The Pretender 1976 The Fuse | Your Bright Baby Blues | Linda Paloma | Here Come Those Tears Again | The Only Child | Daddy's Tune | Sleep's Dark And Silent Gate | The Pretender The Fuse It's coming from so far away It's hard to say for sure Whether what I hear is music or the wind Through an open door There's a fire high in the empty sky Where the sound meets the shore There's a long distance loneliness Rolling out over the desert floor And the years that I spent lost in the mystery Fall away leaving only the sound of the drum like a part of me It speaks to the heart of me Forget what life used to be You are what you choose to be It's whatever it is you see That life will become Whatever it is you might think you have You have nothing to lose Through every dead and living thing Time runs like a fuse And the fuse is burning And the earth is turning Though the years give way to uncertainty And the fear of living for nothing strangles the will There's a part of me that speaks to the heart of me Though sometimes it's hard to see it's never far from me Alive in eternity That nothing can kill Oh Lord Are there really people starving still? Look out beyond the walls of Babylon How long will their needs go unfilled I want to say right now I m going to be around I'm going to be around When the walls and towers are crumbling When the towers are tumbling down And I will tune my spirit to the gentle sound I want to hear the sound Of the waters lapping on a higher ground Of the children laughing Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved Your Bright Baby Blues I’m sitting down by the highway Down by that highway side Everybody’s going somewhere Riding just as fast as they can ride I guess they’ve got a lot to do Before they can rest assured Their lives are justified Pray to God for me, baby He can let me slide I’ve been up and down this highway Far as my eyes can see No matter how fast I run I can never seem to get away from me No matter where I am I can’t help feeling I’m just a day away from where I want to be Now I’m running home, baby Like a river to the sea Baby if you can see me Out across this wilderness There’s just one thing I was hoping you might guess Baby you can free me All in the power of your sweet tenderness I can see it in your eyes You’ve got those bright baby blues You don’t see what you’ve got to gain But you don’t like to lose You watch yourself from the sidelines Like your life is a game you don’t mind playing to keep yourself amused I don’t mean to be cruel, baby But you’re looking confused Baby if you can hear me Turn down your radio There’s just one thing I want you to know When you’ve been near me I’ve felt the love stirring in my soul It’s so hard to come by That feeling of peace This friend of mine said, "Close your eyes and try a few of these" I thought I was flying like a bird so far above my sorrow But when I looked down I was standing on my knees Now I need someone to help me Someone to help me, please Baby if you need me Like I know I need you There’s just one thing I’ll ask you to do Take my hand and lead me To the hole in your garden wall And pull me through Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved Linda Paloma At the moment the music began And you heard the guitar player starting to sing You were filled with the beauty that ran Through what you were imagining Dreaming of scenes from those songs of love I was the endless sky And you were my Mexican dove Now the music that played in your ears Grows a little bit fainter each day And you find yourself looking through tears At the love you feel slipping away Thought it's not the kind Of love you might hope to find If tears could release the heart From the shadows preferred by the mind Like a wind that comes up in the night Caressing your face while you sleep Love will fill your eyes with the sight Of a world you can't hope to keep Dreaming on after that moment's gone The light in your lover's eyes Disappears in the light of the dawn But the morning brings Strength to your restless wings And some other lover sings To the sun's bright corona I know all about these things Linda Paloma Fly Away Linda Paloma Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved Here Come Those Tears Again Here come those tears again Just when I was getting over you Just when I was going to make it through Another night without missing you Thinking I might just be strong enough after all When I hear your footsteps echoing in the hall Baby, here we stand again Like we’ve been so many times before Even though you looked so sure As I was watching you walking out my door But you always walk back in like you did today Acting like you never even went away Well, I don’t know if I can Open up and let you in, baby Here come those tears Here come those tears again I can hear you telling me How you needed to be free And you had some things to work out alone Now you’re standing here telling me How you have grown Here come those tears again Now you’ll tell me how to hold them in Here come those tears Here come those tears again Some other time, baby When I’m strong and feeling fine, maybe When I can look at you without crying You might look like a friend of mine But I don’t know if I can Open up enough to let you in Here come those tears Here come those tears again Walk away I’m going back inside and turning out the light And I’ll be in the dark But you’ll be out of sight By Jackson Browne and Nancy Farnsworth © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP, WB Music Corp., Open Window Music, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Company All Rights Reserved The Only Child Boy of mine As your fortune comes to carry you down the line And you watch as the changes unfold And you sort among the stories you've been told If some pieces of the picture are hard to find And the answers to your questions are hard to hold Take good care of your mother When you're making up your mind Should one thing or another take you from behind Though the world may make you hard and wild And determine how your life is styled When you've come to feet that you're the only child Take good care of your brother Let the disappointments pass Let the laughter fill your glass Let your illusions last until they shatter Whatever you might hope to find Among the thoughts that crowd your mind There won't be many that ever really matter But take good care of your mother And remember to be kind When the pain of another will serve you to remind That there are those who feel themselves exiled On whom the fortune never smiled And upon whose lives the heartache has been piled They're just looking for another Lonely child And when you've found another soul Who sees into your own Take good care of each other Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved Daddy's Tune A dirty wind blows through the sky And the Autumn leaves cut loose and fly Leave me watching And wishing I could follow Though among the regrets that I can't get by There are just one or two Unkind things I said to you Daddy what was I supposed to do? I don't know why it was so hard to talk to you I guess my anger pulled me through No sooner had I hit the streets When I met the fools that a young fool meets All in search of truth and bound for glory And listening to our own heart beats We stood around the drum Though it's fainter now The older I become Living your life day after day Soon all your plans and changes Either fail or fade away Leaving so much still left to say But Daddy I want to let you know somehow The things you said are so much clearer now And I would turn the pages back But time will not allow The way these days just rip along Too fast to last, too vast, too strong Somewhere something went wrong Or maybe we forgot the song Make room for my forty-fives Along beside your seventy-eights Nothing survives But the way we live our lives Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved Sleep's Dark And Silent Gate Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder Where my life will lead me Waiting to pass under Sleep's dark and silent gate I found my love too late Running around day after day Looking for the time to play While my old friends slipped away Never should have had to try so hard To make a love work out, I guess I don't know what love has got to do with happiness But the times when we were happy Were the times we never tried Sitting down by the highway Looking down the road Waiting for a ride I don't know where I've been Wishing I could fly away Don't know where I'm going Wishing I could hide Oh God this is some shape I'm in When the only thing that makes me cry Is the kindness in my baby's eye Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder Where the years have gone They have all passed under Sleep's dark and silent gate Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved The Pretender I’m going to rent myself a house In the shade of the freeway I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning And go to work each day And when the evening rolls around I’ll go on home and lay my body down And when the morning light comes streaming in I’ll get up and do it again Amen I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening I’ve been aware of the time going by They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye And when the morning light comes streaming in You’ll get up and do it again Amen Caught between the longing for love And the struggle for the legal tender Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring And the junkman pounds his fender Where the veterans dream of the fight Fast asleep at the traffic light And the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor Out into the cool of the evening strolls the Pretender He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there Ah the laughter of the lovers as they run through the night Leaving nothing for the others but to choose off and fight And tear at the world with all their might While the ships bearing their dreams sail out of sight I’m going to find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means And we’ll fill in the missing colors In each other’s paint by number dreams And then we’ll put our dark glasses on And we’ll make love until our strength is gone And when the morning light comes streaming in We’ll get up and do it again Get it up again I’m going to be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy Thought true love could have been a contender Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender Say a prayer for the pretender Are you there for the pretender? Say a prayer for the pretender Words and music by Jackson Browne © 1976 Swallow Turn Music ASCAP and WB Music Corp All Rights Reserved