A few weeks ago, James Wesley Voight, otherwise known as Chip Taylor, died. He is best known for writing classics such as Wild Thing and Angel of the Morning; however, the songs he wrote for and performed with Carrie Rodriguez rank among his finest compositions.
There was a period in the 1980s and 1990s when Taylor quit music to become a professional gambler. However, in 2002, Taylor’s music career was on the rise again with the release of Let’s Leave This Town with fiddle player Carrie Rodriguez. Taylor first met Rodriguez in 2001 at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, where he caught one of her concerts. He invited her on a six-week European tour, during which he asked whether she could sing, to which she replied, “I can sing a little background vocals, but I won’t be able to sing lead.” However, he convinced her to try a duet with him and, according to Taylor, the first time they performed together in the Netherlands, “the fans went crazy from the moment she sang the first line.” By the end of the tour, Taylor had written enough songs for an album of duets.
Him Who Saved Me is a profound and beautiful song. Taylor’s and Rodriguez’s voices complement each other effortlessly, and her mournful fiddle breaks add to its depth. I was fortunate enough to see a rejuvenated Taylor and Rodriguez perform at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2002. If I recall correctly, Him Who Saved Me was on the setlist. It could be construed as an old-school gospel song, but it’s more emotionally complex than that. The use of “Him” in the song is deliberately ambiguous: it could be referring to a plea to God for forgiveness and protection, but it could also be a call for emotional sustenance from a partner or loved one.
The song also has a sense of foreboding, moving from something spiritual in the opening verse to dystopian references to wearing “gas masks” and “no birds singin’ on your grey front lawn” in the chorus. There is also a sense of generational responsibility as Taylor and Rodriguez sing, “Who were the leaders, who were these men, and mommy and daddy did you vote for them”.
For me, this song should be in any top ten of Chip Taylor songs. However, whether you agree with that or not, there should be no argument with, to quote Carrie Rodriguez, that on 23 March 2026, “we lost an American songwriting giant.” RIP Chip Taylor.
This is beautiful. Voices work so well together