Whatever it is you might think you have,
You have nothing to lose,
For every dead and living thing
Time runs like a fuse:
And the fuse is burning,
And the earth is turning.
I know I've long since blown this "album a day" thing. It's a great ambition but I've too much other stuff that I need to dedicate my brain cycles to.
It's not like I'm still listening to music every day, and that it doesn't continually churn in my head, like the outro solo/jam on the first cut on this album, "The Fuse". In fact, I think Jackson Browne, for me, has always been in the constant unconscious part of my brain ....
I guess they got a lot to do before
they can rest assured their lives
Are justified
Pray to God for me, babe,
He can let me slide.
Tomorrow (Sat 3/6) I will have attended my second funeral this week, of people who died young. My friend, Tommy, dropped dead at age 51. He had a great life. He was a drummer for a polka band.
Well I been up and down this highway,
Far as my eyes can see.
No matter how fast I run,
I can never seem to get away from me.
No matter where I am
I can't help thinking I'm just a day away
From where I want to be,
Now I'm running home, babe,
Like a river to the sea.
A couple of days ago Tommy was just a day away from being gone. You just never know.
Well I can see it in your eyes,
You've got those bright baby blues
I remember this girl, Amy M., when I was a freshman in college. She was gorgeous, extremely sexy and had these mesmerizing electric blue eyes. My friend Dave and I sat in his room in Pete Wright dorm and sang her this song, on our guitars with me singing harmony, this haunting song of hope and desperation, and she just sat there looking forlorn because we all somehow thought the song was about her. The next image I remember of her is the next semester, sneaking out of the boy's dorm at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday, with her boyfriend dorm counselor.
You watch yourself from the sidelines
Like your life was a game
you don't mind playing
To keep yourself amused.
I don't mean to be cruel, babe,
But you're looking confused.
Baby, if you can hear me, turn down your radio,
There's just one thing I want you to know,
When you've been near me
I felt the love stirring in my soul.
I've been listening to Jackson Browne since I was in high school. He's always had a grounding effect on me. I think it's because he has a way of stripping off all of the rock-n-roll veneer and giving you something real:
It's so hard to come by, this feeling of peace
(This friend of mine said) Close your eyes
And try a few of these.
I thought I was flying like a bird
So far above my sorrows
But when I looked down, I was standing on my knees
Now I need someone to help me,
Someone to help me, please.
Jackson says here he needs someone to help him, but it's just his desperation in realizing that the only person that can help him is himself. "In the end there is one dance that you'll do alone." (That's from another JB album, but anyway.)
This album is full of loss and sadness. I read once where this album was recorded after his wife committed suicide. It has a lot of sobering images, especially the title track (and album cover picture), with lines like "the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor." It makes you feel like it's all fake, like it's all for nothing, like it doesn't matter. When I saw my friend Cindy tonight, Tommy's widow, it was just harrowing.
Living your life day after day
Soon all your plans and changes either fail or fade away
Tommy lived a good life. He will be remembered. But, in the end, Jackson reminds us that we each have to justify our own lives, and somehow find that kernel of existence:
Never should I had of tried so hard to make a love work out
I guess
I don't know what love has got to do with happiness
But the times that we were happy
Were the times we never tried.
What is life, if not the privilege of "getting up and doing it again"? When that stops happening, you are dead. Maybe the secret of life is the ability to continually fooling ourselves into being happy. If you really want to find it, it better be something beyond "whatever may lie in those things that money can buy". JB leaves us with a final admonition to "say a prayer for the Pretender", but I think what he is really trying to do is push us beyond the veil of post-modern emptiness to finally abandon shallow materialism and seek real truth, truth that lies in real people living real lives that make a difference.
Goodbye, Tommy, we miss you.
cds
