A column dedicated to great songs, old and new.
June 14, 2005
Written by Jackson Browne
From The Naked Ride Home, Elektra Records, 2002
In his speech inducting Jackson Browne into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen coined a fitting term to describe Jackson's music: "California Pop-Gospel." I like that description quite a bit, because not only does it distinctly locate Jackson as a Californian artist, it also acknowledges a kind of liturgical component to his work. Like his musical soul-brother Bob Marley, Jackson Browne has always urged us to consider the state of our souls and our relationships to others; concerns that are usually addressed in the spiritual/liturgical realm. The fact that he writes about these concerns with probing self-doubt (and often self-indictment) is significant, and in my mind a major reason why his many admirers have such a strong, emotional bond with his work.
The Naked Ride Home
Jackson Browne
"Don't You Want to Be There" is primarily a meditation. Like a lot of Jackson's best work, it will break your heart, call you to reflection, and inspire you to hopeful action, all in the span of one listen. It opens with a simple enough invitation:
"Don't you want to be there, don't you want to go, where the light is breaking and the cold clear winds blow..."
Around the middle, that invitation softly becomes an encouraging spiritual challenge:
"Don't you want to be there? Don't you want to cry when you see how far you've got to go to be where forgiveness rules...instead of where you are?"
The last verse then contains the most potent variation of the titular question, one that no listener can escape:
"Don't you want to be where there's strength and love in the place of fear?"
Jackson's soulful vocal is partially backed by a mini-choir throughout the song (California Pop-Gospel in action), and the ethereal, slow-paced R&B groove adds one more layer of emotional poignancy. Jackson once told me that quite a few of the fellas in his band are R&B fans, and you can feel that vibe throughout the track.
True to form, there are unique lyrical and structural touches in "Don't You Want to be There." It's natural to focus on Jackson's lyrical content, but the fact is, he's also been mighty adventurous in terms of song forms, musical settings, and collaborators. I can't think of another artist of Jackson's stature who has truly collaborated with as diverse an array of folks as Jackson has (traditional Irish musicians, a Nueva Canción ensemble, Native American spoken-word, San Francisco funk... just to name a few). The gestalt of "Don't You Want to Be There" is enhanced by the dream-like spaciousness of the arrangement, which lets the words ease their way into your consciousness. My favorite lines in the song are marked by a subtle syntactical turn that could only be executed by a master:
"And those you have wronged, you know
You need to let them know some way
And those who have wronged you, know
You'll have to let them go someday
Don't you want to be there?"
Those lines, and this song in general, have made me cry so many times, it's almost embarrassing. I do know that after each listen (and subsequent blubbering session), I feel like I'm ready to live, to love, to be there.
California Pop-Gospel, dude.
Amen.
pcm
Purchase:
The Naked Ride Home
at Jackson
Browne Store
at Amazon.com
at Tower
Records