If I were a Carpenter the producer of a Carpenters documentary

How to depress yourself in two easy steps: come home knackered, dazed and gutted that your friends' perfectly formed mini-festival is over for another year, and then watch a BBC4 documentary about the Carpenters detailing Karen Carpenter's descent into ill health and ultimate death from anorexia.

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm somewhat partisan, but I found it a bit surprising that the producers of Only Yesterday didn't seem to have attempted to get Sonic Youth on board. After all, the band - and Kim Gordon in particular - were obsessed with Karen, not only writing two songs in her honour ('Tunic (Song For Karen)' on Goo and, twelve years later, 'Karen Revisited' on Murray Street) but also recording a haunting interpretation of 'Superstar' for tribute album If I Were A Carpenter. I'm sure Gordon would have had plenty to say about the way she was forced out from behind her beloved drum-kit, moulded and manipulated by all those around her, the victim of an oppressively patriarchal music industry.

The extent of her brother Richard's role in things was unclear - clearly he cared for Karen and was well meaning, but he did also come across as somewhat uncomprehending and perhaps insensitive to the complexities of the illness she was suffering from (while at the time undergoing his own battle against quaalude addiction). Either way, it was interesting to hear the extent of his disgust at the way they were portrayed by their record label as saccharine and squeaky-clean when some of their songs - 'Superstar' being an example - hint at an underlying sadness and emotional desolation.