Lyrics to
Places In My Past

This version of Places In My Past was released by James Taylor in 1971.

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There are ladies in my life, lovely ladies in these lazy days.
And though I never took a wife, may I say that I have loved me one or two.
Of the people in my past, fading faces in a waking dream,
and though they never seemed to last very long,
there are faces I remember from the places in my past.

I said all the dead head miles and the insincere smiles.
Sometimes I can laugh and cry and I can’t remember why.
But I still love those good times gone by, hold on to them close or let them go, oh no.
I don’t know, I just seem to sing these songs
and say I’m sorry for the friends I used to know.

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James Taylor has released many songs over the years besides Places In My Past. James Taylor released songs from 1968 to 2002 spanning across albums like James Taylor, Sweet Baby James, Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, One Man Dog, Walking Man, Gorilla, In The Pocket, JT, Flag, Dad Loves His Work, That's Why I'm Here, Never Die Young, New Moon Shine, Hourglass, and October Road. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by James Taylor.

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About Lyrics and Places In My Past by James Taylor

When you decide to study the lyrics to Places In My Past, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1971 song by James Taylor. Some of the lyrics to Places In My Past have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only James Taylor and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Places In My Past if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Places In My Past" means the words set to the music of Places In My Past, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by James Taylor. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Places In My Past and the lyrics to Places In My Past are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of James Taylor who came here looking just for the lyrics to Places In My Past, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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