#99

99. Fire and Rain – James Taylor

 Stats:

• #3 for 3 Weeks in 1970 (October - November)
• Best higher charting song: I'll Be There - The Jackson 5
• Worst higher charting song: We've Only Just Begun - Carpenters
• Top 100 #3 Hits 1955-2002 Rank: #90

James Taylor's Fire and Rain feels like it kicked off the whole 70s singer-songwriter movement.  This may not be true choronlogically (Neil Diamond had been around since the 60s after all), but seems too good a story to pass up. Fire and Rain was an introduction to the poetic musings of the early 70s that flowed from Bread, Carole King, Neil Diamond and others like wine.  Sadly, this movement got too bloated in its own weight to be sustainable for long, though the culture of writing your own stuff remains as a test of 'authenticity'.  Taylor's simplicity here, though, seems world's away from the AC horrors that would, in a decade, be lying in 'bits and pieces on the ground.'

Coming up: #98 - "Third time I fell in love now I hope it lasts"

Comments

[Ken]

Trying to pigeonhole this classic is a serious error. This is simply an epic song--and my first challenge (of this round) to placement--this should be much higher.

[Cliff Arroyo]

Gotta agree, an epic song that seems much too low. And while it does have some status in the early singer/songwriter canon it's been covered a bunch of times which gives it claim to standard status (certainly not true of most s/s fare).