Mark Arbuckle: August 2025

When I first began writing this piece I fully intended it to be a comprehensive summary on the music of the exceptional Jackson Browne…..

Not surprisingly the more research I did the bigger the task became. 

After studying his 60 year musical career and the huge amount of material he has written. Plus the extensive list of collaborations he’s been involved in. I had to concede that I just couldn’t do it justice in a 900 word blog article.

Instead I’ve decided to select a single song which, to me at least, sums up the man and his music.

The song I’ve chosen is “These Days” from Browne’s second album For Everyman, released in 1973.

“Well, I’ve been out walking
I don’t do that much talking these days. 

These days

These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
But it’s so hard to risk another, these days. 

These days

Now, if I seem to be afraid to live the life that I have made in song
Well, it’s just that I’ve been losin’ for so long

Well, I’ll keep on movin’, movin’ on
Things are bound to be improving these days
One of these days

These days I’ll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend.

Don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them.”

It’s staggering to think that Jackson began writing “These Days” in 1964, at 16 years of age. 

Yes you read that correctly, SIXTEEN…. Wow! 

It’s such a reflective song, but also an uplifting and joyful one, that alludes to one’s life experience.

My favourite version features the wonderful pedal steel and slide guitar work of JB’s long time collaborator and friend David Lindley.

Lindley rightly known as the ‘Master of Strings’ also played with such musical giants as Warren Zevon, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan and CSNY.(to name but a few)
He sadly passed away in 2023 but his musical legacy lives on

It would be a year before Jackson finished the song and nearly a decade before he recorded it. It was first recorded in her very distinctive style, by Nico in 1967. Jackson playing electric guitar on this version, on the advice of Andy Warhol, .

It was then recorded in 1973 by Greg Allman who changed the original lyric…. 
“I’ve stopped my dreaming’ to the more hopeful ‘I’ll keep on movin“

Over the years it has been recorded by Cher, Glen Campbell, Miley Cyrus, Drake and 10,000 Maniacs to name but a few.

Browne has written better-known songs like “Doctor My Eyes”, “The Pretender” or “Running on Empty” and of course he co-wrote the huge Eagles hit, “Take It Easy“, but the enduring appeal of “These Days” is the paradox that it was a song written by a teenager at the start of his journey, as opposed to someone in their twilight years looking back on life.

The finale coming in its closing lyrics

“Please don’t confront me with my failures. I had not forgotten them“

Bonnie Raitt said “That he was so wise at 16 is unbelievable to me. It’s a song that’s reflective of so many eras of life. He’s saying things that spoke to me then, as a young woman, and they speak to me now. I think that’s why so many people relate to it.”

Bruce Springsteen described the first time he heard Browne perform. 
“As I listened I knew that this guy was simply one of the best. Each song was like a diamond and my first thought was, Damn, he’s good! My second thought was, ‘I need less words!”

Dave Crosby said in the superb documentary ‘The Troubadours‘:
“This young kid appeared outa nowhere. He looked like a teenage movie star! But he had all these perfectly formed songs about love and life, pain and regret and I thought how is that even possible?”

Throughout his long career the song would float in and out of his live sets and he didn’t perform it for many years.
“I just lost track of it. But then other people would cover it. They would learn the song and then I’d learn it back, that was a good reason to go back to it”

“I’ll keep on movin” is the way of all my songs – no matter how morose they might be, I try to leave saying something uplifting.”

What goes through the mind of a 75 year old man singing the words he wrote as a 16 year old boy?
“Well, I’m not thinking about the same thing I did when I wrote it. Mainly, I’m thinking about life now.  If a song is worth anything, it’s about the life of the listener. And I become a listener, too, when I sing it“

In conclusion, I humbly propose that it’s the perfect, reflective song that will resonate with everybody already in or approaching their 60’s…..or older.

Here are a few interpretations of a Jackson Browne classic….