The Carpenters

[JonRB]

Can anyone please tell me who wrote the Carpenters songs. Did they write their own or did they record songs written by different people.

[kempie]

Although Richard Carpenter is an accomplished songwriter the majority of the 'hits' and popular songs recorded by The Carpenters were written by other people.

[lookslikemik]

Mixture of both, as kempie attests.  Most of their best-known tracks are covers, but a few were co-written by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis.  These include "Top of the World", "Yesterday Once More", "Goodbye to Love" and "Only Yesterday".  On their original albums, it was roughly a fifty-fifty split between originals and cover versions.

[topkapi]

Paul Williams wrote several of the Carpenters songs but I would have to dig out my old LPs to list them.  He wrote Rainy Days and Mondays I'm pretty sure.

[kempie]

topkapi is correct.
PW also wrote "I Won't Last a Day Without You" and "We've Only Just Begun" (originally used in an advert for Crocker Bank) among others.

[spudqueen]

'Close To You' was co-written by Richard Carpenter and Burt Bacharach.