, and God like a giant vending machine in the sky, but the whole point of prayer is so far beyond that. It’s communication, communing with God. In the New Testament, asking God for something in prayer is associated with abiding in God (John 15:7). And even in the best known prayer in the world, the Lord’s Prayer, our daily needs are expressed in the context of our relationship with God.

I think my favorite quote about prayer is from C. S. Lewis, and it’s featured in the movie Shadowlands: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”

It’s being with God, it’s communing with the divine, it’s sharing our innermost selves (our thoughts, our wishes, our desires). It’s realizing that God knows our most intimate thoughts and desires before we speak, and still loves us as we are (Psalm 139). It’s partnering with God to bring about change, to bring about God’s will on earth “as it is in heaven.” And the change starts with us.

I hope Gerry and Carole will forgive me if I keep my change to their most excellent song. After all, Carole is no stranger to prayer. She wrote at least one other song as a prayer, “I Think I Can Hear You,” from her Rhymes and Reasons album, which I also performed in concert a few times. For me, to pray takes the song one step further, to the fulfillment of the wish, to the forming of a relationship with the divine. The divine, not so much as wish-granter, but wish-creator, wish-listener, wish-incarnation.

Wishes come and go, our desires change like weathercocks, and willow trees get cut down. But a relationship with the divine is solid, it’s bedrock, it’s blue lava…

So why not take a few steps away from Here, and come on up. Dare to speak your wish—your prayer.

Music Notes

Thanks to my go-to guitarist, Dan Leonhardt, for adding his talent and musicality to this version!