1976: Ah the lovers as they run through the night

[denem]

Last edited Sun Mar 22, 2015, 05:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Leaving nothing
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight.

Jackson Browne, The Pretender.

Does anyone else remember the first time they heard this song? I was seventeen, and felt cheated. Where's your shame, you've left up us to our necks in it?, as David Bowie put it. A Democratic President came and went but the melancholy never lifted. The ships sank, torpedoed in the '80s, the dreams became nightmares, the happy idiots lapped up the mirage. Maybe, if I was born eight years later, staring out into 1984, maybe I might have bought into the Yuppie narrative, but not in 1976. No way.

And Jackson Browne nailed it:-

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..

Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender,
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender.

The flower children were long gone in 1976,
leaving nothing.
Feeling low at the moment, obviously.

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Hang in there. A lot of us feel this way.

Take refuge in the little things, consolations, etc.

And in the NOT so little things: like Jackson Browne. A friggin' *genius*, if you asked me.

It's a wonder... maybe even a miracle... that our idiot culture ever noticed him in the first place.

[cwydro]

2. I loved Jackson Browne

Loved that song in particular. I'm around your age.

Saw him in concert in Charlotte back in the day.

I understand.

[denem]

3. The pretender is a compassionate song, empathizing with its characters.

I don't see the cynicism and nihilism reviewers condemned at the time. There's resignation, but not despair; passion and compassion for the young lovers, the vets, the quiet lives of desparation.

Jackson was only 28 years old at the time. He writes like a much older man. His wife, the mother of his young son, took her life the year before, in 1975, while he was touring.

Given that, it's a pretty selfless song. I imagine the last thing on his mind was true love but he wrote something about loss for everyone. A landmark song for me.

[seveneyes]

4. When I was young