Who was the girl in James Taylor's hit Fire and Rain?

Contrary to popular belief, and contrary to the answer previously given here, Suzanne wasn't his girlfriend, and she didn't die in a plane crash on the way to one of his shows. http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/firerain.asp The short answer is that Suzanne (Schnerr) was a friend of his that he met as a teenager. She ended up committing suicide, the news of which was originally withheld from James Taylor by his friends while he was in London finishing up an album. He didn't find out until six months after it happened, and the story became the scenario for one part of the Fire and Rain song lyrics.