For the Sake of the Song: Jackson Browne “For America”

There are so many songs that resonate and you want to include them in this Feature because they have a personal impact on you, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and feature a song that does not have such an immediate emotional impact on one’s self, but is so focused on its theme and is so prescient that it remains relevant nearly 40 years after it was written. Welcome to my favourite songwriter, Jackson Browne, and a classic track from his 1986 album “Lives in the Balance”. Browne had been used to writing one classic track after another and a number of the albums that preceded “Lives in the Balance” were praised as masterpieces – “For Everyman”, “The Pretender”, “Late for the Sky”, “Running on Empty” With his seventh album he started recording songs that reflected his growing activism and political leanings. Album number eight went further, and the track that resonates as much today as in 1986 is ‘For America’. Several lines in the song are directly relevant today, even though the song was written as a protest against Reagan’s incursions into South America “With everyone from the president on down trying to keep it from you” a singularly damning indictment of the lack of transparency at the top level, “By the dawn’s early light / By all I know is right / We’re going to reap what we have sown”, a prediction about the repercussions of Government policy, and  “As if freedom was a question of might / As if loyalty was black and white / You hear people say it all the time / My country wrong or right”, the fear that it is impossible to criticise the Government on any policy, especially race.

‘For America’ is the lead off track on the album and it is a powerful rocker, driven by the strong rhythm section of Ian Wallace on drums and Jennifer Condos on bass, but the real hardhitting came from Gary Myrick on guitar with a fiery riff (and later a sizzling solo) that sounds as if Browne is really angry at America’s leaders but also at himself for not doing enough to challenge what the country’s leaders were doing “The kid I was when I first left home / Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own / But the freedom that he found wasn’t quite as sweet / When the truth was known”. And a resigned  “I have prayed for America / I was made for America”.  Phil Kenzie plays the distinctive sax (as he did on ‘Year of the Cat‘ and ‘Hot Legs’), an addition that many critics did not really enjoy. Nevertheless the song set the tone for the rest of the album.  If you feel inclined to retrace Browne’s political albums, much of what he wrote is still relevant today, but ‘For America’ stands out for its almost direct parallels between the Reagan era and the current one, except today the wars also include those that are domestic – immigration, culture as well as race.