Jackson Browne surveys the past, contemplates the future
Jackson Browne is now in his fifth decade as a recording artist — his sixth, if you count his early career publishing demos. Standing in the Breach is his first collection of mainly new material since Time the Conqueror, and the new disc maintains a six-year cycle of such releases that began in 1996 with Looking East. Supported by the flows-like-warm-honey sound of Greg Leisz’s 12-string electric guitar (undoubtedly a Rickenbacker), Browne launches his 13th original studio release with the first of a few nods to his back pages: “The Birds Of St. Marks” dates from the Criterion demos that Browne recorded during early June 1970. Performed here at an increased tempo, this oldie makes for a memorably melodic opening opus.
“Stay, don’t go / We’ve been here before / Look at all we’ve got” is a synopsis of the message embraced in the ensuing, love-themed “Yeah Yeah”. Propelled by a loping beat, “The Long Way Around” finds the writer, now in his mid-60s, reflecting:
I’m seeing people changing in the strangest ways
Even in the richer neighbourhoods
People don’t know when they’ve got it good.
Peeling back the decades to recall his teenage scuffling days, Browne encapsulates that time with lines like, “I made my breaks, and some mistakes / Just not the ones people think I made”. In the closing verse, he sets his sights firmly on America’s “lax” gun laws, singing, “They’ll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone.”
Browne began composing “Take It Easy” during the summer of 1971. Completed by Glenn Frey and recorded by Frey’s new band, the Eagles, the song peaked at # 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart during 1972. Back then, the line, “Well, I’m standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”, launched the second verse. Four decades on, via the almost four-minute long “Leaving Winslow”, while waiting for a train, the narrator reflects: “I wanted to see Winslow one more time.”
Inspired by his participation in the 2010 Mission Blue Voyage, “If I Could Be Anywhere” finds Browne affirm that this is his time and that mankind has to “change.” Research across centuries of history and “successions of empire,” led Browne to the revelation that the insatiable “greed” of generations of powerbrokers, whatever their nationality, continues to choke the life from our planet. His conclusion: Mother Nature will strike back if we continue “Swimming through the ocean of junk we produce every day.” As for one of mankind’s creations, he slyly adds “They say nothing lasts forever, But all the plastic ever made is still here.”
Dating from April 1943, Woody Guthrie’s lrics for “You Know the Night” memorialise the occasion on which he met dancer Marjorie Marza, who was to become his second wife. By way of marking the 100th anniversary of Guthrie’s birth, during 2012, the lyric was sifted from a 30-page Guthrie document, and the resulting song debuted on Rob Wasserman’s collaborative Woody Guthrie tribute Note Of Hope. Co-written with, and sung by Browne, that version ran for close to 15-minutes. A four-minute edited version subsequently surfaced, and this reprise runs for five-minutes and 30-seconds.
Browne translated the lyric to “Walls and Doors”, which was penned by Cuban-born songwriter Carlos Varela, and features his acoustic guitar throughout and vocal at the close. Founded on the premise “There are those who build walls, And those who open doors”, further examples of comparative pairings surface as the verses unfold. Ploughing a parallel furrow to “If I Could Be Anywhere”, Browne pins his political colours firmly to the mast in “Which Side?” — a call to arms that contemplates the forthcoming “battle for the future.” Drilling, fracking, bank bailouts, monopolies on medicines, and the arms industry, all come in for scrutiny, leading to the line:“Between Washington and Wall Street like it’s one big Dollar Store”. And, later, “Take the money out of politics and maybe we might see, This country turn back into something more like democracy.” Dating from 2009 and written for the Kevin Spacey movie Shrink, album closer “Here” is a heartfelt paean to survival “without her.”
On two panels of the three-way fold-out card liner, a pair of figures are portrayed making their way gingerly through a scene of devastation — buildings have been demolished or are badly damaged, debris is strewn across the ground, acrid smoke fills the air, small fires still rage. With positivity, the album title song focuses upon human endeavour in overcoming natural disasters or that which has been wrought by man. Ideally a healthier, more secure world is what we all “wish to see” and, with resignation, in the closing verse, 66-year-old Browne sings, “And you know the world you’re waiting for may not come, No it may not come.”
Despite that number thirteen tag, although Jackson Browne has been musically ploughing many of the same furrows for decades, Standing in the Breach is a praiseworthy creation that throws up fresh insights with repeated listening.
Brought to you from the desk of the Folk Villager.
