Customer Reviews

Fire And Rain

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I will admit that I was a strange kid in high school, but I do think that I had pretty good, if a little bit `mature,' tastes. Anyway, one day, I was flipping the channels, and I heard the beginning chords of this song. I, to be honest, didn't recognize the guy playing it. He was old, tall, lanky, and bald. But what a song it was. I was pretty overwhelmed by the poetry of the song (and how it renews itself--when I saw the attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11, my mind immediately heard that line from the song "sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"), by the tragedy and love that shine throughout it (whose life hasn't been touched by fire and rain?), by the simple beauty of the melody, and by the performer's intensity as he sang it. Even if I was a stupid high school kid, I could recognize the song's sublimity.

Later, I realized that the performance was at James Taylor's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. I've never seen that performance since then, but I still remember it, and it did a lot to shape my tastes ever since. I did buy pretty well all of Taylor's early albums and still listen to them occasionally (they are fantastic--a lot of the more obscure songs are the very best). But Taylor prepared me to listen to the great music of some of the neo-folk talents writing and performing music right now (i.e. Mumford and Sons and, especially, The Avett Brothers, who come from Taylor's beloved North Carolina). So, this is still a wonderful song that has been meaningful to me for well over a decade.