-Welcome back. -Thank you.
-I'm so happy you're here. -I am, too.
It's nice to be here. -This audio memoir is wonderful.
And one of the great things about it is,
there are certain songs that, as a listener,
you become so comfortable with it, you forget,
at some point, they weren't songs,
and someone had to write them.
And you talk about writing "Carolina in My Mind."
And it's really just a wonderful story.
-Well, yeah, we had hoped people would be interested in that.
And it was. You know, I can't remember
an awful lot of the particulars
of writing some of those older songs.
But I do remember "Carolina." -Yeah.
And it was -- Can you share with us some of how it came about?
-Well, yeah, when I was recording my first album,
I was the first person signed to the Beatles' new record label,
Apple Records. And they had --
-Can I just stop real quick? Like --
[ Laughter ]
'Cause I imagine anyone, when they sign their first
record deal, there's a lot of pressure behind it.
But when it's the Beatles -- I mean, that seems like
there'd be even more pressure.
-Well, I don't -- [ Laughter ]
No, it felt -- it felt very easy.
-All right. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, okay. Okay. -No, it did.
There was very little sort of -- And that may have been
the problem with Apple Records, actually.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-That it was pretty much hemorrhaging money.
[ Laughter ]
But while that window of opportunity was open, I --
it was a great thing for myself, Mary Hopkins, Jackie Lomax,
Billy Preston, you know. -Yeah, of course.
-And a number of other lucky acts who were --
You know, but it was only a year or so
that the label still had other non-Beatle performers on it.
But, anyway, we were -- we were --
-I imagine that was a weird meeting day where they said,
"You know what? I think we're just gonna be the Beatles."
[ Laughter ]
"We think our record label should just be the Beatles
for here on out." [ Laughter ]
-Well, a guy named Allen Klein, who was actually, I think,
a New Yorker convinced, I think, John and Yoko
that he'd be a good manager for the Beatles.
This is after Brian Epstein died.
And Allen Klein basically threw everybody
off the record label is what happened.
-But you worked on this song with the --
It wasn't just the label. You actually went and brought it
to the Beatles and worked on it with some of the Beatles.
-With that particular song, well, it was --
I wrote it while we were recording.
We took a break. Well, that is to say,
the Beatles took a break, so the studio that they were using,
when they weren't there, I was there.
I would sort of scamper in there, you know,
and put down a few of my little tracks
and then clear out before they came back.
[ Laughter ]
But I got to hang around a little bit, too.
It was great. [ Laughter ]
-In the moment, did you know --
I mean, you know, did you know it was great?
Or was it one of those -- "Okay, yeah, okay, good"?
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-"I'm glad to hear that." -Yeah, I knew it --
I knew it was extraordinary and exceptional,
and I couldn't believe it.
But they took a break.
So they basically closed the studio down.
And I went to an island in the Mediterranean
off the coast of Spain, called Formentera.
Formentera. And while I was there --
in those days, it was an extremely sort of laid-back
and primitive place.
There were no -- There really were no cars on the island.
And people got around on bicycles or on their feet.
And I just -- I met --
I met some wonderful people while I was there
and had some adventures.
But myself -- [ Laughter ]
Myself -- excellent. [ Laughter ]
But myself and a girl named Karen from Sweden, we --
we went to -- we went to a neighboring island.
There was a ferry service over there.
We went over to see what was happening
on the island of Ibiza. -All right.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
And while we were there, we went to --
I can't remember if it was a wedding or a funeral.
But we went to some sort of a -- [ Laughter ]
But it was some kind of congregation of people.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -People seemed like they were
in a good mood. -So probably wedding.
-Yeah, well, possibly, but, you know?
-Yeah, you never know. Could've been a bad guy.
Yeah. -But we --
You know, we had intended to take the ferry back over
to Formentera by, you know, the evening, by the last boat,
but we missed the last boat.
We had -- We had our tickets, but we had no money.
So there was no -- no place to get a room or any shelter.
We just stayed on the streets.
And there was a cafe that was closed down for the night.
And the tables were up -- the chairs were up on the tables,
you know, like they are. And we just took a couple
of those chairs down and sat at the table
for hours and hours while the night went by.
And I started getting homesick.
And I thought of this song and my home so far away
and wrote "Carolina in My Mind" as the sun was coming up.
But we're not gonna play that song tonight.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So I'll introduce the song that we will play tonight
the next time I'm here. -Oh, that'd be great, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -That's right.
-And then we'll cut it together for the rerun. Yeah.
[ Applause ]
Your album -- these are old standards you're playing.
These are the songs that, when you were coming up
and playing music, folk music -- the music that was more modern.
This is the music your parents listened to.
Did you like the music your parents listened to
when you were young? -You know, I did -- I did.
Certainly, when I was a kid, I loved that music.
I got an attitude about it
when I was sort of a teenage musician, myself.
But, you know, I -- these songs taught me a lot.
-Yeah. -Just learning to play them
on the guitar as a kid taught me the changes
and taught me a lot about harmonies.
And just there's a wealth of information there.
And, you know, it seems likely to me that this is --
Well, I know it's the case that Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney
and Paul Simon and the entire generation of songwriters
that I come from was also informed by this same music,
these standards. You know?
-We're so excited you're gonna play one for us tonight.
And it is just always such a delight to have you here.
Thank you so much. James Taylor.