Discography
Time The Conqueror
A timely, topical collection of songs fully alive to the here-and-now and packaged in impeccable musicianship.
Time The Conqueror proves to be a reflective album full of intelligent, self-interrogative stock-taking and reassessment. It has moments of haunting beauty, is never less than stimulating and, in its meticulously manicured way, is an altogether satisfying provocation to return to Browne's back catalogue.
Michael Quinn, BBC 2008
- 1.TIME THE CONQUERORTime on my side, a stowaway in the slipstream
A time I could glide the shifting currents of my dream
In my dream the singing was coming from the sky
In my dream the sunlight was falling from one side
And every blade of grass was casting its own shadow
And every little bird was singing its own song
Time in my mind, the past of least resistance
The future almost blind, both in need of assistance
In my mind the question: Sunrise or sunset?
In my mind I'm certain: Nothing's certain yet
With every grain of sand casting its own shadow
And every ray of the sun flashing on the sea
Time may heal all wounds
But time will steal you blind
Time the wheel, time the conqueror
Time to decide what kind of world I believe in
The world open wide,
Or the world about to stop breathing
In my world I'm standing just inside the door
In my world I'm speaking into the ocean's roar
And every thought of you casts its own little shadow
And everything I wanted, subject to review
Time may heal all wounds
But time will steal you blind
Time the wheel, time the conqueror
Time will heal all wounds but time...
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 2.OFF OF WONDERLANDIt was easy for me
Up so high in my tree
Living off of Wonderland
Living with an unknown band
Waiting there for Everyman
There was change in the air
It was love everywhere
Living off of Wonderland
Ankle deep in contraband
Working on a life unplanned
Didn't we believe in love?
Didn't we believe in giving it away?
That didn't really leave us with the love
To find our way
After RFK and Martin Luther King
Do you feel it today?
Love is still on the way
Coming over Wonderland
The world is in your open hand
Once again it's at your command
Didn't we believe in love?
Didn't we believe that love would carry on?
Wouldn't we receive enough
If we could just believe in one another
As much as we believed in John
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 3.THE DRUMS OF WARRoll out the drums of war
Roll up the cover of the killing floor
Roll out the drums of war
And let's speak of things worth fighting for
Roll out the drums of war
Time comes when everything you ever thought you knew
Comes crashing down and flames rise up in front of you
Roll out the drums of war
Roll back the freedoms that we struggled for
What were those freedoms for?
Let's not talk about it any more
Roll out the drums of war
Whatever you believe the necessary course to be
Depends on who you trust to identify the enemy
Who beats the drums for war?
Even before peace is lost
Who are the profits for?
And who are they who bear the cost
When a country takes the low road to war
Who gives the orders, orders to torture?
Who gets to no bid contract the future?
Who lies, then bombs, then calls it an error?
Who makes a fortune from fighting terror?
Who is the enemy trying to crush us?
Who is the enemy of truth and justice?
Who is the enemy of peace and freedom?
Where are the courts, now when we need them?
Why is impeachment not on the table?
We better stop them while we are able
Roll out the drums of war
Whatever you believe the necessary course to be
Depends on who you trust to identify the enemy
Who took this country to war?
Long before the peace was lost
Who are the profits for?
And who are they who bear the cost
And who lay down their lives?
And who will live with the sacrifice
Of our best and brightest hopes,
The flower of our youth,
Of freedom, and the truth?
By Jackson Browne, Kevin McCormick, Mark Goldenberg, Mauricio Lewak and Jeff Young
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP; Eye Cue Music, Bossypants Music; Songs of Windswept Pacific, BMI; Bateria Music, ASCAP; Glad Brad Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 4.THE ARMS OF NIGHTThe things people do looking for understanding
Defy understanding
If only they knew where the love they seek
Is truly to be found
Into the arms of night with their dreams held tight
In their endless flight through the failing light
The places you go thinking that love may find you
When love is behind you
It's all you can do to let the angels
Find their own way home
Into the arms of night with your endless fright
With your face alight and your prey in sight
Into the breach in search of the new
Though after so many times
You will have betrayed that too
Into the arms of night with your endless fright
With your eyes all bright and your prey in sight
Into the arms of somebody new
Until that's no longer so,
And you are no longer true
By Jackson Browne and Danny Kortchmar
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP; Stellgrace Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 5.WHERE WERE YOUWhere were you when the sky cracked open
Waiting for shelter and barely coping
Thinking you could ride the storm out,
Hoping it would be all right
Where were you when they gave the warning?
Hundred fifty-mile winds by morning
Category four making landfall in the wild gray light
Where were you?
Where were you in the social order?
The Lower Nine or a hotel in the Quarter
Which side of the border between rich and poor?
Where were you gonna evacuate to?
Assuming there was any way to
Where, if you didnt own a car?
Where were you?
Where were you when you understood
However decent, however good
However hard some people try
They only barely make it by
Theyre born, and live their entire lives in harms way
Where were you when you heard the stranded,
The injured and the empty handed
Were running out of food and water at the Superdome?
The newborn and the elderly
Exposed to even more misery
While those in charge of rescue
Waited for the Guard to come
And those who left the Convention Center
Were stopped on the bridge when they tried to enter
The safety of the west bank, and higher ground
And when the Guard finally did arrive
And got to work on about day five
Mainly they were used to keep the looting down
Where were you?
Where were you when you realized
However strong, however wise
However true our leaders appear to be
They talk about prosperity
However hard this country strives
If property is valued more than lives
How strong will we ever really be?
How long do we imagine well be free?
We hold the truth self-evident:
The photograph of the President
From Air Force One, he viewed the devastation
Shaved face, rested eyes
Looking down, he circles twice
On the way home from his vacation
Where were you, when you got the picture?
Where were you?
Where were you when the streets filled up with black water?
Where were you when defeat and destruction
Reigned in the Crescent
Where were you when it blew from every direction
Where were you when the promise was made
To return, and rebuild and restore to its people
The city that gave us the first American music
True inspiration and the freedom to use it
Where will we find it again if we lose it?
And where will we be, if we ever cease to love?
If we ever cease to love . . .
By Jackson Browne, Kevin McCormick, Mark Goldenberg, Mauricio Lewak and Jeff Young
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP; Eye Cue Music, Bossypants Music; Songs of Windswept Pacific, BMI; Bateria Music, ASCAP; Glad Brad Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 6.GOING DOWN TO CUBASometimes I get to feeling low
Wish I could just pick up and go
Somewhere new might change my point of view
Or maybe somebody - I don't know
Toss the idea to and fro
Not sure what makes it come and go
But there it is again, sweet music on the wind
From over the Gulf of Mexico
I'm going to down to Cuba someday soon
Following that Caribbean moon
It's been too long since I've been there
I'm going down there to see my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
Where women wear gardenias in their hair
People will tell you it's not easy
You're not supposed to go, they say
They say that Cuba is the enemy
I'm going down there anyway
I'm going down to Cuba to see my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
No problem is too difficult to solve
Yeah times are tough down there it's true
But you know they're going to make it through
They make such continuous use of the verb "to resolve"
They've got to deal with that embargo
Enough to drive any country insane
They might not know all the freedoms you and I know
They do know what to do in a hurricane
Maybe I'll go through Mexico
And old Jesse Helms don't have to know
Anyway, all the allies of the USA
Travel to Cuba everyday
I'm going down to Cuba to see my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
Where by comparison my troubles just unravel
I'm North American you know
Don't like to hear where I can't go
Free people will insist on the freedom to travel
I'm going to drink the ron aejo
And walk out on the Malecn
In one hand a Monte Cristo
And in the other an ice cream cone
I'm going down to Cuba with my band
We're going to formulate a plan
Whereby we obtain that "cultural" permission
If I told you once I told you trs
It'll put a smile on your face
To see a Chevrolet with a Soviet transmission
Ah but the country casts a spell
And there are things I think of still
Like the beauty of that woman who spoke to me
In the Hotel Nacional
I'm gonna book my flight today
I am definitely on my way
Just hold my place and I'll get back in the race
When I'm back in the USA
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 7.GIVING THAT HEAVEN AWAYPretty Nova, one year over
Legal age of consent
In the flower of sweet youth our
Days of heaven were spent
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Rock 'n' Roll, and freeing your soul, and
Giving that heaven away
I'm looking 'round for that sixties sound -
Those days are gone
And all us acid dropping, world stopping, be bopping
Freaks are just hanging on
Little Nova, did you have to show the
Whole world how to rebel?
Standing there with your long brown hair
Like a cool breeze blowing through hell
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Back in those days we all were so crazy
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Oooooooh
Giving that heaven away
Seems like the whole world's at a fire sale
But I might be wrong
With all the home shopping,
Bling bling and hip hopping
Maybe it's just going strong
But hey now Nova, we both know the
Ones who're always making it pay
Well any fool can sell a jewel
But an angel will give it away
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Oooooooh I'm going go down singing
And giving that heaven away
Where did the day go in that Winnebago?
The two of us hot as a stove
Fools for pleasure, digging for treasure
Down in that Black Oak grove
Giving that heaven away
Giving that heaven away
Oooooooh
Giving that heaven away
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 8.LIVE NUDE CABARETI went to the Live Nude Cabaret
To see what I could see
And I saw the ladies dancing
An I guess that they saw me
Neither did I vanquish, or surrender to desire
But what I saw revealed to me
Was just more fuel on the fire
I've heard form follows function
And I think that must be true
Especially when you think of
What the female form will do
Its lines and shapes are everywhere
As if they follow me
Repeating my own longing in everything I see
Star of happiness, star of love
Lead us to the shore
That only women hold the promise of
Men would give them money
And men would give them gold
And shower them with promises
Of luxury untold
And make their vessels of creation
The temples of our souls
Ohhhhh let my people go
Sea of loneliness, sea of love
Carry me upon your endless depths
And bear my heart above
For I would give her money
And I would give her jewels
And lead her to the palace my imagination rules
And fashion from her nakedness
The innocence that's gone
Gone as the time she's given the suffering of fools
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 9.JUST SAY YEAHI wanted to be somebody you see
When you're feeling good
I started looking for your little MG
In my neighborhood
I started feeling kind of funny and free
When you were around
And I began to cook up a plan to
Take you out of town
Not really dating, we were relating
And we were friends
It's hard to say where the relating leaves off
And where loves begins
A friend will tell you all kinds of stuff
That a lover won't
And you would think you would see love coming
But of course, you don't
I want to hold you, don't want to mold you
Into someone else
I never could have invented you
Or written you so well
I never met another woman who
Possessed your particular charms
I want to be that man who will see that
You never come to harm
Must have been you I dreamed of
Yeah that was you all right
You were the laughter I was listening to
Standing in the light
You were the lover in the sunrise who
Had begun to slip away
Though I was just a kid I must have known
You'd be real someday
I want to know you, I want to show you
That you're not alone
You've been the only thing steadyin' me
And I guess we've both known
Maybe you haven't been that ready to see
That I could take you there
Well that was then, but this is when
I need to hear you say yeah
Baby just say yeah
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved - 10.FAR FROM THE ARMS OF HUNGERFar from the arms of hunger
Far from the world disorder
Beyond the reach of warfare
Blinded by faith no longer
No longer free to plunder
No longer safe to rule
A world no longer ours alone
Where people walk in wonder
And speak to one another
And recognize as brother
The face across the border
Across a sea of differences
Across the drifting sands
The joining of our hands in time
When will we find
We can no longer look away
When will we mind
The killing in our name each day
When we decide
That all our might just weighs us down
Then will we find
The means to turn our world around
When will we find
When will we mind
When we decide
The means to turn our world around
Far from the arms of hunger
Far from the world disorder
Beyond the reach of war
There is a world where we belong
Words and music by Jackson Browne
2008 Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved