“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.”
When people talk about the best songs of the 1970s, James Taylor’s lovely “Fire and Rain” usually doesn’t make the final cut. My friend Mickey says “Stayin’ Alive” from the disco era is the one that best epitomizes the decade, and the first one that comes to mind for me is Elton John’s wonderful “Tiny Dancer” would probably be my favorite.
It was a great thrill for me finally to see Elton John in concert last year in Atlanta, and capturing a video of him performing “Tiny Dancer” made me very happy.
As for the Bee Gees, I liked them a lot too, although mostly their pre- and post-disco work.
The thing I remember most about Taylor in those early days was how laid-back he seemed. In fact, my friend Bill once described him as so laid-back while performing that he looked like he was going to fall asleep.
I never saw JT in his prime, with the exception of a cameo appearance at a Carly Simon concert in 1974. She was married to Taylor at the time, and she was performing at Constitution Hall in D.C. She and her husband had a hit record together at the time, and he came out onto the stage and performed “Mockingbird” with her.
The only other time I saw him was about 20 years ago as part of a Fourth of July concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I can’t remember all the songs he did, but I know he sang “Fire and Rain.” The verse I quoted at the beginning of this piece was about Taylor’s time in a mental hospital when he was young.
It has been a long time since I was young, but I remember the years when I was between 17 and 23 and how desperate I felt. My pain wasn’t physical and I didn’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol, but I don’t know if I ever felt as much day-to-day anguish was I did during much of that time.
Those years — 1967-73 — were the ones in which I closed a lot of doors to what should have been a very bright future. It isn’t like I didn’t have an OK life, career-wise, but I never reached as high as I should have if I hadn’t done so much to sabotage myself.
Half a century later, the worst parts of those years return to my memory again and again, and there are times they almost overwhelm me. It’s difficult to comprehend their return after all these years, but there are nights when I wake up at 2 a.m. and don’t get back to sleep for two or three hours.
There is no doubt the best thing that ever happened to me was in 1992 when I met Nicole and acquired a wonderful wife and two amazing children. They have been the joy of my life, but I still regret the failure of my first marriage and the fact that I never got to experience the joys of family and parenthood until I was past 40.
I love my children with all my heart, and it is horrible to me that the closer of the two lives 650 miles away and the farther lives on another continent in another hemisphere. It has been 16 months since I saw the closer one and two years since I saw the other.
In fact, my actual physical contact with someone I love is down to just one person. Nicole and I are both 73 and both of us are suffering almost constant physical pain of various types. The time will come when only one of us is still alive, and I’m pretty sure she will do better on her own than I would.
When James Taylor sang about fire and rain, he was referring to electroshock treatments and hydrotherapy. I never experienced either of those, for which I consider myself fortunate. But I have lived through periods of deep despair more than once, and those are the times I have found myself deeply touched by Taylor’s song.
“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.”