James Taylor - "Everyday"

(Debuted November 9, 1985, Peaked #61, 10 Weeks on the Chart)

I turned 13 during 1985, and one of the presents I received that year was a clock radio. Now, I realize that the gift was probably more incentive to get my own self up and get the driveway shoveled -- and living in northern New York, those mornings were frequent -- but at the time I saw it as a way to surreptitiously listen to a local radio station when I was supposed to be asleep. However, the only FM station that came in clearly in my room at the time was WTOJ (then called "OJ-103") an adult contemporary-leaning station...and when I started clandestinely listening, there were two songs I really remember in heavy rotation. One was Barbra Streisand's song "Somewhere" and the other was James Taylor's "Everyday." Both songs were remakes, and I was surprised to find out later that neither would reach the pop Top 40. Really, that's how often they were played on that station; I knew that within 30 minutes of bedtime, both would have been played.

And that's my recollection of "Everyday" during its hit period. It would play every single night (or so it seemed) that I listened. Now, I'm a big fan of Buddy Holly, who originally recorded in 1957 as the B-side to his "Peggy Sue" single, so I was familiar with it. That said, when Taylor put it on vinyl, he did it in a way that you'd have never known it was a Holly composition. It was done in Taylor's signature laid-back style, as if he never knew the words until an assistant placed the lyric sheet in front of him in the studio.That's not really a knock...Taylor does a serviceable job with the song and gives it a different feel (I like that) even as he reworked a song that didn't deserve the treatment it got (and that's something I don't care for). Breathing new life into an old song can be ambitious, but Taylor really doesn't seem as ambitious here.

Fortunately for me, a Top 40 FM station was right around the corner for me. And the lack of local variety on the dial caused me to start listening to other stuff that was more offbeat on that radio.