James Taylor - Never Die Young (Nice Jazz Festival, 1999)

Lyrics: We were ring-around-the-rosy children They were circles around the sun Never give up, never slow down Never grow old Never ever die young

Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart

And we who couldn’t bear to believe they might make it We got to close our eyes To cut up our losses into doable doses And ration our tears and sighs

You could see them on the street on a Saturday night Everyone used to run them down They’re a little too sweet, they’re a little too tight They’re not enough tough for this tough town

We couldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole No, it didn’t seem to rattle at all They were fused together body and soul That much more with their backs up against the wall

Oh, hold them up, hold them up Never do let them fall Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin That names us and claims us and shames us all

Oh, it had to happen someday soon There wasn’t nothing to hold them down They would rise from among us like a big balloon Take the sky and forsake the ground

Oh, yes, other hearts were broken I know other dreams ran dry But our golden ones sail on and on To another land beneath another sky

Let other hearts be broken Let other dreams run dry But let our golden ones sail on and on To another land beneath another sky Beneath another sky

Hold them Hold them up Hold ’em up Won’t you hold ’em up Can’t you hold them up

#music #James-Taylor #hope #1999 #Nice-Jazz-Festival

Seeing James Taylor posts on my timeline today and it reminded me to go back to Fire and Rain. Such a beautifully simple song to play on guitar — just a handful of open chords but the emotion hits every time.

If anyone wants to play along, here's a clean chord chart: https://chordroom.com/songs/677

Also highly recommend You've Got a Friend right after. That JT + Carole King story never gets old.

#guitar #jamestaylor #acousticguitar #songwriting #music #chords #singersongwriter

Still thinking about a story James Taylor told on the Stephen Colbert show....

In the early 70s, he was performing at The Troubadour with Carole King; at that time, she was recording the album Tapestry and he was making Mudslide Slim. Carole played a new song she had just written: "You've Got a Friend." JT said he heard it and thought it was so great he literally ran for his guitar to learn/ play it.

So then, when he was back in the recording studio, they had recorded a few covers, and he said to the others, "Let's do this song of Carole's." They recorded it, and then he went to tell CK that he wanted to include it on his album -- before she had even released it herself. She (generously) said, that's great.

And then she told him that what had prompted her to write the song was listening to his song "Fire and Rain." When she heard the line "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend," she thought, I'm going to tell him that he's got a friend... and she wrote the song.

"You've Got a Friend" won them each a Grammy: JT for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male and CK for Song of the Year.

#JamesTaylor #CaroleKing #Songwriting #SingerSongwriters

Chip Taylor, “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning” Songwriter, Dies at 86
#MusicNews #News #JamesTaylor #JonVoight #Obituaries

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-news/chip-taylor-dead-wild-thing-angel-of-the-morning-jon-voight-1236546315/