I’ll admit, I hadn’t really kept up to date with Jackson Browne in recent years, though I count his classic “Running On Empty” as a formative album of my youth. But with a new album out (first in seven years), appearance last week on “Austin City Limits,” and upcoming tour with James Taylor (including dates in Canada next spring), the cosmos didn’t have to prod me twice to investigate more thoroughly what the great singer-songwriter’s been up to since last I noticed.
What I learned is that the guy who co-wrote The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” has gone grey (haven’t we all?), sports a distinguished-looking beard, is really named Clyde (Jackson is his middle name), was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and cameoed on The Simpsons some years ago singing “Marjorie” to Marge to the tune of his beloved “Rosie.”
But perhaps more usefully, I discovered that he has produced a series of top-notch online videos this year – about one a month – offering acoustic versions of some of his mostly lesser-known songs (at least to me) recorded in his living room with accompanying “friends.”
My entry point to this magnificent “Live from Home Series” was the song “I’m Alive” (introduced to me by Austin City Limits), but what really stopped me in my tracks was “Long Way Around.”
From the first lines – “I don’t know what to say about these days/ I’m seeing people changing in the strangest ways” – it seemed an ode to the pandemic, though I discovered it comes from the 2014 album “Standing in the Breach.”
And then the prescient, if not already well-established, “It’s never been that hard to buy a gun/ Now they’ll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone/ The seeds of tragedy are there/ In what we feel we have the right to bear.”
Delivered with quiet, but not solemn, dignity, the song ascends to the stratosphere with the delicate guitar lead of Greg Leisz and, even more so, stunning, soulful vocals from Browne’s long-time back-up singer Chavonne Stewart, who steals the show from her unobtrusive spot on his couch.
Indeed, we may be “a long way gone,” as the activist in Browne muses, but at least we can travel there with Clyde.
Lyrics
I don’t know what to say about these days
I’m seeing people changing in the strangest ways
Even in the richer neighborhoods
People don’t know when they’ve got it good
They’ve got the envy and they’ve got it bad
When I was a kid, everything I did was trying to be free
Running up and down Tinsel Town with the fire inside of me
My planets all in retrograde, the best of all my plans got laid
I made my breaks and some mistakes
Just not the ones people think I made
I’m a long way gone
Down this wild road I’m on
It’s going to take me where I’m bound
But it’s the long way around
It’s a little hard keeping track of what’s gone wrong
The covenant unravels and the news just rolls along
I could feel my memory letting go some two or three disasters ago
It’s hard to say which did more ill
Citizens United or the Gulf oil spill
I’m a long way gone
Down this wild road I’m on
It’s going to take me where I’m bound
But it’s the long way around
It’s never been that hard to buy a gun
Now they’ll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone
The seeds of tragedy are there
In what we feel we have the right to bear
To watch our children come to harm
There in the safety of our arms
With all we disagree about the passions burn, the heart goes out
And we’re a long way gone
Down this wild road we’re on
It’s going to take us where we’re bound
It’s just the long way around