Jackson Browne proves two things with this one—he can write and play music that really rocks and he is capable of writing satire so obscure that no one understands him. While this is not one of his better albums/CDs, there are some incredibly redeeming things here. The music really does rock and he has longtime band members with him, like Danny Kortchmar and Craig Doerge; okay, it’s a little 80s, but heck, some of these songs still make me want to dance. There are some songs with the typical profundities of Jackson Browne’s lyrics amid the pop top 40 sounding lyrics of others.

Lawyers in Love-—the title track. I never met anyone who understood this one, and I have heard people ask him to explain it many times at concerts or during interviews. He always gives a vague reply and laughs. He makes fun of lawyers certainly, but he also makes fun of our complacency in accepting whatever we see on the news or whatever is happening in our world, even the strangled cries of lawyers in love. We sit around on our couches eating our meals from TV trays totally accepting everything we see, like the third verse about “the Russians escaped while we weren’t watching them like Russians will” and that “the U.S.S.R. will be open soon as vacationland for lawyers in love.” We are complacent and live our own lives through the television. I may not have captured all of the intended meaning of this song, but this is how I interpret it. For Jackson Browne fans, it is phenomenal to hear him hit that high note in this song; he hasn’t been able to do that for years.

On The Day--An interesting song about a man who has built a wall in front of him and sees “life as a one man show.” The chorus is telling him:

On the day
On the day you fall in love
Gonna pray
You're gonna pray that your love is enough

Browne is giving advice to a guy who thinks he has it all. He’ll want love eventually. He will get tired of living life alone and being selfish.

My favorite lines are these:

'Cause you survive, don't mean you grow
Open your eyes, look out below

We could all be reminded of the lines “cause you survive, don’t mean you grow.” If you make it through something without learning from the experience, what good was it? The point of life is to learn some lessons along the way.

Cut It Away--A song about the false fronts we put on for people we love, letting people see the part of you they want to see. The part that I can relate to as well as many other people is here.
Cut it away
This crazy longing for something more
Cut it away
The question I don't have an answer for
Why I hunger
For something I can't see
Cut it away
The dream I wanted life to be

Even when thing are going well, when I’m achieving the things I want, there is this “crazy longing for something more.” He knows he has to let these longings go, but he can’t quite seem to do it. He ends the song with a brilliant extended metaphor comparing two hearts (two people) to two cities. Two cities lie protected by the night, worlds away. Inspected by the light they are two cities in decay and no matter how they might try to repair them, they just can’t seem to do it. He states at the end, “I love you, I always will.” To me, this describes the end of a relationship completely. Once you let a building get in a state of disrepair, of decay, no matter what you fix, something else just goes wrong. By the time the end of a relationship occurs, there are so many problems that whatever you tackle and fix just cannot compensate for the whole of what is wrong. Even though you may love someone, you are just too far gone to save anything.

Downtown--While there is nothing profound about the lyrics of this song, it has a couple of real plusses. The music is rockin’. For those of us who love cities, Jackson celebrates the cacophony of sound in a downtown area as Walt Whitman celebrated the variety of human beings in “I Hear America Singing.” “The busses, the carhorns, the ghetto blasters, the shouts the cries of human disaster” are celebrated. Jackson also celebrates the people who choose to be/live in the downtown areas. You have to work a little harder, be a little quicker and smarter downtown. With his finger on the pulse of the city, he has captured the way many feel about cities.

I feel alright when I'm downtown
My feet are light when I'm downtown
I cast my hopes on the human tide
I place my bet and let it ride
I'm open wide when I'm downtown

This song really is the Whitman of the day, as it also reminds me of “Manahatta.” There is something about a city that just makes us feel strong and proud and like we can do anything. That “human tide” ebbs and flows and makes us feel all kinds of sensations that we can only feel in a bright night full of noisy traffic and lights and people.

Tender is the Night--The theme of the night continues on in this one. It seems that the narrator in this one remains in a state of limbo throughout the song.

Between the darkness on the street
And the houses filling up with light
Between the stillness in my heart
And the roar of the approaching night

He is looking for somebody out in the night. As morning comes on, everything seems to change, but the night provides the cover he needs, the feeling of power. Jackson Browne actually follows up this song really well with “The Night Inside Me”—from The Naked Ride Home. My favorite lines are these:

Between a life that we expected
And the way it's always been
I can't walk back in again
After the way we fight

Again, the idea that reality is just not at all what we dreamed it would be. That gap between our dreams and our lives. As he ends the song, “It’s another world at night when you’re ready to be tender.” The night changes everything.

Knock On Any Door--In this one Browne is questioning us—Who do we want to be? Who do we want to see? What do we want to hear? Where do we want to go? Who are we looking for?

Knock on any door
Look through any window
Walk on

We all need to figure this out. The character in this song as well as us. We will never find what we want if we don’t know what we’re looking for. We will just keep “walking on.”

Say It Isn’t True--This one is one of my personal favorites. The “say it isn’t true” pertains to “that there always has been and always will be war.” There are some beautiful lines in this song. For example, I cannot believe that any parent could watch his/her sleeping child and support war at the same time, no matter what your politics. That innocent little face just doesn’t match up with war.

In the dark and the quiet
The movements of my love
And the breathing of our children
Say it isn't true

But again, Jackson Browne gives me another part of my personal anthem in this song. He states this theme again beautifully in “About My Imagination” from the Naked Ride Home. This song is powerful because the music is so beautiful, almost with a feeling of suspense. As in life, we never know what is going to happen next. There are so many higher purposes we could be using ourselves for, rather than making war with other countries, with other human beings.

I'm alive in a city
In a country of the world
And I want to go on living
I want to see my life unfold
You know it's hard to go on looking
At the stories of our day
And the dangers we're all facing
Growing worse in every way
And you would think with all of the genius
And the brilliance of these times
We might find a higher purpose
And a better use of mind

For a Rocker Jackson wrote this song for a friend of his and it is all about having a party for this rocker he knows and how much fun they are all going to have. They are going to party until

'Till the morning comes, 'till the car arrives
'Till we kill the drums, 'till we lose our lives

Overall, this CD is a good one. It’s not the best if you are looking for the typical bard of Jackson Browne, but the beat gets your blood pumpin’. The songs are certainly not bereft of messages or life lessons. You will feel strong and confident and alive with Downtown and remember some heartbreak with “Cut It Away” and reminisce about the last time you got really revved up to go to a party with “For A Rocker.” This CD plays a large part in Browne’s career evolution. This is as clearly 80s rock with social commentary as The Pretender was 70s social commentary. For those of you who aren’t fond of Jackson’s serious side, try Lawyers in Love. He is clearly having some fun, and there is nothing wrong with that.


Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Cleaning the House