I used to like Jackson Browne. I say that, I used to like him, because I don't think that he's done anything worthwhile since 1978, that was Running On Empty.

The critics were always partial to For Everyman which was his second LP, but I'm not a critic, so that doesn't have to be my favourite, and it isn't, though "Ready Or Not" has been known to make me cry. It's not sad, but at some point I suppose my life was sad, and the song just cracked something inside me. But I didn't bawl or anything, just sniffed a bit, being a guy and all. And my kids were in the car, and so it wouldn't do if Dad just suddenly started to "greet," as the Scots would have it…

It's that line about "she's gonna be a mother…" Gets me every time…

But never mind that. I've always favoured Browne's first album, which either doesn't have a title, or is called "Jackson Browne," not very creative that, or is called "Saturate Before Using," which it isn't called that, not at all, but those words are on the cover, so it looks like it's called that, though it isn't. But I'm partial to that album anyway. It drills into your soul if you let it. It's sad stuff a lot of it, and it was done even before his life got majorly sad, which it did between Late For The Sky and The Pretender, and at the moment I don't want to think too much about that, what he went through, I can't think about that.

Did someone say "Late For The Sky?" There's no point, no point at all, saying anything about that song. I have a cyberfriend, he's a clergyman, Protestant, and he posted the lyrcs to that song on a messageboard around the time his marriage was collapsing, and it seems trite in a way to post pop song lyrics when your life is collapsing around into fragments, but he did it, and it wasn't trite, because if I were to say anything about "Late For The Sky," which I'm not, I would try to relate the power that's in there, no not power really, more like pain, real pain, not just pop music pain, and I don't know how he does that , though David Lindley has something to do with it, and I would describe it, but here I've undertaken not to say anything about it.

Late For The Sky

Now the words had all been spoken
And somehow the feeling still wasn't right
And still we continued on through the night
Tracing our steps from the beginning
Until they vanished into the air
Trying to understand how our lives has led us there

Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I'd ever known
Such an empty surprise to feel so alone

Now for me some words come easy
But I know that they don't mean that much
Compared with the things that are said when lovers touch
You never knew what I loved in you
I don't know what you loved in me
Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be

Awake again I can't pretend and I know I'm alone
And close to the end of the feeling we've known

How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been dreaming I could make it right
If I closed my eyes and tried with all my might
To be the one you need

Awake again I can't pretend and I know I'm alone
And close to the end of the feeling we've known

How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been running for that morning flight
Through the whispered promises and the changing light
Of the bed where we both lie
Late for the sky