Your Smiling Face

Album

JT

Label

Columbia Records

Genre

Dance-pop

Composer(s)

James Taylor

Entered Chart

Oct 1, 1977

Peak Date

Dec 17, 1977

Released

September 1977

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Columbia 10602

B-Side

If I Keep My Heart Out Of Sight

This joyful song is one of Taylor's classics. It finds him lighting up at the sight of a loved one. At the time, he was married to Carly Simon, the obvious inspiration. Long after their 1983 divorce he told Charlie Rose: "It's a celebration. A happy love song with a lot of energy to it." Taylor credits the piano player on the song, Clarence McDonald, for being a big part of the song's success. When Taylor ran through the song, McDonald noticed a section with no vocals, which he filled with a little riff that Taylor called "that happy Munchkin song." Like all of his early work, this was produced by Peter Asher, who was also Taylor's manager. In a Songfacts interview with Asher, he said: "I loved the song. I think that was Clarence McDonald, Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel and Danny Kortchmar. I think Danny Kortchmar played the guitar lick, which James may have already written on his guitar as a part. I just remember trying to get a great take that rocked. It was a tune where I was really looking for some kind of R&B, irresistible groove to it. Nowadays, that's the kind of thing one would very often build by programming things, but these were the days when you just looked for the great take. I do remember taking pieces of vocal from another take, which I loved. He'd done some falsetto stuff at the end that was a slightly different tempo, so we had to do some extremely elaborate miniscule tape editing to make it all fit, which now would take two seconds in Pro Tools but then took a day with a razor blade." This was used in the 1978 movie FM, and in the 1979 "I Want to Keep My Baby" episode of its spin-off series, WKRP in Cincinnati. In a 1984 episode of Sesame Street, Taylor serenaded Oscar the Grouch with a version called "That Grouchy Face."

Whenever I see your smiling face
I have to smile myself
Because I love you, yes, I do
And when you give me that pretty little pout
It turns me inside out
There's something about you, baby
I don't know

Isn't it amazing a man like me
Can feel this way
Tell me how much longer
It could grow stronger every day
Oh, how much longer?

I thought I was in love a couple of times
Before with the girl next door
But that was long before I met you
Now I'm sure that I won't forget you
And I thank my lucky stars
That you are who you are
And not just another lovely lady
Set out to break my heart

Isn't it amazing a man like me
Can feel this way
Tell me how much longer
It could grow stronger every day
How much longer?

No one can tell me that I'm doing wrong today, whenever I see you smile at me
No one can tell me that I'm doing wrong today
Whenever I see your smiling face my way
No one can tell me that I'm doing it wrong today
No one can tell me that I'm doing it wrong today, no, no, darling
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
Ye, ye, ye, ye, ye, ye, ye, ye, ye, ye