Taxi (Harry Chapin song)

Song by Harry Chapin

"Taxi"

Single by Harry Chapin
from the album  Heads & Tales
B-side| "Empty"
Released| March 1972
Recorded| 1972
Genre| Folk rock
Length| 6:44
Label| Elektra
Songwriter(s)| Harry Chapin
Producer(s)| Jac Holzman
Harry Chapin singles chronology
|  | "Taxi"
(1972)  | "Could You Put Your Light On, Please"
(1972)

|
|

"Taxi" is a song written by Harry Chapin, released as a single in early 1972 to coincide with the release of his album Heads & Tales. It is an autobiographical ballad using first-person narrative to tell the story of a taxi cab driver meeting an old flame from his youth when he picks her up in his cab.

Chapin debuted the song on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which prompted calls and telegrams from viewers requesting that Chapin return to the show. It was the first time in the show's history that host Johnny Carson brought a performer back the very next night for an encore performance.[citation needed] "Taxi" helped to establish Chapin's musical style and emerged as the singer-songwriter's early signature song, with Chapin often associated with taxi-related imagery. Jim Connors, music director and disc jockey at Boston AM radio station WMEX, is credited with discovering Chapin. The single charted on both Boston stations WMEX and WRKO in late February, reached number one on both stations in April and ranked 4 for the year on both stations. The single's early Boston success helped "Taxi" to hit big on Billboard's Hot 100, where in June 1972 it reached no. 24 during a then-lengthy 16-week chart run. Billboard ranked it 85 in its year-end singles list.[1] In Canada the single reached no. 5.[2]

## Content

[edit]

The narrator Harry is a cab driver in San Francisco whose last passenger on a rainy night is a woman in an expensive gown who asks to be taken to her home in an affluent section of town. Harry finds her familiar, but she seems not to recognize him until after she glances at his taxi license. She then greets him by name and he replies in kind: she is Sue, an old flame from Harry's youth. They had gone their separate ways to follow their dreams: Sue wanted to be an actress, and Harry wanted to learn to fly (hinting at Chapin's real-life experience at the United States Air Force Academy).

When the taxi arrives at Sue's home, she vaguely offers to get together with him sometime, but Harry knows this won't happen. Sue gives him a $20 bill for a $2.50 fare and tells him to keep the change. (The fare would be equivalent to $18 in 2023.)

Harry realizes they both got what they asked for: Sue is "acting" happy in a loveless marriage and sterile affluence, while Harry is "flying" a taxi, taking tips, and "getting stoned."[3] A censored radio version of the single replaced "stoned" with "stalled".[citation needed]

Chapin said, "there's not a single line that tells how the guy or the girl felt. It's a very cinematic technique. But it's also a very uneconomical technique. That's why my songs are so long. I literally put you in that cab and let you experience. It's a more involving form of music than sitting and hearing somebody sing 'I'm lonely'."[4]

Record World called it "spell-binding," saying that Chapin "sets up, develops and resolves a situation in 6:40. A very short 6:40."[5] Billboard called it "a strong piece of folk ballad material while lengthy, should garner hefty top 40 and FM play with sales and chart action to follow."[6]

## Chart performance

[edit]

### Weekly singles charts

[edit]

| Chart (1972)  | Peak
position

|

Australia (Kent Music Report)  | 40
Australia (Go-Set) [7] | 28
Canada RPM Top Singles[2] | 5
New Zealand (Listener) [8] | 19
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [9] | 24
U.S. Cash Box Top 100[10] | 20

### Year-end charts

[edit]

| Chart (1972)  | Rank

|

Canada  | 37
US Opus | 80
US Billboard Hot 100 [11] | 85

## "Sequel"

[edit]

"Sequel"

Single by Harry Chapin
from the album  Sequel
B-side| "I Finally Found It Sandy"
Released| 1980
Recorded| 1980
Genre| Pop rock; Folk rock
Length| 6:36
Label| Boardwalk
Songwriter(s)| Harry Chapin
Producer(s)| Howard Albert
Harry Chapin singles chronology
| "Flowers Are Red"
(1978)  | "Sequel"
(1980)  | "Remember When the Music"
(1980)

|
|

Professional ratingsReview scores

Source| Rating
Billboard| (unrated)[12]

In 1980, after nearly a decade listening to fans ask about what he imagined happening to Harry and Sue later in their lives, Chapin wrote and composed "Sequel", which he released on the album of the same name. Written in the same style as "Taxi", it continues the story of Harry and Sue with them meeting again ten years later. Released as a single, "Sequel" peaked one position higher, but lasted two weeks fewer, on the Hot 100 than "Taxi". It also remains his last appearance on the Hot 100 chart, though his last single "Story of a Life" would reach No. 5 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100. Chapin joked that, if he wrote a third act to the song, it would be called "Hearse" so he could kill off the characters. Chapin died seven months after "Sequel" peaked.

In the song, Harry, now a successful musician, returns to San Francisco to play a concert, and has "eight hours to kill before the show," and thinks of his old lover. He decides to visit the upper-crust address of "16 Parkside Lane" where he last saw Sue a decade before. After considering options of "a limousine, or at least a fancy car," to impress Sue, he takes a taxi to the reunion, this time sitting in the back as the paying customer. The taxi turns into the driveway "past the gate and the fine-trimmed lawn." Harry is informed by a butler answering the door that Sue no longer lives there. The butler gives Harry a forwarding address. Harry tells his cabbie, "I got one more fare for you." The address proves to be that of a modest brownstone urban apartment. At the door:

And she said, “How are you, Harry?
“Haven't we played this scene before?”
I said, “It's so good to see you, Sue
“Had to play it out just once more...
“Play it out just once more.”

Far from an affluent suburban trophy wife, Sue is now a working-class woman—but is happy with her life, no longer the cold and cloistered socialite, she is now warmer and wiser. She tells Harry of hearing him on the radio; he shrugs off the hype of stardom, and invites her to see his show that night. She politely declines, saying only, "I work at night." Harry provides few other details on the reunion, urging listeners not to dig deeper: "If I answered at all, I'd lie." This time, it's Harry who offers money as they part, which she declines to take.

Harry reflects on the circle of their lives. When they were young, she had wanted to be an actress and he a pilot. Ten years ago she was acting happy in her high-end life while he was flying high, stoned in his taxi. Today he "act[s] as I'm facing the footlights, And now she's flying with both feet on the ground."

The song ends with:

So I guess it's the sequel to our story
From the journey between heaven and hell
With half the time, thinking of what might have been
And half thinkin' just as well.

I guess only time will tell.

### Chart performance

[edit]

Chart (1980–81)  | Peak
position

|

U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary | 37
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[9] | 23
U.S. Cash Box Top 100  | 34

## Origins

[edit]

According to the liner notes in The Essentials: Harry Chapin, Chapin was inspired to write the song when he happened upon an old lover, as the cabbie in the song does. Chapin was merely on his way to a taxi license examination in New York City, not San Francisco. Chapin also stated that "Taxi" is only "about sixty-percent true".

However, according to Chapin's biography Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story, by Peter M. Coan, this song was based on a relationship that Chapin had with a Bennett Junior College student named Clare MacIntyre, the inspiration for Sue. They met when they were both camp counselors at neighboring summer camps during their college years. Clare MacIntryre-Ross died in March 2016.[13]

On the contrary, when asked by John Denver about the song, Chapin stated that he read a newspaper article about his ex-girlfriend who had married a rich man, the same week that his taxi license was supposed to go through. He said that he had a dream that he would be driving the cab in a big city and he'd stop and pick up a lady, and they would look at each other and know that they both sold out their dreams. According to Chapin, he wrote the song then. However, the week the license was supposed to come through, he got a big film job and didn't have to drive the cab.

## Covers

[edit]

* William Shatner performed "Taxi" on the daytime TV variety talk show Dinah!.
* During Chapin's later concerts, Big John Wallace would sing the song's first verse in the form of a disco-style as the third alternate ending to "30,000 Pounds of Bananas."
* The song is covered by Mandy Patinkin on his album, Experiment.
* The song is covered by Lee Hazlewood on his album, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972
2. ^ a b "Top Singles". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. 27 May 1972. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
3. ^ Asked about the reference to "stoned", Chapin stated in a 1972 interview that he'd never been high or drunk, but "the song becomes a reality away from your own experience." Campbell, Mary (May 28, 1972). "'For the First Time in My Life I Believed in Capitalism'". Great Falls Tribune. Great Falls, Montana. AP. p. 55. Retrieved March 14, 2021 - via newspapers.com.
4. ^ Bruce Pollock. "Harry Chapin". Rock's Backpages.(Subscription required.)
5. ^ "Hits of the Week" (PDF). Record World. February 19, 1972. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
6. ^ "Top 60 Pop Spotlight" (PDF). Billboard. February 19, 1972. p. 54. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
7. ^ http://www.poparchives.com.au/gosetcharts/1972/19720902.html Go-Set National Top 40, 2 September 1972
8. ^ "flavour of new zealand - search listener". Flavourofnz.co.nz. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
9. ^ a b Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990 \- ISBN 0-89820-089-X
10. ^ "Top 100 Singles". Cash Box. 20 May 1972. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
11. ^ "Top 100 Hits of 1972/Top 100 Songs of 1972". MusicOutfitters.com. 1973. Retrieved 12 October 2015. "Billboard Year-End Hot 100 chart for 1972"
12. ^ "Review: Harry Chapin – Sequel" (PDF). Billboard. Vol. 85, no. 43\. 25 October 1980. p. 85\. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 30 May 2020 - via American Radio History.
13. ^ "Va. woman who inspired Chapin's hit 'Taxi' dies at 73, reports say". Wtop.com. 2016-03-23. Retrieved 2016-10-07.

* v
* t
* e

Harry Chapin

* Ron Palmer
* Tim Scott
* John Wallace
* Stephen Chapin
* Tom Chapin

* Mike Masters
* Doug Walker
* Howie Fields
* Ron Evanuik
* Kim Scholes
* Yvonne Cable

Studio albums|

* Heads & Tales
* Sniper and Other Love Songs
* Short Stories
* Verities & Balderdash
* Portrait Gallery
* On the Road to Kingdom Come
* Dance Band on the Titanic
* Living Room Suite
* Sequel

Live albums|

* Greatest Stories Live
* Legends of the Lost and Found

Posthumously produced|

* Harry Chapin Tribute
* The Last Protest Singer
* The Bottom Line Encore Collection

Compilations|

* Anthology of Harry Chapin
* Remember When the Music
* The Gold Medal Collection
* Story of a Life
* Onwards and Upwards

DVDs|

* Rockpalast Live
* Remember When: The Anthology

Singles|

* "Taxi"
* "Could You Put Your Light On, Please"
* "Sunday Morning Sunshine"
* "A Better Place to Be"
* "W.O.L.D."
* "Cat's in the Cradle"
* "I Wanna Learn a Love Song"
* "What Made America Famous?"
* "Dreams Go By"
* " A Better Place to Be (Live)"
* "Dance Band on the Titanic"
* "Flowers Are Red"
* "Sequel"
* "Remember When the Music"
* "Story of a Life"

Other songs|

* "30,000 Pounds of Bananas"
* "Corey's Coming"
* "Circle"
* "Halfway to Heaven"
* "The Mayor of Candor Lied"
* "Mr. Tanner"
* "Six String Orchestra"
* "Sniper"

Related articles|

* Discography
* The Night That Made America Famous
* Cotton Patch Gospel
* Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something

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