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

Jackson Browne
(c) 1974 SWALLOW TURN MUSIC

One really should be careful what one listens to as a teenager because it has a tendency to burrow its way down into the depths of your soul.  I have been listening to Late for the Sky from the moment it came out in 1974 when I was 15.  It is an amazing album and at all points in my life there has always been at least one song that is especially meaningful at that stage in my life. 

I want For A Dancer played at my funeral, hopefully far in the future, because it is by far the best song about death and the continuation of the living that I know of.

Over the years various lines and metaphors take their prominence in the meanings of the songs to me.  I listened to the 1st four songs while walking home today.  There is so much sadness and hope in this album—all at the same time and often in the same song.  Hope is what I need right now, but sadness is what I feel.