"Fire And Rain"
Geoff Hartman
David McFarlane wrote:
>
> On Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:20:52 -0700, jf...@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Joshua
> Fruhlinger) wrote:
>
> >The question concerns the lyrics to James Taylor's song "Fire And Rain."
> >I had been told by my father from when I was quite young that the lyrics
> >were written about a friend James Taylor had while he was in a mental
> >institution. The friend supposedly died under electroshock therapy,
> >prompting Taylor to write the song.
>
> Except for the death by electroshock, that's basically the story I
> remember from the time.
I worked at Topeka State Hospital for 9 years, which was just down the
road from the world-famous Menninger Institute (you go to Menninger's
when you have money; you go to Topeka State if you don't--or after
Menninger's has cleaned you out).
I worked with many different aides and nurses back in the early '80s who
worked part-time at TSH, full time at Menninger's, several of whom had
helped take care of JT when he was there. He was indeed at Menninger's
for an unspecified disease of the rich. The story I got from those folks
was that JT made friends with another patient there, then abruptly lost
touch with her a few weeks after she was discharged. He was confused and
depressed for a while, then several weeks later they finally told him
she'd committed suicide right after leaving.
He was reportedly a lot angrier about not being told than he was sad
about her death.
So that, if their account is true, is the meaning behind "Just yesterday
morning they let me know you were gone," etc.
--
Christian Humor!
http://christianhumor.miningco.com
"Do We Have To Give Up Our Brains For Jesus?"
http://www.aracnet.com/~ghartman/index.shtml
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"nospam")
Tae H Kim
The FAQ for alt.music.james-taylor sheds a little light - but doesn't
completely answer the question. It seems that James Taylor fans have a
few ideas of their own.
Note the last three quotes, however - they're from a band member of Flying
Machine, and from Taylor himself - taken from "Rolling Stone" magazine
interviews.
---
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for alt.music.james-taylor
Version 5.1
July 5, 1997
[...]
7.0 S O N G O R I G I N S
7.1 "Fire and Rain"
From William Palmer (wpa...@oasys.dt.navy.mil):
Something I heard about this line goes like this: JT had a
girlfriend that he was really focusing on. Some friends decided
that she was a bad influence on him, and convinced her to go away
for awhile. They bought her a plane ticket, she got on the plane,
and en route, it crashed and she was killed in the accident. She
was the 'sweet dream', and the plane was the 'flying machine'.
From Jonathan Abramowitz (jabra...@msuvx1.memst.edu):
The real story behind "Fire and Rain", as I understand it, is that
some friends of James' were going to surprise james by bringing his
girlfriend, Suzanne, to one of his concerts- unbeknownst to James.
According to the story, Suzanne's plane crashed ("sweet dreams and
flying machines in pieces on the ground") on her way to see the
concert and Suzanne dies (Suzanne the plans they made put an end
to you").
From Carrie Schwanke (c...@gwis.circ.gwu.edu):
"Fire and Rain" was written about a friend of JT's, Suzanne. They met
when they were in Austin Riggs for heroin addition. They became very
close *friends*. After JT was released, they spoke on the phone alot,
helping each other out ("hours of time on the telephone line").
Suzanne was supposed to be released, but committed suicide very
close to her release date.
The line "Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"
refers to JT's past--and the breakup of his first band (Flying Machine).
From Ellen M. Roberts (eu...@cleveland.freenet.edu):
Actually, the song is sort of a mini-trilogy dealing with three
bad times in his life.
Verse I -- in 1968 -- making his first record. A friend of his
died -- her name was Suzanne and he got to know her when she was
at Austin Riggs with him. She had some surgery and didn't come
through it. (Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you).
He also refers to her in the refrain: I've seen lonely times
when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd
see you again. At the time of Suzanne's death, his friends didn't
tell him because they felt he was too strung out to handle the
news.
Verse II -- refers to the NYC drug scene
Verse III - refers to leaving NY to escape heroin.
The flying machines in pieces on the ground refers to his original
group breaking up after being together only a bit more than one
year.
From Ken Kwartler (kmkl...@corp.sgi.com)
Quoting Flying Machine drummer Joel Bishop:
James wrote it after the album was pretty well done. There was
this friend of my brother's - we both really liked her, and she
had killed herself six months before. No one had told James -
they were afraid I guess. One night late we got drunk, and I
told him because I'd wanted to. In a week and a half, he had
that song written.
Quoting James Taylor in a 2/18/71 Rolling Stone article:
The first verse was a reaction to a friend of mine killing herself. . .
The second verse of it is about my kicking junk just before I left
England. And the third verse is about my going into a hospital in
Western Massachusetts. It's just a hard-time song, a blues without
having the blues form.
----
"James Taylor: The Rolling Stone Interview"
- Rolling Stone, September 6, 1979.
[...]
RS: Do you ever want to get back to an intensity like that of "Fire and
Rain"? Something that would knock people on the seat of their pants?
JT: Again, it wasn't any kind of premeditated attempt at knocking down
an audience. I was just writing down a song for myself. The song came
in three different portion. The first verse came in a basement
apartment in London. The second verse, in a hospital room in Manhattan
where I was recovering from what made me leave England - some hard times
and stuff, and the third verse was written in Austin Riggs hospital in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. So it's a three month period of time in
1968. It's like three samplings of what I went through then.
---
My money's on Carrie ...
- Tae
Tae H Kim
Geoff Hartman (ghar...@aracnet.com) wrote:
: I worked at Topeka State Hospital for 9 years, which was just down the
: road from the world-famous Menninger Institute (you go to Menninger's
: when you have money; you go to Topeka State if you don't--or after
: Menninger's has cleaned you out).
: I worked with many different aides and nurses back in the early '80s who
: worked part-time at TSH, full time at Menninger's, several of whom had
: helped take care of JT when he was there. He was indeed at Menninger's
: for an unspecified disease of the rich. The story I got from those folks
: was that JT made friends with another patient there, then abruptly lost
: touch with her a few weeks after she was discharged. He was confused and
: depressed for a while, then several weeks later they finally told him
: she'd committed suicide right after leaving.
: He was reportedly a lot angrier about not being told than he was sad
: about her death.
: So that, if their account is true, is the meaning behind "Just yesterday
: morning they let me know you were gone," etc.
Story seems to jibe with the others on the alt.music.james-taylor FAQ -
except for the location of the hospital:
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for alt.music.james-taylor
Version 5.1
July 5, 1997
3.0 B I O G R A P H Y / C H R O N O L O G Y
[...]
1965
- Moves to to New York City
* 17-year-old JT admits himself and spends ten months in McLean
Psychiatric Hospital in Massachusetts as a result of depression.
His song "Knocking 'Round the Zoo" was inspired by his stay there.
- Goes on a trip to Russia.
1966
- Graduates from high school in the McLean Psychiatric Hospital.
- Kootch and Joel O' Brien join JT to form The Flying Machine.
- Release one single: "Night Owl" / "Brighten Your Night With My Day"
- The Flying Machine makes studio recordings. Album wasn't released
until 1971 under the title "James Taylor and the Original
Flying Machine."
1967
- The Flying Machine breaks up.
1968
- Begins using heroin.
- Moves to Notting Hill Gate section of London and records demos.
Auditions them for record companies.
- Introduced to Paul McCartney by Peter Asher and signed to the Beatles'
record label, Apple Records. JT was the first outside artist signed to
that label.
- November: "James Taylor" released in U.K. with little commercial
success
- Returns to U.S.
* Enters Austin Riggs, another mental hospital in Massachusetts, partly
due to his heroin addiction.
---
There are no other hospitalizations mentioned in the FAQ.
I wonder how many *other* psychiatric institutions have their own rumors
of famous patients staying there ... It's a bit easier for such rumors to
perpetuate - and a bit harder to substantiate, as patient confidentiality
rules discourage the snooping of records - or the discussion of patients
by staff that are not under their direct care. Interesting.
- Tae
Ronnie J. Dean
>
> FWIW, before starting his solo carerr JT was in a band called "The
> Flying Machine" which had one pop hit (sorry, don't remember the
> tune). I suspect "flying machines in pieces on the ground" refers to
> the defunct band.
>
Stolen From: http://www.westworld.com/~gregb/jtapple.html
While attending Milton Academy (near Boston), James met up with a fellow
student, Danny
Kortchmar. James and "Kootch" (as Danny became known) hit it off right
away, and soon began to
play folk gigs locally. With James on guitar and "Kootch" on harmonica,
the vocal duo did pretty
well, winning the occasional hootenanny contest.
When music did a turnaround in 1964, James left school (and Danny) and
joined up with his older
brother Alex in his band, The Fabulous Corsairs. In the meantime,
"Kootch" and drummer Joel
O'Brien formed The King Bees, and when that didn't pan out, they called
on James to put together
another conglomeration: The Flying Machine.
The group landed a label deal with Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni, who were
forming a new label
(eventually named Rainy Day, after one of James' songs). They released
one single as The Flying
Machine, "Night Owl" b/w "Brighten Your Night With My Day". The record
didn't sell and the label
was short-lived, so James and the guys called it quits. (When James
finally broke big in 1970,
Jubilee Records, the company that distributed Rainy Day, issued a large
chunk of the recording
sessions as an album on their Euphoria subsidiary. Included were both
sides of the single, plus early
versions of "Knocking 'Round The Zoo" and "Rainy Day Man", as well as a
backing track for the
unfinished "Something's Wrong". The versions can't compete with the
polished Apple recordings but
are important historically.)
Ron "Fat Fried" Dean
Joshua Fruhlinger
Thanx for the info, all. Looks like my dad's story was closer to reality
than my girlfriend's. This gives me the slight but measurable
satisfaction of being the winner of a 6-year-old argument with someone
with whom I haven't spoken in more than two years.
Interesting how the stories changed though -- from suicide to elctroshock
in the case of my dad's version of what are (apparently) true events, and
from girlfriend to sister in the version my ex heard. There's significance
there, but it's too late at night for me to think of any.
Keep up the good work,
Josh
--
Josh Fruhlinger
History Department.
U. of California at Berkeley
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3044/index.html -- NOW UPDATED!
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Bif
Tae H Kim (tk...@lynx.dac.neu.edu) wrote:
:
: I wonder how many *other* psychiatric institutions have their own rumors
: perpetuate - and a bit harder to substantiate, as patient confidentiality
: rules discourage the snooping of records - or the discussion of patients
: by staff that are not under their direct care. Interesting.
A relative of mine works at McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont,
Massachusetts. This relative has worked there for about 20 years. This
relative has admitted that during this time, this relative has come across
approximately half a dozen celebrities, and another half dozen relatives
(mostly children) of celebrities. This relative has never mentioned the
names of the celebrities to me, but this relative has made a few
interesting observations:
The celebrities at McLean are uniformly serious and committed to
recovering.
Certain other, non-celebrity patients, always get the idea in their heads
that there are celebrities on the "other" floor or in the "other"
building. This can be absolutely hilarious to an employee, who, if asked,
must say "I don't know". (It's either always "I don't know" or always
"No" - but I forget.) So, conversations like this can happen:
(replace Harry Houdini with any modern day celebrity)
Patient: Listen, I know Harry Houdini is staying the hospital, what floor
is he on?
Employee: I don't know.
Patient: Just tell me! I _know_ he is here! I saw him being brought
into the other building yesterday! Tell me where he is!
Employee: I don't know.
Patient: But he is here, isn't he?
Employee: I don't know.
Patient: Well, another patient saw him too, so I know he is here. So why
can't you just tell me what floor he is on?
Employee: I don't know.
Patient: Fine, if you see him, can you just give him a message for me?
Employee: I can't help you.
-=-
This will happen especially if there has been a recent news report of a
celebrity being hospitalized (for any reason). Ya see, the patients
_know_ that the celebrity isn't being hospitalized for, say, kidney theft
- they _know_ that the celebrity is being "imprisoned" by "the government"
because the celebrity "knows too much".
Of course, not _all_ mental patients believe in conspiracy theories,
government plots, and ubiquitous subterfuge.
Bif - "only the ones we can't brainwash, moohoohoohaahaa"
--
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