The 500 - #375 - Late For The Sky - 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 Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 375

Album Title: Late For The Sky
Artist: Jackson Browne

Genre: Rock, California Rock
Recorded: Three studios - California
Released: September, 1974
My age at release: 9
How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Before The Deluge

Mad Men was a period drama set in Manhattan in 1960 and focused on the lives of employees at the fictional Madison Avenue advertising agency, Sterling-Cooper. In the Season One finale, an episode called The Wheel, protagonist Don Draper is tasked with developing a campaign for Kodak's new projector which houses photo-slides in a "donut-shaped" wheel on top.

Pitch Meeting in S:1 Ep:13 The Wheel on Mad Men

Here, in the dark and cigarette-smoke-filled room, Draper confidently launches an unexpected sales pitch as he patiently clicks through a series of sentimental family photographs.  

"In Greek, nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound'. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards and takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called 'The Wheel'. It's called 'The Carousel'. It travels the way a child travels ... around and around and back home again."  

I've reached the age where I am prone to prolonged bouts of nostalgia. They are sometimes predictable. Conversations with my high-school friend Terry are a common trigger. The discovery of old photographs or a forgotten song that was part of my teenage soundtrack will provoke a wistful reflection or take me back to a place where I "ache to go again".

And then there is the music of Jackson Browne.  

Jackson Brown (1974)

What is it about Jackson Browne? 

Browne writes songs that gently push the listener toward a contemplative and dreamy state of melancholy and nostalgia. However, most remarkably is the fact that these songs have always had a kind of power over me. Even when I first heard his music at the age of 12 or 13 I was filled with a yearning, or ache, to go back to a simpler time. Which is absurd. I was living in the simplest time of my life. What was I trying to "go back to"...last Wednesday?

Late For The Sky is the third studio release for Brown, a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. It is also the third of three records on The 500 List. I wrote about album #391, The Pretender, last December and For Everyman at #450 in December, 2019 -- which seems like a lifetime ago!

Late For The Sky was released in 1974 in between the other releases. It captures Browne at the high-point of the "classic period" of his career.

For Everyman (1973) and The Pretender (1976) 

This year, Late For The Sky was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and has been selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. 

Library of Congress - Washington DC

It is a sublime and beautiful record with gorgeously crafted, often heartbreaking, lyrics that blend magnificently with stunningly structured, rich music. Browne was only 24 when he recorded it, but it has the sound of an artist more mature. 

Late For The Sky, much like Don Draper's carousel slide-projector, is "a time machine" which will transport you to a place where you "ache to go again."  

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."

  

The 500 - #450 - Jackson Browne - For Everyman

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. 

My plan (amended). 

• One record per week (ish) and at least two complete listens.
• A blog post for each, highlighting the important details and, when possible, a background story that relates to the record.
• No rating scale - just an effort to expand my appreciation of diverse forms of music.
• Listen to Josh and his guest on The 500 podcast, which drops weekly, to gather additional information and insights.

Album # 450

Album Title: For Everyman
Artist: Jackson Browne
Released: October, 1973
My age at release: 8
How familiar was I with it before this week: One song
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: I Thought I Was A Child
Great Lyric:
"These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend Don't confront me with my failures I had not forgotten them." (These Days)

In January, 2011, my brother and sister, who are twins, were turning 40. I wasn't sure what to get them for their birthday until it was announced that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician Jackson Browne had included London's John Labatt Centre (JLC) on his solo acoustic tour. I purchased three tickets and gave them the news on their birthday.

On April 18, 2011 we met for dinner and went to the show. We had great seats for an intimate performance. The JLC had curtained off half the arena with a heavy, floor-to-ceiling drape so it felt like a small theatre. The stage was simple. A rack with a dozen guitars and a small, electric piano. 

The tour was promoted as one without a prescribed set-list. Instead, Browne opted to take requests from audiences. At our event, rather than requests being raucously shouted, they were politely called out. There are not many things more mellow than a middle-aged, Canadian audience at a Jackson Browne acoustic gig. The soulful, soft rock of the 1970s has been dubbed yacht rock, dad rock and chillwave because of its very smooth, introspective and marijuana-friendly spirit.

At one point, a request for the song Our Lady of the Well was made and, after picking up a guitar, Browne paused and said, "I think I'll play that on the piano tonight." 

This is the musicianship of which I am most envious. I play saxophone and guitar at an intermediate level and have been taking piano lessons for three months. I can learn a song on each instrument and, if I practice enough, I can perform it reasonably well. However, nothing can change. 

• I can't change the key or the instrument. 
• If I learned it on guitar, I have no idea how to play it on the saxophone.
• I'm not able to participate in any kind of improvised jam - even if it is built around the melody. 
• Without sheet music, I am lost.

I'd love to be able to seamlessly embrace a piece of music in a way that resonates with me in the moment. That being said, I realize that Browne is a professional musician with 40+ years of playing experience behind him. He has certainly eclipsed Malcom Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule for expertise. Still, that casual, personal comfort with music is something to which I dreamily aspire. 

For Everyman is a wonderful record. It was my Christmas week soundtrack as I heard it at least a dozen times over five days. I also listened to Josh's podcast interview with Judd Apatow about this record twice. 

I am a huge fan of Judd's work and use his coming-of-age series Freaks and Geeks as part of my Grade 7 & 8 Health curriculum. During the interview, Judd ruminates on the influence Jackson Browne has had on his writing. Apatow acknowledges that many of his stories are built around the challenges associated with growing-up, an unmistakable theme on Browne's For Everyman. 

Apatow cites I Thought I Was A Child as direct inspiration for his 2007 comedy, Knocked Up. 

 As he puts it...

"Sometimes, when I make a movie, I'll work on it for years. So a movie will take 2 to 5 years to make. And then I'll hear a song and go...'everything I was going for in that movie, this person expressed in 3 and a half minutes'."

Apatow freely admits his fascination with the tribulations associated with aging. "I do have two movies with the number 40 in them" he jokes. 

I, too, have an odd, sometimes maudlin fascination with time, aging and maturity. 

Perhaps that is why I like Browne and Apatow so much? 

Perhaps that is why I took my brother and sister to see Browne on their 40th birthday? 

Okay, the second question is a stretch but...it does give me a tidy book-end to this blog.

Ticket Stub from that show.

Next up: #449 - Big Star - Third