The 500 - #391 - The Pretender - Jackson Browne

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 391

Album Title: The Pretender
Artist: Jackson Browne
Genre:  Rock, West Coast Rock (Yacht Rock)
Recorded: Sunset Sounds, Hollywood, California
Released: November, 1976
My age at release: 11
How familiar was I with it before this week: One song
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: The Pretender

The Pretender Album Cover - Jackson Browne (1976)

The Pretender, the fourth studio record by Hall of Fame musician and songwriter Jackson Browne, is many things. For fans, it marks the end of his "classic period" as Browne begins a new direction with his music. The record also includes his growing interest in social commentary. However, most importantly, The Pretender is a cathartic love letter, borne out of tragedy.  

Browne's first wife, Phyllis Major, died of a drug overdose in March, 1976. The model and actress' death was deemed a suicide and occurred just two years after the birth of their only child, Ethan. 

Phyllis Major (1974)

Browne found himself a widowed, single-parent at the age of 27. Understandably, several of the songs on this record were shaped by his heartbreak. In particular, Here Come Those Tears Again, the first single from the record, was co-written with his late wife's mother, Nancy Farnsworth, who had never written a song before.

Album cover for the release of Here Come Those Tears Again

The album includes several songs that depart from Browne's typical, West Coast sound (often dubbed Yacht Rock). Another cut, Linda Paloma, is a Spanish-influenced celebration of happier times with his wife. It is rumoured that the song was inspired by frequent visits they made to a Mexican cantina in California, where the restaurant's mariachi band entertained patrons waiting for their meals. Consider this opening stanza:

"At the moment the music began,

And you heard the guitar player starting to sing,

You were filled with the beauty that ran

Through what you were imagining.

Dreaming of scenes from those songs of love.

I was the endless sky,

And you were my Mexican dove."

The album concludes with the title track which, until a week ago, was the only song with which I was familiar. The Pretender tells the story of a man who betrays his ideals in the pursuit of wealth. Released in the mid-seventies, many critics have remarked that Browne eerily predicted the transition of Hippie culture into the Yuppie movement that defined the excesses of the 80s. 

The Yuppie Handbook - a satirical
look at the cultural phenomenon (1984)

While researching for this record, I stumbled on this 1994 version from BBC TV. It featured a storyteller introduction, a popular practice at the time, in which Browne deconstructed the song's history and meaning, he remarked:

"It's about someone who has lost sight of their dreams and is trying to make a stab at the way of life he sees other people succeeding at. It's about people who have embraced a material lifestyle in the place of dreams that they had."

Typically, when I review a record, I select an unfamiliar song for the Spotify Playlist I have been curating. However, the beautiful structure of The Pretender and its magnificent lyrics elevate it and make it my only possible choice. These words resonate with me differently than they did when I first heard them at about the age of thirteen. I suspect that is the point.

"I’m gonna be a happy idiot

And struggle for the legal tender

Where the ads take aim and lay their claim

To the heart and the soul of the spender

And believe in whatever may lie

In those things that money can buy

where true love could have been a contender

Are you there?

Say a prayer for the Pretender.

Who started out so young and strong

Only to surrender."