Jackson Browne

A refined lyricist and melodic vocalist, Browne represents the retreat toward domestic values. The heroes of his records are caught in their troubled relationships with friends, family, and lovers. A typical bard of the post-hippie era, the prevailing tone of his tales is one of disappointment, bitterness, and regret. A small Bergman of rock, each of his albums centers on a theme that develops from track to track through cultured and profound lyrics; each record sounds different yet continuous: the melancholy tone of his voice, the measured piano playing, the mournful and fatalistic stance of the texts are constant colors in his musical landscape— that “running on empty” that became an effective slogan for the ’60s survivors.

An incomparable craftsman of twilight moods, Browne preaches in his bourgeois sagas the resigned humility of the individual.

Jackson Browne, born in Germany but raised in Los Angeles, began his career as a songwriter toward the end of the 1960s. During a couple of seasons in New York, at Andy Warhol’s Factory, he wrote three songs for Nico’s solo debut. But it was only at the beginning of the next decade that a few songs he entrusted to the Eagles and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band made him known.

Jackson Browne (Asylum, Jan 1972), also known as Saturate Before Using, is anything but the work of a beginner. The atmosphere is that of sacred hymns, not of country rock. The arrangements—mainly for piano, violin, and guitar—seem more inspired by chamber music than by folk. It’s true that the album contains songs of innocence such as Song For Adam (still in the conventional Nashville crooner style) and Jamaica Say You Will; but at the same time, the jaunty Doctor My Eyes (with a chamber string quartet), My Opening Farewell, and Rock Me On The Water (his first hit) are the quintessence of the West Coast sound, of the “laid-back” mood—brilliant, relaxed melodies shaped to explore states of mind.

For Everyman (Oct 1973) is more rocking, as in the driving, thunderous boogie of Redneck Friend and the honky-tonk Ready Or Not (with David Lindley’s distorted violin), or the catchy country-rock of Take It Easy (made famous by the Eagles), but it also introduces his most characteristic form: the long, solemn existential meditations of These Days (with a distorted guitar duetting with the piano’s martial notes) and For Everyman (the longest, most melodic, and elegiac, almost religious thanks to a church organ, perhaps even reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde), or even Colors of the Sun—compositions arranged with a powerful, shimmering sound based on keyboards and guitars, drawing inspiration from Joni Mitchell’s piano lieder and Van Morrison’s auteur soul.
The tone of his songs is apocalyptic, but in a more existential than political sense: every man is alone, struggling with his bitter fate, and in the end, merely surviving in such a difficult and hostile world seems a triumph.

Late For The Sky (Asylum, Sep 1974) confirms the artist’s split nature: on one side, the driving boogie of Road And Sky, and on the other, the fluid metaphor of Fountain Of Sorrow, one of his manifesto pieces and one of his most persuasive country piano sonatas. The soul requiem For A Dancer and the apocalyptic vision of human destiny in Before The Deluge—another classic of Browne’s arrangements (martial piano), Lindley’s (funereal violin), and Jay Winding’s (church organ)—make it his darkest and most cryptic album, marking an important transitional moment. The funereal Late For The Sky (with gospel organ) and Farther On, his most autobiographical songs, betray at least an existential confusion. All the compositions are long, arduous, and complex meditations in which hippie populism infused with pantheistic mysticism fades away, and the hymn-like structure of his free-form folk-rock takes definitive shape.
The hero of his songs is more than ever the “everyman,” the ordinary man, with his humble stories of life and death, love and hate; and also Man as an abstract entity—the human condition as a whole. Rather than singing many individual tales, as American folksingers always have, Browne prefers to sing a single story, symbolic and universal. His parables are among the most polished in rock, rich in evocative imagery and solemn reflections, of mystical intensity and philosophical depth.

Up to this point, the arrangements had oscillated between traditional country, Van Morrison’s conceptual soul, cocktail-lounge ballads, and chamber-style lieder. Rock decidedly takes over as the catalyst for all these elements starting with Pretender (Nov 1976). The album is shrouded in grief over the suicide of his wife. The Fuse and Here Come Those Tears Again are moving serenades that glide over a rich instrumental fabric, a noble version of Tin Pan Alley’s languid, sentimental kitsch fully expressed in the cadence, melody, and orchestral counterpoints of the syncopated spiritual Pretender. Browne is in outstanding form, though the arrangements do not always serve the songs well.

The live album Running On Empty (1978), which contains the lively and catchy Running On Empty (Springsteen-style) and Load Out (as well as several covers), marks a turn toward even more spectacular forms (frantic rhythms, thunderous instrumentation, visceral vocals), but also the beginning of an inexorable artistic decline.

Hold Out (Jun 1980) seems to definitively consign philosophical meditations to the past, retreating behind intimate/populist songs with ever-stronger echoes of Springsteen. The epic Hold On Hold Out connects to his classics, but Of Missing Persons and Call It A Loan are more conventional songs (though well crafted). The documentary style of Disco Apocalypse and Boulevard is intriguing, albeit tentative, and the aggressive That Girl Could Sing continues the assimilation of brighter styles. Although he continues to make intelligent music, Browne has abandoned making deeply profound music.

This is also confirmed by Somebody's Baby (from a 1982 soundtrack), a no-frills disco-pop song (worthy of Donna Summer), and by the catchy Lawyers In Love, the pensive and martial Tender Is The Night, and For A Rocker from Lawyers In Love (1983), the album where Browne also takes up social commentary (Say It Isn't True).

That becomes the central theme of Lives in the Balance (1986), strengthened by the socio-political oratory of For America and the anthemic Lawless Avenues. The reggae Till I Go Down and the romantic In The Shape Of A Heart continue to offer easily digestible music, though certainly not on par with the austere meditations of earlier times.

Less poetic and more political, Browne released World In Motion (1989), injecting doses of boogie (World In Motion) and reggae (When The Stone Begins To Turn) into his speeches, while only Enough Of The Night retains pop appeal.

After this “political” trilogy, Browne finally returned to themes of love and conflict on I'm Alive (1993). However, the songs were the weakest of his career—a far less forgivable flaw given that the album came after four years of silence. Sky Blue And Black is neither fish nor fowl: neither worthy of the philosophical ballads of old nor catchy/danceable like his more recent songs.

Looking East (Elektra, 1996) opens with an unusually loud and gritty piece, Looking East, that sounds like a Tom Petty power-pop ballad covered by a hard-rock band. The style keeps changing from song to song, zigzagging (rather awkwardly) between country (I'm The Cat), funk-boogie (Culver Moon), reggae (It Is One) and samba (Nino), but, in keeping with his recent career, the concept remains the same: a slicker, fuller sound, a group sound, not a songwriter sound.
When the music languishes, the lyrics redeem the music, as in the old-fashioned atmospheric meditations of The Barricades Of Heaven and Alive In The World.

The Next Voice You Hear (1997) is a terrible anthology.

The Naked Ride Home (Elektra, 2002), coming after a six-year hiatus, is a heavily-arranged collection that boasts a political rant (Casino Nation) and three lengthy ruminations (About My Imagination, Sergio Leone, Don't You Want To Be There).

Browne embarrassed himself with the political rants of Time The Conqueror (2008).