Summer Song Challenge, Day 62: Joe

Prompt: "A song whose lyrics discuss the writing of that song"

Selected by Joe

"Fire and Rain"

James Taylor

Sweet Baby James, 1970

"I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,
I just can't remember who to send it to."

The meta, snake-eat-tail aspect to this song—the fact that he's singing a song about writing the song that he's singing—is the second thing that I think about when I hear "Fire and Rain," and probably the second-most important aspect to the song.

The first thing that I think about, and by far its least important function, is the fact that I first heard the song in Remember the Titans, a basic-ass movie about how football solved racism in the South. I forget the scene that it soundtracks. I think it might be there one where the least racist white kid gets steamrolled by a truck. That'll teach him to not be racist! Look, though: it's a great song, this James Taylor soft folk classic, and basic or not, the kiddie film is elevated due to its presence on the soundtrack, if just for a minute or two.

The third thing that I think about, and probably the most important, is that it's at least partially about the suicide of Taylor's friend Suzanne Schnerr. Knowing this makes a sad song much sadder, and gives real depth to the line right after the self-referential "I wrote down this song" one. "I just can't remember who to send it to." Suzanne, we can assume, would've been the friend that he shared these intimate thoughts and feelings with, and now she's gone.

Here's a wild twist to the story: James Taylor's other friends apparently knew that James was on the brink of a commercial breakthrough, that he was this close to his music achieving some semblance of popularity, and that the album he was currently working on—the one that would become Sweet Baby James—was going to be the big one (they were right, as it still stands as his most popular and most critically acclaimed). And so these other friends knew that something like the death of one of his closest pals was going to devastate him, and potentially derail the foretold successes that lie just around the corner. And so... they hid Suzanne's death from James. He didn't know that she was dead for six months. 

I suppose I get the logic here. Short-term, grieving a dear friend was important, but long-term, he needed to get these songs onto a record and become the classic rock star he was fated to be. History proved the decision the correct one for James, since we probably wouldn't be listening to Sweet Baby James if he was too depressed to finish it when he did. Okay, sure. And let's even maybe put aside the fact that, if a group of friends were to attempt this in our present day, they'd be unsuccessful. Everyone is way too connected now that you could possible hide a suicide from a close friend for more than a couple days max. 

I gotta ask, though... was this the right thing to do? I'm talking ethically, here. It wasn't a lie so much an omission, technically, but that is one hell of a fucking omission. What, did he miss the funeral? Or did they hold off on the funeral until Sweet Baby James was pressed onto vinyl? I get that anyone would be devastated by a close childhood friend taking their own life, but I have to imagine there's a good chance that devastation is exponentially magnified by the knowledge that the death was hidden from you. Almost like the extra time gives the loss more weight, and maybe six months is enough weight to crush you. I'm just speculating here, but the whole situation seems fucking insane to me, and it's similarly insane how casually Wikipedia drops that little bit of trivia about this goddamn song.

We could also ask the opposite question, if you really want to get real and perhaps toe the line of decency. Was the success of "Fire and Rain" dependent on this chain of events? This song is James Taylor's highest-charting song that he ever wrote (it was bested by his version of "You've Got a Friend," which went all the way to #1, but that song was written by Carole King). And it's about the loss of his friend Suzanne Schnerr, and the grief he felt when he finally learned the sad news. The grief inspired him to write the song. A deep sadness led to excellent art. 

I think if you asked James Taylor in 1970 whether he'd trade in his pending success for things to turn out differently with his friend, he'd answer the same exact way that he would if you asked him that question in 2023: of fucking course. I totally get it. I would say the same thing too if I was in his position. I think that it just speaks to the power of art like this, that he could take this sadness and translate it into something so profound and moving and catchy.

The saddest part, for me, is that he wrote a great song, a song that is partially about the writing of that song, and that song was shared with millions of people, and beloved by most of those millions, and no matter how many people hear it and love it, there is exactly one person that he wanted to share it with immediately after he wrote it, and she was no longer with us. That's the real reason that this song sounds haunted. Not that it's about someone we lost, but that it was written for that person, and since she cannot hear it, it essentially exists for no one, the sounds of deep regret and anguish and sorrow, echoing out into nothing and nowhere.

But also licensed out to a fucking Disney football movie. Jesus fucking christ.