Friday, October 9, 2009

FSOTD #42/Doctor My Eyes (1972)

In '65, he was 17.  Today's he's 61.  Happy Birthday Jackson Browne, born 10-9-48 in Heidelberg, Germany.  Could he be a military brat?  Think back on all the protesting and all those arrests.  Oh, how the war worm turns.

Jackson Browne scored a #8 Billboard Hot 100 hit in the spring of 1972 with "Doctor My Eyes" off his self-titled debut album.  Great song then, great song still.  The wiki article describes the song as a "surprise hit".  That may be true, but whatever kind of hit it was, it launched the career of the then relatively unknown Browne.    He'd been hanging out with all the right people: The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and the various talented folks of the Elektra/Asylum gang.  He co-wrote "Take It Easy" with Glenn Frey.   The Eagles released it (with Frey handling vocals) as their first-ever single in May, 1972, just as "Doctor My Eyes" was cresting.  Browne's version of "Take It Easy" surfaced in '73 on his second album For Everyman.


It was ten more years before Jackson Browne revisited the Top 10, with 1982's "Somebody's Baby", which topped at #7.  The song "Running on Empty" had almost gotten to single digits, climbing to #11 in 1977.  Yet, while his singles might not have been chart-toppers, his albums more than took up the slack.  1982's Hold Out was a number one album.  It went 2X platinum.  "Running On Empty" - whileonly making it to #3 - went 7x platinum.  That's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road territory.

One final thing...just discovered by going to my CD collection.  The wiki article for the album Jackson Browne clearly states in its first sentence that the album is often mistakenly referred to as "Saturate Before Using".  Those words appear at the top of the cover, but apparently, they were just part of the art, not the title.  So then what about my CD? It clearly states on the side edge - the one you use to alphabetize and order - that it's Jackson Browne - Saturate Before Using.  Sigh.  It's so hard to know who or what to trust these days.

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