I once spent a couple of interesting nights with James Taylor’s daughter (with Carly Simon) who was friends with an old girlfriend of mine. That’s my only connection to their family, although I did get some scoops on the whole family dynamic, at least as it existed in the late 1980’s. Even at this late date, I don’t feel like breaking that confidence and spilling any dirt. Mainly, I just find it fascinating that the right hates James Taylor with the heat of a thousand suns.
Kevin Williamson is particularly abusive, although I agree that Taylor took all the sugar out of “How Sweet It Is.”
The spectacle of the Obama administration’s dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to “share a big hug with Paris” as James Taylor — who still exists – crooned “You’ve Got a Friend” is the perfect objective correlative for American decline: The pathetic self-regard of John Kerry and James Taylor’s Baby Boomers meets the cynical, self-serving, going-through-the-motions style of Barack Obama’s Generation X as disenchanted Millennials in parental basements across the fruited plains no doubt injured their thumbs typing “WTF?” It is the substitution of celebrity for power, of sentiment for analysis, of sloppy gesture for clear-headed commitment.
We’re responding to barbarism from the seventh century with soft rock from the 1970s.
I don’t know. This seems somewhat overheated to me. I mean, way before John Kerry brought James Taylor along as a good will emissary, Taylor had announced six concert dates in France in 2015. I think he has a fan base there. Maybe a lot of people in France and Europe like him a little better than most American right-wing political pundits? Maybe a lot of people were excited to see James Taylor. It could be, you know. France has some idiosyncratic tastes, including most famously their affection for comedian/actor Jerry Lewis.
But, the thing is, the right has to politicize every single thing. So, first they bitched that we hadn’t sent a higher representative to France than the head of our criminal justice system, Eric Holder. And then they complained that the Secretary of State didn’t bring heavy-metal band Slayer instead of a soft rock legend from the 1970’s.
In any case, if the wingers hate Taylor this much, he must be doing something right.
If you’re going to post about how many things the Right hate you’re going to need a bigger blog.
They hate James Taylor because he doesn’t hate Barack Obama. Is that really so hard to understand?
People actually hate James Taylor? They need to get a life.
he seems so milquetoast. what could he have done to gather such hatred?
There’s nothing scarier than a peacenik.
Maybe they hate him because James Taylor has been an activist his whole life.
I’ve seen him perform at anti-nuke, anti-war, and pro-civil rights marches and rallies.
I’m not exactly his biggest fan, either, but I do have to admit that I love his voice – and he has a couple of really great songs.
I’ll take James Taylor of Ted Nugent any and every day of the week!!!
Cat-scratch that, Reich-Wingers!!!
I’m assuming you meant “over Ted Nugent”
I thought it was really fucking stupid, but typical of Kerry’s upper-class twee sensibility.
On the other hand, NRO hacks, at least the President isn’t currently letting an ASTROLOGER set the WH timetable.
Fucking idiots.
The post I got on FB were a comparison photo showing Bush bombs from shock and awe vs a pic subtitled how Obama treats terrorism showing Kerry & Taylor. Zilch thought process going on, just the tribalistic divide.
The right wing has gone from always messaging to always trolling. Even John Bolton.
It sure seems that James Taylor’s biggest faux pas from the right wing perspective was to be seen in the presence of a guy who’s still around after 11 years of solid trolling. Their fires burn most intensely for their targets who will not retreat just because of their bullying. Taylor is warming himself in the reflected heat directed toward Kerry.
It’s another chance to do some cultural cleansing of their white Boomer base; Taylor is still quite popular in rural North Carolina. These folks maybe will get the signal that they need to listen to more Christian grunge.
Of course it doesn’t hurt James Taylor’s popularity in rural NC at all that he wrote and recorded the fine song “Carolina In My Mind.” That tune alone probably gives him the necessary security to appear in areas that otherwise might be a tad risky.
Rikyrah comments above that Taylor seems so “milquetoast,” how can the right hate him?
Answer?
That is why.
Really.
He has absolutely no macho shit going on. He barely raises his voice even when he is singing. And a left-winger besides? His whole act is very threatening to the stiff dicks (and not-so-stiff ones as well…usually the loudest of all macho men) who run the militaristic areas of the (
f)right wing.What Taylor’s act actually says…among other things…is “What if they gave a war and nobody showed up?”
Add to that the subliminal message of rigorous musicality evince by all of his bands…he has consistently chosen the best of the best freelance NYC jazz/recording musicians for his groups…and there you have it.
A non-threatening male with left-wing leanings who produces non-threatening music that is in good tune and good time?
Scaaaaary.
I got yer real scary.
Right here!!!
McCain hopes to define legacy with national security post
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
This is the moment when Obama would be wise to engineer McCain’s appointment as Secretary of the Navy. (1) Finally the failure son will outrank his daddy. (2) The Secretary of the Navy is somewhat under the thumb of the Secretary of Defense. (3) It is a rare Secretary of the Navy who appears on Sunday talk shows week after week. (4) The Secretary of the Navy actually has to do something. (5) It will only be for two years.
It’s as close to the back office with nothing to do as can be found for McCain.
Of course there’s the loon from Arizona that would replace him in the Senate.
Y’know what?
I don’t think the Navy would have him.
There are still competent, professional officers in positions of power in the armed forces, as unlikely as that may seem given the relatively recent media-and-politically-driven Petraeusing of the officer corps. They’d see him as just another power hungry pol, and if they couldn’t block his nomination they’d simply ignore him.
AG
I don’t think that McCain being ignored would be a bad thing – possibly even a feature instead of a bug.
Oh, absolutely!!!
In fact, if he could be tricked out of the Senate and into the Secretary of the Navy chair and then essentially disappeared that would be a great plus for the whole country.
Let us pray.
AG
You mean you don’t remember Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks expressing her deep and sincere regret that James Taylor was married or that she and her sister would go to his performances and sing along with every song. The conspiracy is ripe. That is your Kodak moment.
Williamson’s just having a nice wank, that’s all.
Everything the Obama Administration does in foreign policy now is terrorist appeasement as far as the American right wing is concerned. You see, a terrorist attack in Paris is THE MUSLIM USURPER’S FAULT!!1!! Because resolute!
It’s worth noting that the reams of musical dreck that “artists” wheeled out in support of the Bush Doctrine was embarrassing and awful, and has aged hilariously poorly. James Taylor will endure well after Lee Greenwood has fallen away.
Since the AG was not there for the march and didn’t go afaik, its disingenuous to claim he was there for that. Also I read criticism of Taylor in the Guardian so it doesn’t seem limited to the rightwing.
Serially pitching them is what they do, all they know.