“I love them all. Joe Torre is a friend of mine, Bernie Williams and I have played together. He’s actually an excellent musician. He’s not just an amateur who hacks around at it. He’s a solid player. For a Red Sox fan, it’s a love-hate relationship with these guys because they’re so excellent.”
That’s James Taylor talking and with his new song “Angels Of Fenway” ringing in our ears, we Yankees might wanna tell James where to stick his melodious dumbass tip of the hats to the history of the Red Sox. Boils me some, honestly. The song ain’t bad, the verses are excellently, the chorus sucks, so split it up. Jame’s lyrics are very sweet,an ode to his Nana who was a diehard Sox fan, and died with a smile on her face after watching her team come back from 0 – 3 Yankee lead in the playoffs in 2004, to win the World Series for the first time since the year Nana was born: 1918. Deadspin.com really hated it (here). Me, I love Taylor’s voice, it has a so much feeling and so much pleasure in it and me, I am a sentimentalist and since I’ve lived a life without much sentiment in it, I am happy to share Taylor’s.
But the chorus, the one that is meant to soar you forward, stalls you down, and he should have realized that singing about Angels angelically isn’t a great idea. It is overkill.
If the song was “Angels In Yankee Stadium”, I’d be much more willing to forgive “Angels In Fenway” its trespasses and if I was a Red Sox fan, 2004 would loom as large as any date in my life; the old rivalry really isn’t much since then and neither are the Yankees. That was the end of the golden age of Yanks; the team from 1996 to 2001 which lost a total of two World Series in six years. More, the 1998 Yanks, they could beat anyone. The greatest team I’ve ever seen. The Beatles of baseball.
Why doesn’t anybody write a song about the 1998 Yankees? Where have you gone Paul Simon, Yankee Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
PS: James introduce the song last weekend at Fenway, in the middle of a three game Yankee sweep.
Grade: B-