THE MATRIX PROGRAMMED BY TOM WOLFE IS STILL WORKING PERFECTLY: James Taylor sings ‘Fire and Rain’ to kick off White House Inflation Reduction Act celebration.

James Taylor is kicking off the White House’s Inflation Reduction Act celebration.

The six-time Grammy Award winner, 74, sang “Fire and Rain” in front of the White House on Tuesday afternoon. Taylor was seated in a navy-blue blazer and a gray hat as he strummed his guitar in front of the cameras and audience.

Taylor has shared his opinion on politics in the past. Under former President Barack Obama’s terms, the musician shared that he believed Obama was the greatest president of all time.

Related: NPR on the meaning of Taylor’s “Fire and Rain:”

Each of “Fire and Rain”‘s verses deals with an adversity Taylor has dealt with in his life. The first is about a friend, Susanne, who he found had died,

“At the time, I was recording in England with The Beatles, and my friends had sort of kept the information about this death from me because they thought, you know, `This is a crucial time for him, he’s doing his work, and we don’t want to upset him or bring him down.’ So my friend Richard Corey told me about it, but he had known about it for a month or so before he mentioned it to me. So that’s where `they let me know you were gone’ comes in.”

The second verse is when you’re still struggling to get off hard drugs,

“That was in New York, and that was when I came back to this country from London and was surprised that I’d picked up a habit. So I was physically very uncomfortable and having a rough time.”

And the third verse in the mental hospital at Stockbridge.

That’s quite a backstory for a song played on the day when the stock market tanked due to “unexpectedly” high inflation.