Jackson Browne [Late For The Sky]
Ah, another Jackson Browne album, that's two in one month [1st July 2012], with the album I'm Alive, these are the only two studio albums i own of his, in a sense the two pillars of his discography, they're almost 20 years apart, but musically they could be next door in time to each other, but they're written from a perspective of a 26 and 45 year old person respectively, this was the very first Jackson Browne album i bought, it wasn't long after the album was released [of course i bought it on LP vinyl], i discovered Jackson Browne when i heard 'Before The Deluge' playing on the radio, i was so impressed, and yet i feared that at the end of the song they wouldn't say who it was by, or i wouldn't catch it, i rushed out and bought the album, and the rest is history, a start of something big.
Jackson Browne is American, he's now 63, it almost seems i'm catching up with him, like i said he recorded this album when he was 26 in 1974, the front cover photograph gives the album its name [by Bob Seidermann], a bright blue cloudy sky, but a dull enough house / car that a streetlight is needed to see.
It was good to revisit this album again, and to renew my acquaintance with certain songs, the tracks i most enjoyed were 2-3, 6 & 8, i was surprised by tracks 3 & 6, 'Farther On', and 'For A Dancer', there's a sadness of regrettable days passed, but ultimately it's the last track 'Before The Deluge' that moved me, the whole thing seems powered by David Lindley's electric violin, it gives it a lamenting quality, and Jai Winding playing the organ creates a religiosity to the song also, of course the imagery i get from the song is of Noah and the flood, but it's more than that, some have commented that it's about impending nuclear war, my own feelings are it's about Ecology and the planet, and people are travelling in two extremes, one to a simpler way of life 'back to nature', and the other to raping the planet 'forging beauty into power', my take on certain passages are, 'the sand slipped through the opening', means the sands of time trickling through an hourglass ['we only have x number of days to save the planet!, time is running out!'], i love the words in the second verse,
Here's Before The Deluge being played on YouTube.
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
meaning there's a simple quiet beauty in the world too many people don't see, because they're fixated on the flash and noise, right at the end there's a musical outro [4:55-5:47] which lasts nearly a minute, really it's almost a jam session, and prominently features David Lindley's violin, which starts to turn into a nice bit of fiddling as the fade comes in [5:30+], it's a powerful song, and one of Jackson Browne's best sermons to boot.
