The tragedy James Taylor's life in three brutal acts | CPT PPP Coverage

The truth of the matter is darker. Taylor wasn’t immune to the curses of his generation or his job. More so than any other industry, the music world has been brought to its knees and devastated time and time again by the intersection that exists between mental health, drugs and the demand on artists to bear their souls. While revelatory lyrics can be cathartic, that level of introspection is also both a symptom of and a real detriment to real issues. That’s where the worrisome tortured artist myth appeared as creatives fall into believing that good art has to come from personal strife or that their pain makes them better.

While his lyricism isn’t often as dark or dreary as one might expect from a typically tortured artist, Taylor struggled badly. The battles in his life are split into three sad acts. The first came in his teenage years as depression set in, leading him to drop out of school and check into McLean, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, in late 1965. By mid-1966, he was discharged and went off to New York to focus on music.

But the very nature of mental health issues is that they come back around. This time around, there was another catalyst. “The drummer from my band, The Flying Machine, was a heroin addict,” Taylor told Oprah. “It was a matter of time before I got my first taste. And I was gone. As soon as I was introduced to opiates, I was gone.” The addiction took hold quickly and derailed him again. His band fell apart, and as he became useless to himself and his friends, he went back home to get clean. That was act two.

“People argue about substance abuse and whether or not addiction is genetically predisposed,” he said once. “I think it probably is. There’s definitely that gene in my family. Whether it’s nature or nurture, we tend to be addicted.” The third act is an expected one: relapse. After moving to England, signing with The Beatles and getting back to work, he quickly got back into the habit. By the end of 1968, he returned to rehab.

This still wouldn’t be Taylor’s final rehab stint. It would take him longer to properly shake the addiction, but it was during this treat that he turned his pen to the issue, finally ready to face up to everything that had happened and come before. During his time in treatment, he wrote his most famous song, ‘Fire and Rain’, as he looked back on what had led him there.

Across the three verses, Taylor considered the tragedies in his life. In the first verse, he addresses “Suzanne”, a friend who took her own life while also struggling with the ups and downs of addiction in the music scene.

In the third verse, he looks at his first rehab stint, referencing his first man as he sings of “flying machines”. Sandwiched in the middle is Taylor’s plea for recovery as he seems to realise it’s his only option, singing, “And I won’t make it any other way”.

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