The other day my ten-year-old asked me what my favorite song of all time was. I tried to give her the pragmatic answer that it was very hard to choose just one song, from every genre of music from every generation, that was my very favorite. But I knew this answer wouldn’t suffice her inquiring mind and I wanted to give her an answer. So I thought about it and the answer came rather quickly and I knew it was right.

“Fire and Rain by James Taylor,” I answered.

That got me thinking about this song for a few weeks and true to what often happens in life, I stumbled upon many references to this song and Taylor as I thought about my Favorite Song of All Time.

The first was at the Garth Brooks concert in Las Vegas, that Brian and I enjoyed together with work associates. It was our second time seeing the show and both times, Brooks mentioned that Taylor was one his life’s inspirations. He played “Sweet Baby James” on stage and talked about the first time he met Taylor. He recalled that he was a gentle, painfully-shy man who was tender and loving.

The second time Taylor’s ghost entered my little suburban world was tonight as we watched the Red Sox game. During the seventh inning stretch, survivors of the bombing at the Boston Marathon came onto the field to be honored with a special guest musician. Guess who it was? That’s right, James Taylor came out with his old, acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. He easily and dreamily presented us with a short rendetion of “America the Beautiful” as the camera panned over the reverant crowd and faces of the survivors that flanked Taylor.

As quick as the number was, it caused a feeling of peace and calm to fall over the stadium full of cheering fans, and my little family as we sat on the couch next to each other. My heart was touched and I was a little choked up. Yes, Taylor’s voice is beautiful. Yes, it was a meaningful, sad moment to see those survivors. But there was so much more to seeing the writer and singer of my Favorite Song of all Time.

You see, Taylor represents growth, wisdom, and beauty that grows out of intense, lifelong pain and struggle. At the age of 17, he entered a psychiatric hospital for depression and finished high school there. He started to write “Fire and Rain” there. Years later, after personal failures in his career and personal life, he admitted himself to another hospital for the same mental illness and also a heroin addiction. In fact, during one of these stints, he met a girl named Susie who was put into an isolation cell and out of the personal anguish she felt there, she committed suicide. She represents one of many references in his music, especially Fire and Rain, to the mental illness Taylor has always battled and that he continues to deal with even now. “Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.”

This pain has, no doubt, inspired much of his amazing music. Another of my favorites, “Shower the People”:

You can run but you cannot hide
This is widely known
And what you plan to do with your foolish pride
When you’re all by yourself alone
Once you tell somebody the way that you feel
You can feel it beginning to ease
Pain has the power to make us more loving, more empathetic to others, which in turn lifts our souls. Such a simple notion, but so key to a life of peace and contentment. We grow, we see the world differently when we experience pain. As much as mental illness is an intense, almost unbearable at times, cross to bear, it can generate a thorough and excellerated state of tenderness and humanity. Fire and Rain talks of this refinement in pain and Taylor idealizes the silver lining of a life of sadness: beautiful, resilient, inspiring music.