The heartbreaking song James Taylor wrote as a “joke” | CPT PPP Coverage
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The heartbreaking song James Taylor wrote as a “joke” appeared on faroutmagazine.co.uk by Far Out Magazine.
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
The soulful sounds of James Taylor have reverberated across the pop music airwaves for decades. Equipped with his guitar and a vocal capable of melting entire nations, Taylor’s ability to craft sweet and sensual songs has made him one of the most desirable names in folk music. Such is the earnestness of his projects that it can feel strange to imagine that one of his biggest hits was actually written with a far less serious tone.
1970 was arguably Taylor’s most expansive year. With the heady days of the 1960s behind him, Taylor and the rest of the world focused on a new decade and began to plot their journey forward. For Taylor, specifically, it was to be a tough progression as the songwriter struggled with a crippling opiate addiction which threatened to not only damage his professional life but take a stranglehold on his health. Taylor, like so many of his contemporaries, was in a fight with heroin that he had to win.
Sweet Baby James is the culmination of Taylor’s struggles. “I came back from London with my heroin habit raging again, so I went to rehab,” Taylor told Rolling Stone while reflecting on his catalogue of songs. “Well, it wasn’t rehab. It was a psychiatric facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I’d been in a psychiatric hospital when I was 17, and I think that’s just what my folks knew to do with me. This facility wasn’t meant to handle opiate rehab, but that’s where I went, and I wrote a lot of songs that wound up on Sweet Baby James there.”
The record, regarded as one of Taylor’s best, is naturally a serious piece of work, gilded with touching vulnerabilities and unique perspectives. However, one piece on the record has a slightly more jovial incarnation. “‘Steamroller’, however, was from my Flying Machine days, and it was a joke.”
Growing into a man when he did, Taylor was more than aware of the influx of rock and rollers who, buoyed by The Beatles’ popularity, had taken up the art of guitar playing without really realising the roots of the instrument in such a guise. “There were a lot of white guys playing the blues, college students singing Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, and it seemed comical to me. ‘Steamroller’ was just meant to be a take-off.”
A blue-adjacent rock and roll lullaby, ‘Steamroller’ is one of Taylor’s smokiest releases. Undoubtedly pointed towards tongue-in-cheek, Taylor’s referrals to being a “hefty hunk of steaming junk” suggest a writer still toying with the ideas of addiction even in his more lighthearted pieces. As the track explodes into a vibrant brass section, one cannot help but peel away the layers to understand the heartache beneath it.
“One of the effects of being hospitalised a couple of times is that any expectations my family might have had for me — academic or professional — had all been abandoned,” Taylor said when talking about the track with Rolling Stone. “They kinda threw up their hands and said, ‘Well, at least he’s still alive.’ They were always very supportive of my music, but I did feel as though I came from a place of being disenfranchised and alienated. So, while seeing Sweet Baby James take off was hugely gratifying and everything I wanted, success was a major adjustment.”
Listen to James Taylor’s ‘Steamroller’ below.
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