James Taylor: Darker Than Previously Thought

 

I've always really enjoyed James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." Sure, it's mid-tempo Boomer folk, but it's just a great song. But it took me way too long to figure out that it's a bit darker than I had assumed.

The first verse starts as depressingly as we all know it does:

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone.

Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.

I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,

I just can't remember who to send it to.

This was inspired by real life. Taylor had a friend Suzanne committed suicide while he was in London recording an album. His friends didn't tell him right away, fearing that it would interfere with his ability to record. But they told him weeks after the fact.

Then the chorus (we'll come back to that later). 

Then the second verse:

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus, You've got to help me make a stand.

You've just got to see me through another day.

My body's aching and my time is at hand and I won't make it any other way

This was written while Taylor was in rehab, recovering from a heroin addiction. The lyrics are a literal prayer to simply survive one more day. Haunting and harrowing. 

I won't go into the third verse except to say that it's about his failed band and his stay in a mental hospital.

So that's all pretty dark and its history is fairly well-known at this point, but between these verses is the chorus which I always assumed was the hopeful counter-punch. The chorus goes:

I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you again.

The "fire and rain" part goes along with the verses - life is sad and turbulent - but, forgive me if this is obvious and I'm the only one- but I always interpreted "I always thought that I'd see you again" as meaning "you're a good friend, I can count on you" - the positive light among the darkness of a fallen world. I only recently realized that "I always thought that I'd see you again" refers to the friend who committed suicide in the first verse. It isn't optimistic, it's mournful and heartbreaking. It's a lament that "In all the storms of life, I thought I had you as a constant and now you're gone" and "What do I do now that the light of my life has been snuffed out?"