When Petula Clark remembers Karen Carpenter, it’s not just as a fellow performer—but as a kindred spirit. One whose voice, like hers, carried the weight of emotion too big for words. One whose presence, even in silence, could fill a room.
In a rare and tender interview, Clark—now in her 90s—spoke quietly but clearly about the loss that still lingers. “Karen didn’t sing songs,” she said. “She became them. That voice… it was velvet, it was longing, it was pure heart.”
The two women moved in similar circles during the 1970s—chart-toppers with transatlantic appeal, gracing the same television specials and award shows. Though not close friends, there was a deep mutual respect. “I remember once, she told me she loved This Is My Song,” Petula recalled, smiling. “And I told her I’d give anything to sing Superstar the way she did. We laughed. But I meant it.”
When Karen passed in 1983, the news devastated Petula—as it did the world. But for Clark, the heartbreak went beyond headlines. “I saw the tenderness in her eyes,” she said. “But I also saw a sadness that none of us fully understood back then.”
Now, decades later, Petula believes Karen’s legacy is only growing stronger—not because of tragedy, but because of truth. “She gave so much of herself in her music. She carried us all through heartbreaks we didn’t know how to speak. And I think, in some way, we’re still learning from her.”
Asked what she would say to Karen if she could today, Clark paused, her eyes misting.
“I’d say, ‘Thank you, my darling. You mattered. You still do.’”
Because to those who remember, Karen Carpenter is never far away. She lives in every melancholy melody, every gentle lyric, and in the hearts of fellow artists like Petula Clark—who still hear her, even now, in the quietest corners of song.