(8 of 10)
He is fully aware that a pop star can be destroyed by his fond public. Interviews seem to threaten him tremendously. "With all that feedback of ideas and memories and resonances from the past," he says, "an interview can be like an epileptic fit. People come at me as though they had a coloring book and ask me to fill in the colors." The false rumors that accrue to fame are exasperating. "One day," he told a reporter, "my brother Alex got ten calls consoling him about my suicide, my reinstitutionalization, and my split with Joni Mitchell." Chatter about Taylor's very real romance with Joni is currently the gossip rage of the teeny-bopper set. Now that his face and name are nationally known, Taylor ponders the effects of his record as a junkie. "I don't want some kid out in Nebraska to read about me and say, 'Well, I'm gonna pick up some smack just like James did.' "
Though he arrived at his present feelings and scruples before they became fashionable, he is driven by many contemporary idealistic concerns—about nature and its misuse, about wealth, about manipulation of people. "Nothing is wrong in making as much bread as you need," he says, "but there are things wrong in making more bread than you need." To help ease that guilt, he has lately taken to giving away some of the proceeds from his public concerts—to, among others, the Hopi Indians. "I wish I were really part of the environment, part of the land," he says, "instead of a successful Caucasian." He is proud of his accomplishments, though, and will admit that "I like success almost as much as I dislike it." Aware of these mixed feelings, he is concerned about the very real problem of maintaining a proper perspective between the private James Taylor he and his friends know and the public James Taylor who sometimes seems to be coming in the windows. One of the newest songs on his forthcoming album—in the same vein as Sweet Baby James, but looser, more free and easy—describes the odd schizoid feeling of hearing his own voice on the jukebox:
Hey Mister, that's me up on the
jukebox,
I'm the one that's singing this sad
song,
And I cry every time you slip in
one more dime.