Chords for Carly Simon Shares What It Was Like Being Married to James Taylor | The Big Interview

That gives us a segue into the James Taylor years.
Oh, I thought that would never happen in a place like this.
_ Well, I'm smiling, but I know it's a painful time for you, a painful memory, but let's
talk about it some.
You were married to James Taylor.
[F] From the outside looking in, you would say, that's a marriage that doesn't have much chance
from the beginning.
Two performers, two stars, if you will.
But let's go through it as best you can.
Well, I saw pictures of him in Rolling Stone, holding Joni Mitchell's hand, and I remember
thinking, I'm so jealous.
Why am I jealous?
Why, this doesn't make any sense at all.
I don't know him.
It's very confusing.
But I remember seeing a picture of him coming home from the movies with Joey, my sister.
He was on the cover of Time magazine.
And I said to her, and she will vouch for this, I'm going to marry him.
And I said it without thinking about it.
It just came out.
[Eb] And this was a good nine months before we [Gb] actually had a date.
You see him on the cover of Time magazine, and you sort of blurt out, I'm going to marry him.
And you actually did.
I actually did, much to the chagrin of his second and third wife. _ _
So you married James Taylor, and at least in the beginning, was it a marriage made in
heaven or something close to that?
I was so happy.
I [B] remember thinking, I'm really safe now.
I'm really safe.
And it's because [Fm] James was my safe [Gb] person.
He actually became my safe [Bb] person.
We never spend a night apart.
[Gb] I mean, it took a while to get to that safe groove, because [Bb] at first it was almost too
much to imagine that I was married to this fantastic person who I would only get to
know better and better and better over the years.
And I couldn't wait.
I couldn't wait to get to know him better and better.
And little by little, the unknowables started to creep in and started to forecast something
greater than I would know what to do with.
He put it so well in one of his songs called, well, he says, Angry Man, Hungry Woman.
And I was hungry for more intimacy, and he withdrew from my emotional power, which is
strong.
I have a strong power to connect with people.
Can you feel that?
[F] I do.
I mean, it's_
I think it's impossible to be in your presence and not feel that.
You have a strong power to connect with people unquestionably.
But you're painting a picture that you were married to him and you were hungry about a
week or month or day to get to know him better, to have even more intimacy.
But he was the angry man, as he sang, and he began withdrawing.
Well, there were times, and of course, drugs had a lot to do with it.
I'm not spilling the beans by saying that he was addicted to various drugs.
I think heroin and cocaine and pot and alcohol.
It was like a polyaddiction, which, you know, there's a wonderful thing about Janis Joplin
that said whenever she would get tired of heroin, she would switch over to bourbon.
And whenever she was tired of bourbon, she'd go back to heroin.
So it was, you know, drugs wear [B] off, or their power wears off, and so you go to something else.
I [Gb] understand this disease.
I understand it firsthand.
I understand it second and thirdhand.
And I've written about it.
And I saw that when James was drunk, he was very, very loving.
His guard would drop.
And the other side of the coin was that he was very stiff and stern and cold and closed.
And so how hard is it to stop wanting somebody to be close and warm and cozy, and yet that
came with the price of alcohol?
So here I was kind of saying, no, no, no, don't take that drink.
Take that drink.
No, no, no, take that [B] drink.
Don't take that drink.
I couldn't have been a good person to get sober with because I needed his [Bb] love so much
in a way that I thought I needed it, in a way that was, you know, I was very selfish.
Now [F] you can call it selfish or you can call it required reading.
I mean, whatever it was that I needed from a man, I needed from James.
[C] I'm pausing a long while here.
Do you still love him?
Absolutely. _ _
_ [B] Did you think so?
I thought so from reading the book.
It's not a sad love.
I mean, it's not, you know, sometimes [D] it's critical and infuriating, but it's not sad.
[F]
The thing that's [Bb] infuriating is that because of the contrast of [Gb] us and my yangness and
[Bb] his yin-ness, we [N] can't blend in any way that either of us has even thought how to do yet.
What's the relationship with James Taylor now?
I don't speak to him.
He never comes here.
He doesn't even come to Ben's house, which is right down the drive.
Your son's house.
Yeah.
He doesn't feel at home on the island.
[Bb] He recently said to somebody, it's her island.
It's not my island anymore.
The relationship is a pest.
It's a pest for him [G] on one level, and it's a pest for me on [Bb] another level.
But I'm _ [Db] saying, let's [G] put on some lotion that's going to help us.
We've got to, because we're both public figures.
The world knows both of us, or some of the world knows both of us.
What would you do?
What would you do if [Bb] you were presented with this problem? _
I'm not sure.
I am sure that I'm glad I don't have this problem.
[A] I am too.
[D] _ _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ _
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