Friday, September 23, 2005

James Taylor and the Wikis

The Wikipedia can be a fine place to spend a few hours if one is blessed with curiosity. The other day I was researching material about headaches, trying to discover if I suffer from migraines or cluster headaches (the past week has been like one long headache, so one can imagine why I was interested in the subject); from there I read about various medications and thence onto analgesics and thence to opiates and thence to a list of musicians who have been heroin addicts. Whilst I was aware of most of the names that I recognised were addicts, there were a few that surprised me.

The fact that James Taylor was a heroin addict was not a surprise to me; I've known this for years. In fact, I had been coming to the conclusion that his "Fire and Rain" (which I mentioned a few weeks ago) was as much about his addiction as it was about anything else. I read JT's wiki page and then the page about "F&R", which gives a great deal of background information about the song. There is also a link to the urban legend which has arisen regarding this song, most of which is reasonable (but wrong) extrapolation from the lyrics, which tend to the obtuse.

When I wrote in my earlier blog about "F&R" and don't even get me started on the lyrics, I was referring to the fact that the song starts with a series of non-sequiturs:

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this mornin', and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to.

Although the first line is all right on its own, who are the "they"? As I was taught a long, long time ago, never use a pronoun without mentioning who it refers to. The second line seems like a complete non sequitur - who is Suzanne? What plans? Are the "they" the same "they" as in the first line? Then what is the connection between the third line and those that have come before it? The third and fourth lines make sense together, but I dislike self-referential material (eg "woke up this morning and wrote this song").

The second and third verses (which I won't quote here) seem to refer to Taylor's addiction, and the final verse seems to have nothing to do with anything else, including what turns out to be an oblique reference to a group ("Flying Machines") in which Taylor had played previously to writing the song.

When "F&R" came out in 1970, it was considered to be anthemic, although I wonder now how many people listened to the words. I know I certainly didn't. The chorus must have had a strong soothing effect on everyone. I went to see James Taylor when he came to Britain in May or June 1971, supported by Carole King and their mutual band. The only thing which I remember about the concert was that every song was finished by each member of the band jumping into the air whilst playing the final chord. It sounds really stupid writing this - and it looked pretty stupid at the time, too. I think that the concert cured me of any interest that I might have had in James Taylor at the time, and from there he only went from bad to worse.

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