Sorry, this ones kinda long.
This was Chapin's first single. Harry had his taxi drivers license in New York City and worked as a driver for 6 months in Long Beach, New York. Sandy Chapin, who was married to Harry from 1968 until his death in 1981, told this story: "He had been working in film, that was how he made his living. Harry's plan at the time was to make enough money in 5 or 6 months that he would not have to work for 5 or 6 months, and during which time he would write screenplays. And then, the money did run out and he went back to look for some work in film, but there wasn't anything available. He needed a job, he wanted to still to be able to write, so he applied for a cab license. And I was something like 8 months pregnant. I felt very positive about it, because I thought, wow, it would be a great experience, because people in cabs will tell him stories, and he'll get all kinds of characters for songs. I think he was feeling pretty low about it, and wrote the song 'Taxi' with the idea that the people he had told his dreams - that he was gonna make a great film - were gonna get into the cab, and so he ended up being a cab driver after all the big talk. And one of whom would be the girlfriend that he had while he was at Cornell. Sue was a real person."
The song is set in San Francisco. Sandy Chapin explains: "The song was moved to the West Coast from the East Coast. His life, college and otherwise, his work, was all on the East Coast. Even his film work was on the East Coast, except for that one year in California when he was doing commercials. When I would look through Harry's notebooks, I was amazed at how little editing there was. He would start jotting down ideas for a song or a story, and then decide later that because of the rhyming or the rhythm or whatever it was, that San Francisco would be a good place. He probably just came up with the line, 'It was raining hard in Frisco,' and went on from there. There were some notebooks where he jotted down 4 or 6 lines that he might come back to later and use. But there are other notebooks where he just sat down and wrote the song."
The middle section of the song features the bass player, John Wallace, in falsetto, singing the following lines, written by poet Sylvia Plath:
"Baby's so high, that she's skying
Yes she's flying, afraid to fall
I'll tell you why baby's crying
Cause she's dying, aren't we all..."
In 1980, Chapin wrote and composed a follow-up to the song, titled "". Written in the same style as "Taxi," it continues the story of Harry and Sue with them meeting again ten years later. Sue proves to have nothing, but she is now happy with herself. Invited to Harry's concert, she rejects the invitation by admitting that she works at night. Harry is otherwise cryptic about their reunion, urging listeners not to ask for details by saying, "If I answered at all I'd lie." The song ends with:
"I guess it's a sequel to our story
From the journey 'tween heaven and hell
With half the time thinking of what might have been
And half thinkin' just as well.
I guess only time will tell."
I love story songs, as well as your brilliant write ups COF.
Thank you very much. I just want to keep the music alive. To be clear, I don't "write" most of the info but compile it from all available sources, edit for interest and clarity, and try to verify as much as possible.
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