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Most people who listen to music inevitably make comparisons. How does a given release hold up alongside an artist's other work? How well does it measure up to the work of contemporaries? How well does it age? As is true of most Art, time is the decider, and perhaps the greatest tribute any work can receive comes when it is no longer measured against others, but becomes that which others are measured against. Such has become the case with Jackson Browne's 1974 masterwork, "Late for the Sky." Almost from the moment of its release, it has been an acknowledged classic of its era and of its genre (the singer-songwriter period). Within these songs live some of the most beautiful expressions of Love and the most heartbreaking and eloquent contemplations of Love-lost that have ever been written. Throughout his career, Jackson's explorations of relationships have resonated so well with listeners because, as he has understood from the beginning, music is a gift, and once given it has as much--or more--to do with the listeners' lives as it does the artist's. He wouldn't have it any other way.
Listened to from beginning to end, LFTS leads listeners on a journey. Love is the overriding theme of this release, and the one to which Jackson returns again and again. The title song opens the record just as a relationship is dying ("Such an empty surprise to feel so alone.") But also explored are a young person's attempts to find a place in the world to belong ("Now the distance leads me farther on/Though the reasons I once had are gone/I keep thinking I'll find what I'm looking for/In the sand beneath the dawn"), attempting to come to terms with the death of a friend ("I don't know what happens when people die/I can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try/It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear that I can't sing/But I can't help listening"). The final song is an ominous, apocalyptic "Before the Deluge," which sounds as if it could have, or perhaps should have been written only yesterday. And as beautiful and timeless and relevant as all of these songs are, it is when he is writing and singing of Love that Jackson always has and will shine brightest. "Fountain of Sorrow" celebrates a woman's outer and inner beauty, which continues to hold a place deep in the grateful heart of a former lover. There's even a relatively light-hearted rocker (Walking Slow) in which he sings of love's conundrums ("Sometimes we forget we love each other and we fight for no reason.") But the song that defines this record and for me, Jackson Browne's career, is The Late Show, in which he sings to the woman he had come to think might only ever exist in his dreams ("I saw you through the laughter and the noise/You were talking with a soldier and the boys/While they scuffled for your weary smiles I thought of all the empty miles/And the years that I'd spent looking for your eyes...") The song ends with him waiting in his car outside her house (see album cover). Will she come? We wait, and wait...and wait, and then we hear a car door slam...and then another! And as beautiful soaring strings play over the sound of the car driving off into the distance, we believe once more in the endless power of love.
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Amadeo
Una obra mayor, una recuperación necesaria
Reviewed in Spain on November 9, 2015graphicdavinci
Great writing, right from the start
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2013
