It is one of James Taylor's most memorable lyrics — “With 10 miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.” He sang it first 47 years ago and again on Monday when I saw him at Tanglewood in western Massachusetts, and the words spoke to the many of us in the crowd who’d been following him as long.
A part of me wondered whether the phrase should be reversed at this point, with Taylor at age 69 and the miles in front likely fewer than the many he's traveled.
It’s what brought us to see him — he’s journeyed alongside us as one of our troubadours, his music part of our backbeat.
It was heartening to hear his voice as pure as in his 20s, and his guitar as artful. But as I listened, I found myself thinking that given his biography, something else about him is just as remarkable — that James Taylor has endured personally.
Even if you don’t know his story well, most fans have picked up parts of it, especially from “Fire and Rain,” perhaps his greatest song, about the loss of a friend, and the holes inside him.
His melodies are so upbeat you can often miss the many other lyrics like those — about his brittleness and demons. Like “Country Road,” where he sings of being in pieces, but can hear the angels coming to set him free.
There’s a bit of that in him onstage. You expect superstars such as Taylor who’ve sold over 100 million records to have a certain flamboyance when they perform. But James — as we sometimes call him — isn’t like that. As he sang in an old cloth jacket and newsboy hat he was simply humble, and happy — and you could even feel a fragileness.
And you know what — there’s reassurance in that, which is a rarely talked-about reason that draws us to him. Both he and his story seem to say that despite life being daunting, you can get through.
Because there were many reasons James Taylor might not have.
He’s fought both depression and drug addiction — it got so bad his senior year at nearby Milton Academy in the mid-1960s that he checked himself into McLean Hospital for nine months.
Afterward, he moved to New York, playing in bands that struggled and failed. Mentally, he failed with them, ending up addicted to heroin. Again, he spent six months in treatment.
Then he returned and his raw talent brought him to work with the highest of musical company, including Simon & Garfunkel, Carole King and the Beatles themselves.
But even as James Taylor was delivering hits, he still had his demons, and there were more years of depression, drugs and chaos, partly why his marriage to Carly Simon ended.
Yet despite such a bad road, he persevered.
And kept creating legendary songs.
And because of that, his life imparts a message as uplifting as his music:
That even if you have holes inside, you can get through. And perform well.
Perhaps the real key is in that lyric — that on some level, James Taylor told himself he couldn't quit because he had 10,000 miles to go.
And to see him perform is to believe he still does.
And maybe, with that same outlook, we do, too.
— mpatinki@providencejournal.com
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