Taxi (song)

Taxi is a 1972 song by Harry Chapin, his first release from his first album Heads & Tales.

The narrator is a San Francisco taxi driver (named "Harry"), telling a story of how, one rainy evening, his last fare ended up being "Sue", an old flame from his youth. The two went their separate ways to chase their dreams: Sue to become an actress, and Harry to become a pilot. Both have ended up accomplishing their dreams, but not as they expected: Sue is acting as if she is happy in her well-to-do lifestyle (enough to pay Harry $20 for a $2.50 fare), while Harry is "flying" in his taxi (and getting "high" in the process).

Sequel (song)

In 1980, after nearly a decade of fans asking what happened to the couple, Chapin would write another song (titled "Sequel"). As with the original, it's told from Harry's viewpoint; the first line of Sequel is the last line of Taxi.

Harry has now become a successful musician (and is also no longer using illegal substances); with eight hours before his concert in San Francisco, he decides to pay Sue a visit (instead of a fancy vehicle, he decides to take a taxi). He learns, however, that she no longer lives at her old upscale address, but is now a working-class woman living in a simple brownstone apartment. He pays her a visit to her new address and discovers that she is much happier than she was chasing her dreams of being an actress. She refuses his invitation to attend the concert (saying that she works at night) and also refuses to accept money from Harry); it is implied that they had one final sexual encounter. Harry now realizes that he has become the actor "facing the footlights", while she's "flying with both feet on the ground".