Jackson Browne: Summoning a Sky Blue and Black

“Sometimes I write stuff and I don’t know what it means; ‘Late for the Sky’ was like that, ‘Far From the Arms of Hunger’ is, too. It was just the simplest thing, so sad and yet…it took me the longest time and turned out to be the simplest, short phrases. It’s kind of an odyssey, little bit by little bit over a period of time.

“I couldn’t have told you four or five years ago what my goals would be. If I were to try to enumerate the goals, I’d have to go back several years…and tell you there’s more to it than just records.

Personally, there were quite a few: to heal someone who’s sick, preparing for someone coming of age, spending enough time and enjoying things with your spouse, my stunning mystery companion…

“The changes in my attitudes, my ability to cope-that’s all part it. The songs…I had to do them. I had to barricade myself in the studio, book the studio…but I’m living the subjects [alone] enough to let the music express that.”

On the title track, it becomes obvious that the more you know, the less you realize you know. Wisdom comes from letting go, as Browne sings, “Time to decide what kind of world I believe in/the world wide open or the world about to stop breathing…/and every thought of you casts its own little shadow/and everything I wanted, subject to review/Time may heal all wounds, but time will steal you blind…”

For a writer of intricate detail-and Time the Conqueror is filled with tiny elements-it is the specificity that conjures a sense of ownership. It is also about small things leaving plenty of room for greater open spaces.

“It is really detailed and specific, but then it leaves certain questions for the listener to interpret however they feel and however it speaks to them and resonates for them.”

To let people find the truth may be the most concentrated way to deliver the message. It takes faith-in one’s process, in one’s listeners-and yet, 60 years along, it’s all there is. “My output is kinda small. I’m not so hooked up to the commerce part of it, but I’m trying to make a living. I’m really happy.”

Happiness, it could be argued, is what you make it. Or it could be being present where you are. Jackson Browne, a Buddhist who wears a suit to sing with his choir friends in South Central, who embraces causes with a fervor yet refuses to preach, who writes romantic truths yet remains private about his own personal life even in the specificity of his lyrics…is here. Now. More alive, more searching, more willing.

In that, there is a serenity to even his most intense songs of conflict and contradiction. When you know where you are, though, casting hypocrisy into the light can only leave you stirred, never shaken. So it is somewhere just off the Pacific Coast Highway where Browne keeps conjuring his songs in a nondescript block that’s as anonymous as the truths he incites within those who listen to his songs.