Though he has never met me, I have met James Taylor many times. Half a century ago, his long-haired gaze on the “Sweet Baby James” album cover promised to see me (and only me) through the depths of adolescence. ‘We’re in this together,’ James said, and he held up his end of the deal. Both of us were melancholics, and while he sang lead on his records, I sang an uneven harmony. I think he might have enjoyed it if only he had heard.
Fans my age know some of his personal history: son of a physician, large musical family, born in Boston. In fact, the Taylors lived in Belmont until James was three, and he famously returned during his own adolescence when he was admitted to McLean Hospital for nine months. Medical insurance isn’t as forgiving of despair these days; the luxurious recovery is over.
By the time I moved to Belmont, James was living in the Berkshires. His voice was as sweet as ever, and his career had grown mythic. Early in the pandemic, when everyone was desperately in the dark, I started walking up and down local hills for aerobic diversion. Habitat Conservation Land is off Juniper Street, and Mitt Romney’s old house, once pink, is on Marsh Street. McLean Hospital, with its acres of landscaping, is not far away on Mill Street. The irritable geese that roam the lawns there cannot be good for anyone’s mental health.
One day, I took an almost invisible left-hand turn off Juniper and onto a road that did not seem to want to be known. Some of the yards were as large as fields, and the potholes were speed bumps. It was only minutes from the town center, yet was shady, hushed and secret. Even a street sign was hard to find.
But Reddit, I discovered, had found it three years earlier:
“James Taylor’s song “Country Road” was inspired by Somerset Street in Belmont, Massachusetts, a wooded road running adjacent to the land owned by McLean Hospital where Taylor had committed himself in 1965 to receive treatment for depression .”
Reddit is not an unimpeachable factual source, but who cares? Maybe James was on a pass from McLean when he wandered onto Somerset Street. Maybe, like me, he was working on cardiac health. Maybe he was in retreat from his therapist. As far as I’m concerned, we walked the exact same road and probably tripped over the exact same potholes.
These one-sided romances can’t last forever. When adolescence ended, James and I gave each other a final soulful glance and headed in opposite directions. Almost everyone in my generation has followed the chapters of his life: addiction, recovery, three marriages, four children, 20 studio albums, four live albums, and decades of graceful aging. Now, each summer, there he is, strolling across Tanglewood’s stage in his friendly, laconic way, an elder statesman with guitar in hand. I have read (though not on Reddit) that sometimes James still struggles with anxiety and depression. Many of us do, on this road or that.
Elissa Ely writes about seniors/baby boomers for The Belmont Voice. She is a community psychiatrist.