Handy Man

There's something almost playful about the way this song moves — a loose-limbed shuffle that draws on doo-wop and early rock and roll without pastiche, without the self-consciousness of nostalgia. The electric guitar carries a crisp, clean tone, the rhythm section bounces rather than drives, and the whole arrangement has a lightness that feels genuinely carefree rather than performed. Taylor's voice takes on a different character here — less the contemplative folksinger, more the charming storyteller, with a slight grin built into the phrasing. He handles the pop material with such ease that it becomes a kind of statement about his range, showing that the introspective songwriter could also just have fun with a song. The lyric operates in the classic tradition of competence as courtship — the narrator's identity is defined entirely by what he can do for you, which is sweetly retrograde in a way the recording leans into rather than apologizes for. This was a genuine hit in the late seventies, a reminder that Taylor existed in a commercial landscape and could meet it on his own terms without compromising the things that made him interesting. It's the song that comes on when you're cooking dinner and turns the kitchen into somewhere better, or when you're driving somewhere unremarkable and suddenly the unremarkable becomes pleasant.