Harry and Clare, Skyying

When I heard about Clare Alden MacIntyre-Ross’ death, I started weeping. You might be thinking who is Clare MacIntyre-Ross? It’s a long story. It’s a story about summer camp, young love, partings, and then was translated into a song made even more poignant when the man who sang it died way too young. Clichéd as it sounds, the song lives on.

Clare Alden was a teenage girl when she met Harry Chapin. They were camp counselors during the summer of 1960, and they were smitten with each other. Harry wrote a song about her called “Stars Tangled in her Hair” However, her father didn’t approve of young Chapin. He was a folk singer! Look at that hair! Get a haircut, Mary! After two years, the romance ended.

Harry went on to help shoot a documentary in Africa, then came back home and married a young widow named Sandy. He adopted her children, then they had two of their own. Behind the Music once reported that he wrote a song, then tried to convince his brother to sing it in their act. But they weren’t doing it to Harry’s standards. Exasperated, they told Harry to sing it himself. He did.

The song starts with Harry singing “It was raining hard in Frisco/I needed one more fare…” The narrator sees a beautiful woman dressed in blue. He picks her up, saying “it’s a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.” She responded by saying “16 Parkside Lane.”

After a while, the woman checks out his hack license. They recognize each other. “How are you Harry?” she asks, smiling. He responds “How are you Sue?” The song then goes into detail about how the two of them fallen in love, but they broke up when “she took off to find the footlights/I took off to fly the skies” We later learn she has married a well off man, and the Harry in the song didn’t make it up in the sky. During the song, bassist John Wallace sings lyrics that now feel incredibly haunting:

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…”

The narrator Harry drops Sue off at 16 Parkside Lane. She gives him “a twenty for a two fifty fare” and tells him “Harry, keep the change.” He then sings “Well another man would’ve been angry/and another man might’ve been hurt/but another man wouldn’t have never let her go/ I stashed the bill in my shirt.” As he watches her walk away, he realizes they did realize their dreams. She’s acting happy when she’s miserable, and every night he gets drunk “flying so high when I get stoned.”

“Taxi” is one of those songs that you know will break your heart, yet you stop and listen to it anyway. It’s a long song (four minutes) but what could you cut? Chapin would later say the song was “60 percent made up.” Every line, every note is important to the song. Everyone has a Harry or Sue in their life. Could be first love, first crush, and first heartbreak. It resonates on many levels.

“Taxi” became Chapin’s first hit, teaching twenty-five on the charts. Electra Records did a promotional video, with Harry and Sue shown in shadowy photography, looking very early 70’s. William Shatner did a cover of the song on Dinah! It wasn’t one of his finest moments.

In 1980, Chapin released a new album with a song called “Sequel.” Harry the narrator went back to San Francisco for a concert appearance. It looks like he has gotten his life together and is a successful singer. He grabs a cab and tells the driver to go to “16 Parkside Lane.” When he gets there, the butler tells him that Sue is no longer there. He gives him an address of an part meant building where her mail is now forwarded. Harry goes on another ride to Sue’s new address and rings the bell. She answers, and then says “How are you Harry?” He responds “How are you Sue?” She invites him to her place. Sue then tells him that she is now divorced and is happy. She likes herself. He invites her to his concert. She says no, she has to work that night. He tries to give her money, she refuses. It’s unclear if they make love or not. What is clear is that they are in better places than they were before. At the end, Chapin said maybe there would be another Harry and Sue song down the line. It was not to be.

In July, 1981 Chapin was on his way to perform a free concert but was going to stop by home and attend a barbecue first. Witnesses said he put on his emergency lights on, trying to pull over. It is speculated he might’ve been having a heart attack. A truck hit the car, bursting into flames. Harry Chapin was thirty-eight years old.

The New York Times ran Clare Alden MacIntyre-Ross’ obituary, telling about her career, her family, then as an afterthought, said she was the inspiration for Sue. Someone on Facebook found a photo of her: it looked like it was taken in the late 70’s early 80’s. Her blonde hair was flipped up, and she looked like she was at the office. I looked at that photo and wept. Why? Was it hormonal? Was it because she was 73, way too young? Or was it because so many celebrities died lately: David Bowie, Harper Lee, Pat Conroy, Garry Shandling, Ken Howard, and Paul Kantner.

I looked at Clare’s photo and hoped, like I’ve done many times, that there was a Heaven, and Clare MacIntyre-Ross went there. Once she entered, Harry looked at her. “How are you Harry?” she would ask. “How are you Clare?” He would respond. “I’m surprised you didn’t call me Sue,” she would respond back. He would take her arm, and they would fly.

Originally published at jenniferkathleen.com.