Fire and Rain
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Song and lyrics: James Taylor
All too often, I’ve chickened out of attending concerts I truly wanted to see and hear. I know my inherent stinginess is to blame. Which concert do I regret missing the most due to this personality flaw? That would be James Taylor’s performance at Harpa on May 18, 2012. There is something about Taylor’s music that draws me in. Perhaps it’s the combination of his silky-smooth baritone voice, his approach to the guitar, and lyrics that you just somehow relate to.
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By all accounts, the concert I mentioned earlier was a great success. Taylor played hit after hit, and he has certainly had many over his long career. One of the songs he performed was the one he owes everything to, Fire and Rain. Taylor wrote the song in 1968 for his second solo album, Sweet Baby James.
The lyrics consist of three verses, each reflecting Taylor’s thoughts from three different occasions. What the verses have in common is that they are deeply personal and describe a heavy state of mind. In an interview, Taylor once remarked that he probably wouldn't write such personal lyrics today, knowing that millions would read and interpret them.
The inspiration for the first verse was the news of the suicide of his childhood friend, Suzanne Schnerr, months after it happened. At the time, he was working on his first album, and his family and friends withheld the tragic news so he could finish the record. Taylor wrote the second verse while undergoing treatment for depression and drug addiction. Finally, the third and last verse seems to deal with the tension between regret and the expectations of the fame and fortune that appeared to be just around the corner.
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The song, Fire and Rain, is very characteristic of Taylor’s music and his unique style. He plucks the guitar strings in a way that makes the accompaniment sound as if a pianist were at work. His thumb takes on the role of the pianist’s left hand, while his index, middle, and ring fingers act as the right hand. It is possible that his cello studies also influenced his style, as he learned to play the cello before picking up the guitar.
The chord progressions in the song are based on A major fingerings, but the song sounds in C major because Taylor plays with a capo on the third fret. Taylor often chooses to use these chord shapes and a capo so that the key suits his voice. Another reason might be how he wants to utilize the bass lines, or perhaps because the A major shapes make it easier for him to embellish the notes exactly the way he desires.
Fire and Rain' is not a complex song on the surface. At first glance, one might assume it’s an ideal piece for beginning guitarists, but that’s not entirely the case. The chord progression in the verses is A, Em, D, A, Asus2, E, and G, while the chorus follows D, Bm, A, Asus2, D, and Bm in each line, except for the final line which ends on E and G. This sounds simple enough, but it isn’t if you want to sound like Taylor. To do that, you have to master the intro, which is so characteristic of the song, and use his specific fingerpicking style. The intro is likely the most complicated part of the song, but with patience, it can be mastered.
The arrangement I’m playing below is one I got from Six String Fingerpicking. It’s a guitar tuition website for those who want to play full fingerstyle arrangements of songs, featuring the bass, the inner voices, and the melody. Chris Murrin arranges all the songs, teaches how to play them, and sells the sheet music. I highly recommend this site. Of course, I cannot publish the sheet music itself as I don't own the rights, but I can share the chord version, which you can find here.
Since I’ve started recommending guitar tuition sites, I must also mention two others that I use frequently: JustinGuitar and GuitarZero2Hero. Both of these sites offer great lessons for this song in simpler versions. On GuitarZero2Hero, the song is actually taught at three different difficulty levels.
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