"Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you"

"Fire and Rain" by James Taylor is way too complicated of a song for me to analyze...so here's what people around the Web have managed to find out:

"Fire and Rain" Music and Lyrics by James Taylor

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone;
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,
I just can't remember who to send it to.

The identity of "Suzanne" is much debated:

Wikipedia: In a BBC interview, Taylor said the first verse referenced the suicide of a friend.
Snopes: According to urban legend that Taylor's collective audience made up, Suzanne was Taylor's girlfriend. She was supposed to fly out and meet him while he was away, but the plane crashed and she died.
Wikipedia: On VH1's Story Tellers, Taylor confirmed the song was about his friend Suzanne Schnerr who died suddenly at home while he was away in London. In an NPR interview, he said his friends kept the news from him because he had just been signed to a big record contract, and they didn't want to distract him.
Snopes: In a 1972 Rolling Stone interview, Taylor said the first verse is about his reaction to a death of a friend.

(Chorus)
I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end,
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend;
But I always thought that I'd see you again.

According to most people, the chorus is the only self-explanatory part of the song.

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus,
You've got to help me make a stand.
You've just got to see me through another day.
My body's aching and my time is at hand-
And I won't make it any other way.

Snopes: In the same interview with Rolling Stone, Taylor says the second verse is about him arriving in the United States from London and battling to overcome drug addiction.
Wikipedia: In the NPR interview, Taylor confirms this verse was about getting through depression.

(Chorus)

I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

Wikipedia: Taylor said in the NPR interview that this verse was about coming to grips with fortune and fame. "Flying machines" is a reference to his old band that he started before he had his big break.
Snopes: While people on this urban legend site thought this was a reference to the death of a friend, Taylor said in Rolling Stone that it was about his time at Austen Riggs, a psychiatric facility while he tried to overcome his addiction.

(Chorus)

Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now

It's such a beautifully simplistic, yet complex song...I'm glad other people have put effort into discovering the true meaning!

Fire and Rain

I'm going to take a different approach to the blog next week- instead of analying a song myself, I'm going to look at different interpretations of a very famous song that other people have written. In other words, it will be an analysis of an analysis.

The song in question will be "Fire and Rain," by James Taylor. I know James Taylor has been around for a long time, but somehow, I just started getting into his music. Anyway, it's an incredibly famous and influential song that has been analyzed for decades, and I'm excite to see what other people have to say about it.