James Taylor and Carole King get together to perform You’ve Got A Friend, written by her and taken into the charts by him in 1972.

In the early Seventies every girl (and a lot of boys) seemed to have at least one album by Carole King and James Taylor. Between them – and Joni Mitchell – they came to define the singer-songwriter sound of Laurel Canyon.

This song was recorded – and, on this occasion, performed – by both of them. In fact they were recorded simultaneously, using shared musicians – Taylor’s version has Joni Mitchell on backing vocals, to complete the trilogy.

You’ve Got A Friend first appeared in February 1971 on Tapestry, the second album by Carole King, who had (with her husband Gerry Goffin) already written countless songs for other artists and would eventually notch up an astounding 118 hit singles on the US chart.

Two months later came Taylor’s rendition, on his second album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, converting her stately piano ballad into a more folksy affair with a laid-back acoustic guitar melody. I prefer his.

There is a story (denied by King, who once said she had “no one in mind” when she wrote it) that it’s bit of an “answer-back” song, written as a response to Taylor’s earlier hit Fire & Rain, from his debut album Sweet Baby James. Taylor suffered from depression and heroin addiction and King was supposedly inspired by the poignant line: “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.” It’s more than plausible.

Whatever its genesis, its universal message of friendship and reassurance strikes a chord with everyone who hears it – and has helped Taylor and King sell a combined total of 175 million records. That universal message has encouraged endless YouTube commenters to post endless sentimental stories of moving moments with sick, dying and forgotten friends and relatives.

Some of them are genuinely poignant. But my favourite is this: “I don’t have a ‘person died’ story. I just like this song – because I’ve got a friend.”