August 1: Fire And Rain

JT is much maligned, and unfairly I think. Dude was a hardcore heroin addict before heroin addiction was cool. Plus he inspired the Beatles to do their best work as they were on the verge of breakup. Think of that next time you hear “You’ve Got A Friend”, and then realize that the song was actually written by a nebbish Jewish girl with a questionable voice (but the best songwriting chops this side of the Raritan Bay).

“Fire and Rain”, the previously mentioned song notwithstanding, is surely the man’s signature work. Its place in popular culture was cemented when the artist appeared on “The Simpsons”, serenading Homer and his astronaut crew while they faced certain death about “sweet dreams and flying machines flying safely through the air”.

In the time since that Simpsons reference, my thoughts upon hearing “Fire and Rain” have gone to a girl I knew in college named Suzanne, whose name is mentioned as the subject of the song. She was a fetching lass from Long Island in my freshman German class (and subsequent Deutsche klassen). We never made any plans together, but I certainly made many in my own head. Years later I was informed by my girlfriend in grad school that Suzanne had had a kid with a local boy (they were coincidentally childhood friends).

Recently though, I was driving with a sibling of mine and when this song came on SiriusXM’s The Blend, she told me a story of the time she found out that our father had died. After hearing the news, this song came on the radio and it touched her, as if our deceased Dad was sending her a message from beyond the grave. Now I can’t hear the song without that being my first thought, and it’s on my Amazon Prime mix so I hear it quite often.

Our dad died almost exactly 30 years ago. We miss you.