Music: Fire and Rain

There are some songs whose reputations get watered down over time, like James Taylor's first hit single, "Fire and Rain." The catchy melody and sparse production helped to define the whole singer-songwriter sound of the '70s. It's sort of a guilty pleasure nowadays, a mellow adult contemporary ditty that you hear as background music at the mall. The actual lyrics are pretty dark, though, referencing death and drug addiction:



Here's another little bit of trivia - when Taylor guest-starred on the classic Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer," he sang a version with modified lyrics for the part where Homer is an astronaut trying to get back to Earth safely. The line "Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground" was changed to "Sweet dreams and flying machines flying safely through the air."