Taxi (song)

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“Taxi”
Single by Harry Chapin
from the album Heads and Tales
Released 1972
Format 45
Recorded 1972
Genre Rock
Length 6:44
Writer(s) Harry Chapin

"Taxi" is a song written and performed by Harry Chapin, from his album Heads and Tales (1972). The single helped establish Chapin's musical style and fame, and as a result many Chapin items feature taxi-related imagery. Legendary WMEX-Boston Radio Personality Jim Connors is credited with a Gold record for discovering Chapin and pushing his single "Taxi" to #24 on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks, in the United States.

The song, at 6 minutes, 44 seconds, tells the story of a cab driver in San Francisco (also named 'Harry') who encounters his last fare for the night in the rain, and discovers she is his ex-lover, 'Sue'. She in turn recognises him:

She said, 'How are you, Harry?'
I said, 'How are you, Sue?
Through the too many miles and the too little smiles,
I still remember you.'

Sue had wanted to be an actress, while Harry was going to learn to fly: "She took off to find the footlights / I took off to find the sky." The reunion, however, does not result in a happy ending. Harry drives her back to her home, where "[S]he's acting happy, inside her handsome home". Harry, meanwhile, says that "...I'm flying in my taxi, taking tips and getting stoned. I go flyin' so high, when I'm stoned"

The middle section of the song features the bass player, John Wallace, in falsetto, singing a few lines from a Sylvia Plath poem:

Baby's so high, that she's skying
Yes she's flying, afraid to fall
I'll tell you why baby's crying
Cause she's dying, aren't we all...

Also, the line, "Harry, keep the change", became a catchphrase.

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, however, was merely on his way to a taxi license examination.

[edit] "Sequel"

In 1980, Chapin wrote a successor to the song, titled "Sequel" (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.

In the song, Harry, now a successful musician, decides to take a taxi to Sue's 16 Parkside Lane address only to discover that she no longer lives there. He later finds her at a rundown apartment where she once again recognises him:

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.

Sue has nothing, but is happy with herself. The song, like "Taxi", once again ends with them saying goodbye. The song ends with:

I guess it's a sequel to our story
From the journey 'tween 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.

[edit] Covers

  • The song was parodied by comedian Stephen Lynch. Called "Taxi Driver", it ends halfway through with the driver jabbering on in a stereotypical Indian accent.
  • After "Sequel", Chapin once joked that if he wrote a third act to the song, that it would be called "Hearse" so he could just kill off the characters.