This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must've always thought you'd be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)
Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone
Keep a fire for the human race
And let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily, it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive but you'll never know
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must've always thought you'd be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)
Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone
Keep a fire for the human race
And let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily, it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive but you'll never know
Lyrics submitted by Howard55, edited by crdoug1957
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When We Were Young
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No Surprises
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Another Love
Tom Odell
Tom Odell
I think the meaning is pretty clear. This person got really burned in a previous relationship, and because of this is unable to love and show care in his present one, even though he so badly wants to. It's lovely song, and very sad. You can really feel how defeated and frustrated he is with himself.
Zombie
Cranberries, The
Cranberries, The
"Zombie" is about the ethno-political conflict in Ireland. This is obvious if you know anything of the singer (Dolores O'Riordan)'s Irish heritage and understood the "1916" Easter Rising reference.
"Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken
-
Another mother's breaking
Heart is taking over"
Laments the Warrington bomb attacks in which two children were fatally injured on March 23rd, 1993. Twelve year old Tim Parry was taken off life support with permission from his mother after five days in the hospital, virtually braindead.
"But you see it's not me
It's not my family"
References how people who are not directly involved with the violence feel about it. They are "zombies" without sympathy who refuse to take action while others suffer.
Indigo
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Of Mice & Men
This track is about is about questioning why the sky would choose to be blue if it had the choice to be anything else, “blue also meaning sad,” states frontman Aaron Pauley. “It's about comforting a loved one in a time of loss by telling them you feel blue, too.”
This is my favorite Jackson Browne song right now... it's an incredibly moving meditation on death (especially "there is one dance you'll do alone", that line gets me every time). The absolute best part, however, is that, for once, death inspires hope. Jackson literally turns my frown upside down every time I get past the violin solo.
incredible song. to me, it's mostly about one of the sad truths in life: that one day everyone and everything we love will be gone. but it's all we've got, and you owe it to those you love to make the best of it.
probably my favorite jackson browne song, too.
Just wanted to set the record straight on this song, and for that matter, the Late For The Sky album. This album was released in 1974. Jackson's wife committed suicide in 1976. Some of the songs on the Pretender album are supposedly about the death of his wife, but he's said in interviews that most of the songs were already written before she died.
this song is existentialism
this song makes me cry.
when i was little, my mother would play jackson browne albums and i would listen and sing along. i came to know all the songs by heart, including this one. but over the years, i heard less and less Jackson Browne. Recently, his CDs have went back into my CD player, and, while I'm still little (just a teenager), the music has a completely different meaning to me because I am able to listen to and understand the lyrics. after listening to this song for years as a young child (like 5 to 8 years old), I finally put it back in the CD player at the age of 15 and I just started crying. It is an amazingly sad and beautiful song.
The song was written for a bisexual friend of Jackson's, Scotty Runyon. "Song For Adam" was about Adam Saylor.
here's a writeup<br /> <br /> presstelegram.com/ci_17637130
this is one of my favourite songs it never gets old Jackson Browne is one of the very few singer song writers who can bring out so much emotion through his lyrics.
"Cause I know you'd rather we were dancing" Beautiful line
LUV LUV LUV the artist. Thanks for "Cause I know you'd rather we were dancing." When my elderly 2nd cousin was ill for a very long time (and death was expected), she told me many times that she didn't mind dying because she would be dancing in Heaven. She said each time I thought of her I should picture her and Abel (her spouse who had died a decade earlier) dancing. I have their very large engagement photo in my home; he's in his military uniform and she has the biggest smile I've ever seen. Sometimes death does not bring frowns; sometimes faith allows you to plan your beautiful dance in Heaven free from pain and sadness. GREAT song!
This song was actually written for the same Adam the song "Song for Adam" is about on Browne's first album.
I should add that this is one of my very favorite Browne songs. There are so many that my favorites depend on what catagory we're talking about. For the catagory of life, death, and how to live it nothing beats For A Dancer. I cry when I hear it.
I should add that this is one of my very favorite Browne songs. There are so many that my favorites depend on what catagory we're talking about. For the catagory of life, death, and how to live it nothing beats For A Dancer. I cry when I hear it.