Shower The People - James Taylor

Show them THE way that you feel

Sweet Baby James. Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes my earworms are generated by whatever I am doing.

Yesterday, while in the shower, I began spontaneously singing (to myself, not out loud…not that there’s anything wrong with that):

If you were alive in the 1970s you probably recognize this as the hit song “Shower the People” by James Taylor, from his 1976 album In The Pocket.

I hadn’t heard the song in probably a decade at least, yet I immediately knew to use the long “E” sound on the word “the”— Shower thE people / show them thE way that you feel. I remember as a kid finding Taylor’s pronunciation so formal, so proper. People almost always used the short E sound, the “uh” ending of the word “the.” JT choosing the long vowel may simply have been the way he spoke, but I think it was an intentional choice.

Even my young 9-year-old self could sense that using a long E in “the” gave the song’s advice more gravitas. This was neither the time nor the place for a short, casual e in “the.” This was important stuff. It was a heads-up to listen closely.

In other words: Tell your fucking loved ones that you love them. Or show them that you love them.

Okay, JT would probably not like my cursing interpretation, but hey, that’s why it’s an interpretation, not a transcription.

Anyway, I’m showering and I’m singing about showering the people you love with love (maybe out loud now) and I can’t help but notice my mind going in wrong directions, my inner, immature 12-year-old taking the advice literally. Reading it as JT suggesting we all shower together. Or at least with the people we love.

I’m somehow equating these lyrics:

Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
(Do as I say, yes)
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

with these from the 1970 classic by Steven Stills (Crosby and Nash on backing vocals).

And there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with
Love the one you're with
Love the one you're with

I know that there is no connection between the songs other than being iconic decade-defining classics. And so I say to myself: Be mature Steve.

This is a serious song about getting in touch with your emotions and expressing them now before it’s too late. It’s a message that’s as needed today as it was 45 years ago.

JT would never suggest that people love the one they are with if they can’t be with the one they love. Or would he?

Could my puerile, inner hormone-monster be right? Could showering the people you love with love be one small step away from loving the one you’re with? And if you end up showering with this person, the person whom you just loved, and then tell them the way that you feel, would that be a good thing?

I’m guessing that might lead to a cold shower for one. And then that person, the one who loved the one they were with and then told them they way that they felt, would be all confused. They might think: “I followed the advice given by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Taylor and now I’ve cheated on my partner, expressed inappropriate feelings to a relative stranger and have no one left to shower.”

So I suppose the takeaway is this:

Keep your feelings to yourself and start taking more baths.

Here’s something I’ve noticed about getting older.

I’m taking fewer showers.

I shave once a week at most, and usually only when my wife says something like, “I see you’re growing a beard.”

Maybe this reduction in grooming is only tangentially connected to age.

Maybe it’s more about being married and no longer needing to impress your partner: the seeking-a-mate dance being over.

Maybe it’s only tangentially connected to marriage.

Maybe it’s really about the pandemic.

When we all had to shelter in place, when a good percentage of us had to work from home, when we began ordering everything from food to toothpaste to soap (not that I needed much of that anymore) online for home delivery, it completely uprooted our ways of life. I don’t mean to make light of any of it — as a married middle-aged man with no kids who was able to work from home, I felt grateful that I didn’t have an essential job, that I didn’t have to risk my life going to sell groceries or administer medicines.

Since March of 2020, I haven’t had to be around other people very often and so showering fell off the list of things I did in the morning while getting ready to commute from Oakland to San Francisco for work. Or before leaving the house to go anywhere. Now, with a dog-walking job, unless I’m meeting a new dog-parent client, it’s unlikely that I’m going to smell worse than any of the pups I’m traipsing around the neighborhood with.

But maybe the reduction in showering — or how I prefer to describe it: my pro-active stance to help slow the drought here in California — is due to the fact that I’m not exercising the way I used to.

Prior to March of 2020, I would go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I’d take HIIT (High Impact Interval Training) aerobics classes, kickboxing, and spin classes. I’d play tennis at least once a week with my friend Mike or Andrew. I’d get super sweaty and end up showering most every day.

I tried online exercise classes and that didn’t do it for me. I even bought a spin-bike which is now used more for hanging clothes on instead of riding. I rarely break a sweat and so showering as a post-exercise response is no longer happening.

I can imagine that one or two or twenty of you right about now are thinking: TMI.

And to that I say:

Have you been reading these Earworms and Song Loops lately?

TMI is my middle name and my personal three-letter-acronym. Too Many Ideas.

Clearly I still shower, as it was taking a shower that started this whole thing. And as soon as I finish writing this, I’m going to shave, as I was walking past a shopping center earlier today and a homeless person nearby didn’t even bother asking me for change.

After this fateful showering incident when the James Taylor tune filled my noggin, I decided to see if anyone has covered the song on YouTube. Uh, duh. Did I not learn anything from my Molly Hatchett post and the influx of “first listen” channels on Youtube?

There are at least a hundred different artists. Some of whom I had heard of. Like the Dixie Chicks (before they became The Chicks).

And Glen Campbell:

And then I found this brilliantly cheesy version:

I spent probably 2-3 hours listening to dozens of cover versions of “Shower the People” so that you don’t have to. That’s how generous I am. Or disturbed. Or both.

But after all this earworm-related research, I came to a simple conclusion:

I still love the original the best.

No one can capture heartfelt simplicity — and complexity — better than James Taylor. There is something inherently sentimental in JT’s songwriting, but his lyrics don’t shy away from the darkness. I think of “Fire and Rain,” and “Country Road” and how Taylor explores openly his struggles with mental illness and drug addiction.

I could go on and on pursuing that topic. Grist for another post.

So I’ll simply end with the man himself, showering the people with his open-hearted positivity in 2007, his voice as silky smooth and emotive as ever.

Thanks so much for reading! Do you have a favorite James Taylor song? Any specific memories his songs evoke? Leave a note in the comments!