“Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone, Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you.” The opening lines of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” address a particularly grim moment in the sing-songwriter’s life. He wrote the song following the suicide of his good friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Taylor was recording in London at the time, and not wanting to hamper the recording process, Taylor’s friends shielded him from the news of Schnerr’s death. Many people believed the song to be about Taylor’s girlfriend dying in a plane crash (”Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground”), which turns out to be an urban legend. Regardless of the genesis of the song’s lyrics, it became an instant hit for Taylor when it was released as a single on his second album, Sweet Baby James, in 1970, helping lay the foundation for the singer-songwriter boom of the 70s.

The Official James Taylor website
Snopes.com debunks the myth