Fire and Rain Lyrics

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

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About

Genius Annotation

James Taylor explained the song in an interview with David Mikkelson this way:

“Fire and Rain” has three verses. The first verse is about my reactions to the death of a friend. The second verse is about my arrival in this country with a monkey on my back, and [Won’t you look down upon me,] Jesus is an expression of my desperation in trying to get through the time when my body was aching and the time was at hand when I had to do it. The third verse of that song refers to my recuperation [beating the heroin addiction] in Austen Riggs which lasted about five months."

The “Flying Machine in pieces on the ground” is a reference to the depression he’d been in about the demise of his band, The Flying Machine.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

who was suzanne and how did she die?
Genius Answer

Suzanne Schnerr was a friend Taylor met while performing with The Flying Machine in 1967. In his own words, “I knew Suzanne well in New York, and we used to hang out together and we used to get high together; I think she came from Long Island. She was a kid, like all of us.” Taylor described her death in his biography written by Tim White:

[Suzanne] committed suicide sometime later while I was over in London. At the time I was living with friends, and all three of them were really close to Susie Schnerr. But Richard and Joel and Margaret were excited for me having this record deal and making this album, and when Susie killed herself they decided not to tell me about it until later because they didn’t want to shake me up. I didn’t find out until some six months after it happened. That’s why the ‘They let me know you were gone’ line came up. And I always felt rather bad about the line, ‘The plans they made put an end to you,’ because ‘they’ only meant ‘ye gods,’ or basically ‘the Fates.’ I never knew her folks but I always wondered whether her folks would hear that and wonder whether it was about them."

Credits
Produced By
Written By
Bass Guitar
Release Date
February 1, 1970
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