I quoted "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream" at the shrink today.

The doctor asked me if I was in the cool group in high school.  I said no.  Seems that nobody in the music business was cool in high school.  If you were cool in high school, you’ve long ago descended into obscurity.  That was the peak of your life.  Whereas those of us who were frustrated, who wanted more, we’ve been trying our whole lives to achieve coolness.

Then he asked me who I had a crush on.

This was kind of interesting.  My regular shrink doesn’t ask questions, he volunteers almost nothing.  But the doctor I see with Felice employs a different technique.  Instead of me controlling the narrative, I had to think.  And I remembered this blonde-haired girl who made my heart flutter.  She was actually a year behind.  I called her a couple of times about the math homework.  And while I was getting up the gumption to ask her for a date, she found someone else.  Not on the cool team either, but it lasted.  So long, that as far as I know they still might be together.

But I wanted to give the shrink the right impression.  It wasn’t like I was a loser, it wasn’t like I was a nerd, it wasn’t like I didn’t count, it’s just that I was outside the A group.  Whereas at summer camp…  At summer camp, I was THE KING!

And that’s when I quoted "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream".

By 1975, James Taylor’s star had faded.  And then Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker brought him back with "Gorilla".  A breezy album with hits.  And when that worked so well, the same team got together and cut the follow-up, "In The Pocket".  Which wasn’t as successful, which has been forgotten.

There was a breezy hit on "In The Pocket" too.  The opening track, "Shower The People".  I always thought it was a throwaway until around 1990, after my ex-wife moved out, when I had plenty of time to create my own philosophy, when I was finally old enough to think for myself.  I pulled from "It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" and "Shower The People".

You can run but you cannot hide
This is widely known
And what you plan to do
With your foolish pride
When you’re all by yourself alone
Once you tell somebody the way that you feel
You can feel it beginning to ease
I think it’s true what they say
About the squeaky wheel
Always getting the grease

It’s so hard to say what you feel.  It’s easier to slip into depression.  You’re afraid to risk, afraid of being rejected.  I could have asked that girl in high school for a date.  I’m thinking she would have rejected me and I would have been embarrassed every time I saw her in math class thereafter, but…maybe not.

Anyway, there’s a trio of cuts on the second side of "In The Pocket" that’s part of my pantheon.  A trilogy akin to "Riding On A Railroad", "Machine Gun Kelly" and "You Can Close Your Eyes" on "Mud Slide Slim".  Only, in this case, you don’t have to program them on your CD player, they’re all in a row.

I got into the last first, "Nothing Like 100 Miles"…

There’s nothing like a hundred miles
Between me and trouble in my mind
There’s nothing like a hundred miles
Show me the yellow line

That’s what many people do when they’re on the losing end of a love affair.  They leave.  Town.  Got to put some distance between them and their problems.

Before that comes the number with Stevie Wonder, "Don’t Be Sad Because Your Sun Is Down".

And before that is the keeper, what I used to call my favorite JT number, "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream".

If Kenny Chesney…if Jimmy Buffett could cut an island number as good as this, then they’d have JT’s reputation.  Alas, they haven’t, and probably can’t.  I think you have to have been hurt to write something like "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream"…  You have to be a bit of a loner, someone who’s removed, who dreams of being involved.

It’s a song about a displaced person.  Like David Hemmings, playing a rummy in that seventies movie.  Up here, in the north, in the States, the protagonist appears a loser…  But in his element!

Up here I’m just a whisky bum
But down there I’m a king

That’s how I was during the summer, at camp.  I had girlfriends.  I asked the opposite sex to dance at socials and they were thrilled.  I wasn’t arrogant, I just had an aura, a charisma that I didn’t have back home, where I’d ask one of my classmates to dance at a Bar Mitzvah party and they’d say no.  That hurts the ego.

After the inexplicable failure of "One Man Dog", an overlooked gem, JT gave up on Peter Asher and the west coast players.  He went all New York, he hired David Spinozza, at the peak of his powers, to produce his next record, "Walking Man".

You know that track.  But probably nothing else on the record.

And "Walking Man" is kind of slight.  But there’s nothing close to a loser on the first side until you hit track 5.

"Walking Man" is followed by "Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Music Now".  You don’t have to listen too closely to hear Paul McCartney’s guttural backup vocal.  It makes the track.  That’s what a Beatle will do.

"Let It All Fall Down" is strangely magical.  It’s quiet, but so intimate.  Then it builds, and the wordplay is exquisite.  You warm up to it.  Still, it’s not as good as what comes thereafter, "Me And My Guitar".

Me and my guitar
Always in the same mood
I am mostly flesh and bones
And he is mostly wood
Never does grow impatient
For the changes I don’t know, no
If he can’t go to heaven
Maybe, I don’t want to go, Lord

That’s a musician.  If they could talk, they wouldn’t have to play.  They don’t trust people, inanimate objects are easier.   They’ve got a desire to bridge the gap, but the only tool they’ve got is their instrument.  Which makes people fall in love with them, but the bond is about the music, not their identity.

I’m having a gray day mood.  Even though it’s been sunny all day.  I’m not exactly sure why.

And I found myself in that mindless trance.  You know, when you’re surfing from site to site, researching your life history.

And I wasn’t playing any music.  Because nothing felt right.

But when I got up to go to the bathroom, and I contemplated what to pull up in iTunes, I realized I needed something that wasn’t sunny.  I needed something like I felt.  Not exactly depressed, but isolated…getting ready to play again.

That’s when "Me And My Guitar" popped into my brain.

Every now and then I’m a lonely man
It’s nice to know that I’ve got a friend

James is talking about his guitar.  I’m talking about his music.

That’s why we still care all these years later.  It’s not the flash, it’s not the stardom, it’s the understanding.  He may be more famous, and a bit more wealthy, but somehow the path he’s walked is not that different from ours.

And it’s funny.  The track becomes exuberant.  There are horns, and strings.  But it doesn’t work.

It’s me and my guitar
Essentially me and my guitar
Oh maybe a few friends fall by for tea
A little bit of who do you love
But pay no attention
To the man behind the curtain
It’s me and my guitar
Having fun, boogie, woogie, uh-huh
Me and my guitar

Me and my keyboard…