A song by American singer-songwriter James Taylor, from his breakthrough second album Sweet Baby James (February 1970). Interestingly, the lyrics to the song have often been widely misunderstood, even by avid fans of Taylor's music.
The popular legend surrounding the song paints the tale of a young girlfriend of Taylor's named Suzanne. The pair were often separated as the band was on tour, but they still kept in close touch with one another (spending "hours of time on the telephone line/ to talk about the things to come"). Seeing how much James missed his girl ("I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend") the other band members decided to surprise him by chipping in for a plane ticket so that Suzanne could meet them at their next tour stop. However, ("Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you") the plane that she was on crashed on the way to the concert ("sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground") and Taylor was devastated by the loss ("But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again...")
A tragic story. However, it's not even close to true.
According to interviews with Taylor and others that were close to him, the three verses of the song actually refer to three separate periods of James' early life, when he was struggling with drug abuse and disappointment in his teens and early 20s.
"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.
All James would ever say about this verse is that it was about "the death of a friend". Likely, according to others that knew him then, Suzanne was a girl he met and connected with when he was seventeen, during his time in McLean Hospital undergoing treatment for drug addiction. The pair became close friends, and helped talk each other through the difficult times. Shortly after his release from the clinic, Suzanne committed suicide, and his friends were reluctant to tell him, for fear that he would relapse back into the destructive habits that he had just escaped. Hence, "Just yesterday morning/ They let me know you were gone." "The plans they made" likely refers to the reasons why Suzanne decided to take her own life, though exactly what they were will probably always remain a mystery.
"Won't you look down upon me Jesus
You gotta help me make a stand
You 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."
This verse refers to a time shortly after the recording of his debut album in
London, which was picked up by
the Beatles'
Apple label in 1968 but failed to really catch fire. Coming back home to
Massachusetts, Taylor once again checked himself into a psychiatric center, trying desperately to break free from the
heroin addiction he picked up in
England, before his window into stardom slipped away. ("My body's aching and my time is at hand/ And I won't make it any other way.")
"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."
James added this final verse during his five-week recuperation in Austin Riggs after returning to America, which he spent "walking his mind to an easy time/ his back turned towards the sun", looking back over his troubled past and trying to make a clean break. "Lord knows when the cold wind blows", that is, when a person falls onto hard times, "it'll turn your head around", and force you to look back at what you've been doing wrong.
The line "sweet dreams and flying machines" refers to the original plans he had made in life (The Flying Machine was the name of his first band, which broke up when he was nineteen, after little more than a year), an admission that these dreams were "in pieces on the ground" and that he needed "to talk about things to come".
Ultimately, it's a song about adversity and redemption, and Taylor's sadness for a lost friend who helped turn his life around.
"Oh 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, baby
one more time again."
sources: james-taylor.com, snopes.com, rolling stone magazine