James
Song: James
Album: Turnstiles (1976)
In the dead of winter in 1999 I took a trip from Long Island to Los Angeles. The temperature was below freezing when I flew out of JFK and it was 65 degrees when I arrived in Los Angeles.
After a week in Los Angeles I went back home. Within five weeks I had packed my record collection and clothes and shipped them out to my new address in LA. What little else I owned I gave away.
Yes, I was leaving but this was no time for goodbyes. As I explained to my grandmother, the move was only temporary. There was a girl there who I had dated up until she moved to LA and she was only going to be out there for another two years. She and I were going to get back together out there and then after we got our entire lives figured out in two short years we’d move back to New York.
Things didn’t go according to plan. That girl and I did get back together but it didn’t last. By the time the two year time window had closed she and I had gone our separate ways and I had decided that LA was where I wanted to stay.
Part of the reason I liked LA was the weather, the friends I had made and the high quality of tacos but mostly I stayed because I felt free. For the first time in my life I wasn’t bound to my family or my personal history. I took my freedom as an opportunity to build my own life and while there were a few years of mistakes and false starts I eventually got it right. I’ve lived in LA for 13 years now and the last five of them have been the best years of my life.
In the song I’m discussing today Billy Joel is singing, over the easiest listening sounds I’ve heard yet from him, to James, someone who stayed home to pursue an education and take care of a family. While James stayed home the singer (I don’t want to assume it’s autobiographical but it very well could be) hit the road and pursued his dreams. The singer feels like James is living a good life but not as good of the life he could have lived had he too taken the same chances the singer took. Perhaps, the singer thinks, James had a masterpiece in him that will never see the light of day because of the path he chose.
Depending on how you look at it, this song is either expressing a nice sentiment to an old friend or it’s condescendingly telling that friend that you know what would have been best for them. To me it feels like the singer is measuring his experience against James’ and it sure sounds like James is coming up short in his estimation.
I can relate to the song because I hit the road too while many of my friends and family stayed home. I feel a little guilty for leaving, for not seeing my father more before he died and for not staying in touch with people. Did I do better because I left? I think I did better that I would have done at home but I don’t think I can measure my life against anyone’s. I did right for myself, but so did the James mentioned in this song and I assume the singer did too. For all we know James would have felt the exact same way about the singer. More than likely he wouldn’t care, because he’d be too busy living his life to worry about it.
James tries to express a nice sentiment about friendship and reaching your potential but it makes assumptions about success that I’m not comfortable with. I just can’t get behind this one. After the all around high quality of side one of Turnstiles “James” begins side two on a down note.
