I quoted "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream" at the shrink today.<\/p>\n
The doctor asked me if I was in the cool group in high school.\u00c2\u00a0 I said no.\u00c2\u00a0 Seems that nobody in the music business was cool in high school.\u00c2\u00a0 If you were cool in high school, you’ve long ago descended into obscurity.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the peak of your life.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas those of us who were frustrated, who wanted more, we’ve been trying our whole lives to achieve coolness.<\/p>\n
Then he asked me who I had a crush on.<\/p>\n
This was kind of interesting.\u00c2\u00a0 My regular shrink doesn’t ask questions, he volunteers almost nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 But the doctor I see with Felice employs a different technique.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of me controlling the narrative, I had to think.\u00c2\u00a0 And I remembered this blonde-haired girl who made my heart flutter.\u00c2\u00a0 She was actually a year behind.\u00c2\u00a0 I called her a couple of times about the math homework.\u00c2\u00a0 And while I was getting up the gumption to ask her for a date, she found someone else.\u00c2\u00a0 Not on the cool team either, but it lasted.\u00c2\u00a0 So long, that as far as I know they still might be together.<\/p>\n
But I wanted to give the shrink the right impression.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas at summer camp…\u00c2\u00a0 At summer camp, I was THE KING!<\/p>\n
And that’s when I quoted "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream".<\/p>\n
By 1975, James Taylor’s star had faded.\u00c2\u00a0 And then Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker brought him back with "Gorilla".\u00c2\u00a0 A breezy album with hits.\u00c2\u00a0 And when that worked so well, the same team got together and cut the follow-up, "In The Pocket".\u00c2\u00a0 Which wasn’t as successful, which has been forgotten.<\/p>\n
There was a breezy hit on "In The Pocket" too.\u00c2\u00a0 The opening track, "Shower The People".\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 I pulled from "It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" and "Shower The People".<\/p>\n
You can run but you cannot hide It’s so hard to say what you feel.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easier to slip into depression.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re afraid to risk, afraid of being rejected.\u00c2\u00a0 I could have asked that girl in high school for a date.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Anyway, there’s a trio of cuts on the second side of "In The Pocket" that’s part of my pantheon.\u00c2\u00a0 A trilogy akin to "Riding On A Railroad", "Machine Gun Kelly" and "You Can Close Your Eyes" on "Mud Slide Slim".\u00c2\u00a0 Only, in this case, you don’t have to program them on your CD player, they’re all in a row.<\/p>\n I got into the last first, "Nothing Like 100 Miles"…<\/p>\n There’s nothing like a hundred miles That’s what many people do when they’re on the losing end of a love affair.\u00c2\u00a0 They leave.\u00c2\u00a0 Town.\u00c2\u00a0 Got to put some distance between them and their problems.<\/p>\n Before that comes the number with Stevie Wonder, "Don’t Be Sad Because Your Sun Is Down".<\/p>\n And before that is the keeper, what I used to call my favorite JT number, "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream".<\/p>\n If Kenny Chesney…if Jimmy Buffett could cut an island number as good as this, then they’d have JT’s reputation.\u00c2\u00a0 Alas, they haven’t, and probably can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 I think you have to have been hurt to write something like "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream"…\u00c2\u00a0 You have to be a bit of a loner, someone who’s removed, who dreams of being involved.<\/p>\n It’s a song about a displaced person.\u00c2\u00a0 Like David Hemmings, playing a rummy in that seventies movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Up here, in the north, in the States, the protagonist appears a loser…\u00c2\u00a0 But in his element!<\/p>\n Up here I’m just a whisky bum That’s how I was during the summer, at camp.\u00c2\u00a0 I had girlfriends.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked the opposite sex to dance at socials and they were thrilled.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 That hurts the ego.<\/p>\n After the inexplicable failure of "One Man Dog", an overlooked gem, JT gave up on Peter Asher and the west coast players.\u00c2\u00a0 He went all New York, he hired David Spinozza, at the peak of his powers, to produce his next record, "Walking Man".<\/p>\n You know that track.\u00c2\u00a0 But probably nothing else on the record.<\/p>\n And "Walking Man" is kind of slight.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s nothing close to a loser on the first side until you hit track 5.<\/p>\n "Walking Man" is followed by "Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Music Now".\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to listen too closely to hear Paul McCartney’s guttural backup vocal.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes the track.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what a Beatle will do.<\/p>\n "Let It All Fall Down" is strangely magical.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s quiet, but so intimate.\u00c2\u00a0 Then it builds, and the wordplay is exquisite.\u00c2\u00a0 You warm up to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it’s not as good as what comes thereafter, "Me And My Guitar".<\/p>\n Me and my guitar That’s a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 If they could talk, they wouldn’t have to play.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t trust people, inanimate objects are easier.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got a desire to bridge the gap, but the only tool they’ve got is their instrument.\u00c2\u00a0 Which makes people fall in love with them, but the bond is about the music, not their identity.<\/p>\n I’m having a gray day mood.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though it’s been sunny all day.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not exactly sure why.<\/p>\n And I found myself in that mindless trance.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, when you’re surfing from site to site, researching your life history.<\/p>\n And I wasn’t playing any music.\u00c2\u00a0 Because nothing felt right.<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed something like I felt.\u00c2\u00a0 Not exactly depressed, but isolated…getting ready to play again.<\/p>\n That’s when "Me And My Guitar" popped into my brain.<\/p>\n Every now and then I’m a lonely man James is talking about his guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m talking about his music.<\/p>\n That’s why we still care all these years later.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not the flash, it’s not the stardom, it’s the understanding.\u00c2\u00a0 He may be more famous, and a bit more wealthy, but somehow the path he’s walked is not that different from ours.<\/p>\n And it’s funny.\u00c2\u00a0 The track becomes exuberant.\u00c2\u00a0 There are horns, and strings.\u00c2\u00a0 But it doesn’t work.<\/p>\n It’s me and my guitar Me and my keyboard…<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I quoted "Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream" at the shrink today. 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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<\/em><\/p>\n
Between me and trouble in my mind
There’s nothing like a hundred miles
Show me the yellow line<\/em><\/p>\n
But down there I’m a king<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/em><\/p>\n
It’s nice to know that I’ve got a friend<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/em><\/p>\n