Farther On

by Jackson Browne

In my early years I hid my tears
And passed my days alone
Adrift on an ocean of loneliness
My dreams like nets were thrown
To catch the love that I'd heard of
In books and films and songs
Now there's a world of illusion and fantasy
In the place where the real world belongs

Still I look for the beauty in songs
To fill my head and lead me on
Though my dreams have come up torn and empty
As many times as love has come and gone

To those gentle ones my memory runs
To the laughter we shared at the meals
I filled their kitchens and living rooms
With my schemes and my broken wheels
It was never clear how far or near
The gates to my citadel lay
They were cutting from stone some dreams of their own
But they listened to mine anyway

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say
It could be I've lost my way
Though I keep a watch over the distance
Heaven's no closer than it was yesterday
And the angels are older
They know not to wait up for the sun
They look over my shoulder
At the maps and the drawings of the journey I've begun

Now the distance leads me farther on
Though the reasons I once had are gone
I keep thinking I'll find what I'm looking for
In the sand beneath the dawn
But the angels are older
They can see that the sun's setting fast
They look over my shoulder
At the vision of paradise contained in the light of the past

And they lay down behind me
To sleep beside the road till the morning has come
Where they know they will find me
With my maps and my faith in the distance moving farther on

Running on Empty

by Jackson Browne

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by, like so many summer fields
In '65 I was 17 and running up 101
I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on

Running on empty
Running blind
Running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Got to do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In '69 I was 21, and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on

Everyone I know
Everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
(I don't know about anyone but me)
If it takes all night
That'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Honey, you really tempt me, the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around, but I'm running behind
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
Running into the sun, but I'm running behind

I Thought I Was a Child

by Jackson Browne

It's such a clever innocence
With which you do your sorcery
As if somehow the years just bow
And let that young girl go free
I thought I was a child
Until you turned and smiled
I thought I knew where I was going
Until I heard your laughter flowing
And came upon the wisdom in your eyes
Surprise

I've spent my whole life running 'round
Chasing songs from town to town
Thinking I'd be free
So long as I never let love slow me down
So lonely and so wild
Until you turned and smiled
By now I should have long been gone
But here I am still looking on
As if I didn't know which way to run

It's such a clever innocence
With which you show myself to me
As if you know how it feels
To never be who you wanted to be
I thought I was a child
Until you turned and smiled
I thought that I was free
But I'm just one more prisoner of time
Alone within the boundaries of my mind

The Fairest of the Seasons

by Jackson Browne

Now that it's time
Now that the hour hand has landed at the end
Now that it's real
Now that the dreams have given all they had to lend
I want to know, do I stay or do I go
And maybe try another time?
And do I really have a hand in my forgetting?

Now that I've tried
Now that I've finally found that this is not the way
Now that I turn
Now that I feel it's time to spend the night away
I want to know, do I stay or do I go
And maybe finally split the rhyme?
And do I really understand the undernetting?

Yes, and the morning has me looking in your eyes
And seeing mine warning me
To read the signs carefully

Now that it's light
Now that the candle's falling smaller in my mind
Now that it's here
Now that I'm almost not so very far behind
I want to know, do I stay or do I go
And maybe follow another sign?
And do I really have a song that I can ride on?

Now that I can
Now that it's easy, ever easy all around
Now that I'm here
Now that I'm falling to the sunlights and a song
I want to know, do I stay or do I go
And do I have to do just one?
And can I choose again if I should lose the reason?

Yes, and the morning has me looking in your eyes
And seeing mine warning me
To read the signs more carefully

Now that I smile
Now that I'm laughing even deeper inside
Now that I see
Now that I finally found the one thing I denied
It's now I know, but do I stay or do I go?
And it is finally I decide
That I'll be leaving in the fairest of the seasons

Late for the Sky

by Jackson Browne

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 had 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

Fountain of Sorrow

by Jackson Browne

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true

You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn't really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb

But when you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You've known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You've had to hide sometimes, but now you're all right
And it's good to see your smiling face tonight

Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past

I'm just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love's pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There's this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You've known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You've had to hide sometimes but now you're all right
And it's good to see your smiling face tonight

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You've known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You've had to struggle, you've had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you've got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright

The Late Show

by Jackson Browne

Everyone I've ever known has wished me well
Anyway that's how it seems, it's hard to tell
Maybe people only ask you how you're doing
'Cause that's easier than letting on how little they could care
But when you know that you've got a real friend somewhere
Suddenly all the others are so much easier to bear

Now to see things clear it's hard enough, I know
While you're waiting for reality to show
Without dreaming of the perfect love
And holding it so far above
That if you stumbled onto someone real, you'd never know

You could be with somebody who is lonely too
[Sometimes it doesn't show]
He might be trying to get across to you
[Words can be so slow]
When your own emptiness is all that's getting through
There comes a point when you're not sure why you're still talking
I passed that point long ago

I'm so tired of all this circling
And all these glimpses of the end
'You know it's useless to pretend'
That's all the voices say
'You'll go right on circling
'Until you've found some kind of friend'

I saw you through the laughter and the noise
You were talking with the soldiers and the boys
While they scuffled through your weary smiles
I thought of all the empty miles
And the years that I've spent looking for your eyes

And now I'm sitting here wondering what to say
[That you might recognize]
Afraid that all these words might scare you away
[Break through the disguise]
No one ever talks about their feelings anyway
Without dressing them in dreams and laughter
I guess it's just too painful otherwise

It's like you're standing in the window of a house nobody lives in
And I'm sitting in a car across the way
Let's just say it's an early model Chevrolet
Let's just say it's a warm and windy day
You go and pack your sorrow, the trash man comes tomorrow
Leave it at the curb and we'll just roll away