Jackson Browne |
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Fri. October 04.2002 3:17 PM EDT |
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Jackson Browne: The Pretender Gets NakedSoft rock savior moves toward the cinematic on his new album. by Courtney Reimer |
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Jackson Browne (VH1.com) |
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Jackson Browne has always been a master of rumination. Back in the early 1970s, when he and his pals in the Eagles were spearheading the L.A. singer-songwriter movement, he was a romantic who turned songs of self into sensitive anthems embraced by
Over the years Browne’s songs have enhanced their sense of drama, and his new The Naked Ride Home is built on both musical scenarios broad in scope and precise in execution. From the ominous tone of “Casino Nation” to the winding Sergio Leone ode, to the valentine closer that celebrates his current love, the music is detailed, elaborate, evocative. We spoke with Browne about how living life sometimes gets in the way of creativity, how you can never control the translation of your songs, and how sex in a moving car ain’t exactly easy. VH1: It’s been six years since your last album, Looking East. What took so long? Jackson Browne: Life kept interrupting me! I kept stopping work to deal with other stuff. I toured the last record for 11 months. Then I started doing acoustic shows, and I toured in Europe. Then I got an apartment and started living in Spain. I opened the door into another world and started thinking about how I live and what I wanted to do. I enjoyed touring, but in a way, it was too much of a certain kind of work. It raised a lot of questions. Then when I began working on the new disc it was a really slow process. Maybe it’s because I had three houses - one in the city, one in the country, and then one in another country! VH1: You’ve been touring with Tom Petty this year. Have you performed together onstage at all? Browne: We did it once last year. It was odd. Everybody had ideas [about what to sing] but there wasn’t a song that everybody knew. We winded up doing “Take It Easy,” which I wrote with Glenn Frey. VH1: “Take It Easy” was a big hit for the Eagles. Does it bother you that the song isn’t associated with you even though you wrote it? Browne: No. “Take It Easy” wouldn’t even be the song it is if Glenn hadn’t insisted I finish it. Then he offered to finish it and made it a hit song. I was playing in Colorado and a guy invited me to come and hear him sing in a bar. I went down there and the guys he had been sitting in with were all packing up. He said, “These guys are going. Will you sing something with me?” We were trying to figure out what to sing, but we didn’t know any of the same songs. Finally he said, “Well, do you know ‘Take It Easy?’” I said, “Yeah, I guess I do.” He had no idea I had written it! There are lots of covers of “Take It Easy.” It’s been done in Chinese, Spanish, Dutch and Finnish. A friend of mine who lives in Spain did a version. Instead of singing, “I’m looking for a lover who won’t blow my cover,” he said, “I’m looking for a lover who’s not religious, not dangerous and will eat me like a lobster in pink sauce.” I thought that was a pretty good addition! VH1: There are lots of versions of your songs. Both Nico and Gregg Allman have covered “These Days.” Browne: I like Nico’s version a lot. They used it in The Royal Tenenbaums. I hadn’t heard it in so long that when I went to see the movie and it came on I thought, “I used to play just like that.” Then I heard Nico’s voice and I went, “Oh, it is me!” I played guitar on her version. I like other people doing my songs. VH1: It means you’ve got all this reach beyond just the Jackson Browne catalog. Browne: Songs have a way of going out into the world and having a life of their own. When the song’s really working, the person listening to it adds pictures from their own life. They remember the first time they heard that artist. It becomes an accompaniment to a period of their life. VH1: The title track of The Naked Ride Home is pretty literal. A girl takes her clothes off and you drive her home. Is that based on an actual experience? Browne: Yeah, it was. I think a lot of people have had that idea themselves, whether they’ve done it or not. I engaged people in that really prurient idea. I mean, sex in a moving car has got to be pretty hard to do! Whatever you imagine when you hear the song, you’re hooked up to a part of you that’s willing to imagine something out of the ordinary. That’s how you find yourself at the end of the song. VH1: You’re known for your political commentary. What are you digging at on the new song “Casino Nation?” Browne: It’s different in some ways to the political songs I’ve written in the past, because it’s more kaleidoscopic in its approach. Life has become so chaotic compared to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. We fill our life with so much stuff, the only way to talk about what life is is to take a composite view of things. To take any of the subjects that are touched upon on “Casino Nation” and write a whole song about it would have been more like what I did in writing Lives in the Balance. It would impose a view of things upon the listener, but also imply that something must be done. This time I wanted to describe life in terms other people recognize, but let people come to what should be done in their own way. “Casino Nation” became the song it is when it stopped being a really loud, up-tempo rock song. I changed the melody and it became this hypnotic and cyclical piece of music that allowed me to say these things. There’s something slightly too evangelical about rock ‘n’ roll when you start yelling! VH1: How do you see the rest of the year unfolding for you? Browne: I love being on the road. I actually get more time to myself when I’m touring. I can sleep as long as I want! Basically, I don’t do anything but sing on those days that I play. On the days off, I get to read, sing and listen to music. It’s a part I enjoy. I’m looking forward to the next two or three months, because I’m touring all the way up until Christmas - and hopefully writing some more songs! |
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