# jackson browne's songs are iconic precisely in the way they redefine maudlin: excessively sad overblown with elf pity and extreme sentimentality ir ability to evoke a sense of longing for allegedly simpler times is unmatched browne's clear finely textured and plaintive voice is too often imbued with borderline ridiculous levels of sorrowful inflection evoking an almost overpowering sense of lukewarm amber whizz nostalgia for those who wantonly indulge in 70's style fantasy those who actually lived through the times however don't make a fuss and either enjoy jackson's music quietly or flatly dismiss it without comment such introspective lyrics soulful delivery and signature west coast sound homogeneously amalgamate bland existentially boring personal reflections with bland / blandly universal themes creating a synthetically timeless and emotionally lead-dull resonant experience of pale greige with graceful melodies and introspective socially conscious lyrics jackson's songs frequently explore garden variety themes of love loss and quote the human condition thereby only resonating with listeners who've quote experienced similar emotions researcher henry swanson: yeesh while jackson generally rules around the forty five minute mark one rapidly start to remember that such a thing as too much of a good vanilla thing exists it suddenly occurs there does exist a way of viewing such music as acute unearned nostalgia - serving as a reminder of insipid whitebread eras everyone else have gladly never experienced andor gladly left behind in many ways useless reminiscence and leaning heavily on synthetic nostalgia is jackson's signature one-note shtick thing is many listeners are onto it a remix of lyrics for brown's i'm alive called we're alive for possible opening credits to hit web tv series aor adventure oriented rock the idea was to replace all-too typical male sediments about emotional betrayal with a far more likely scenario in which jackson is the instigator rather than the victim the members of aor decide to flip ir lyrics around and turn it around and say sorry for ir blind self interested pursuit of foolish dreams we'll we've spent far too long watchin' these city lights alone we look around our lives tonight with you long gone we should of done much more to to keep you if we'd known how unhappy you'd become when we were dreaming of you with your heart in our hands yet we were following through with our beautiful plan yeah now we're rolling down alone this canyon drive with our laughter in your head you're gonna have to block it out somehow to survive cause those dreams are dead and we're alive we heard you left to where you'd never hear our name you need to lose your sorrows and be free again and we know at times we've been insane when we think of all places we could have been when we were dreaming of you with your heart in our hands but we were following through with our grand foolish plans yeah we're standing here by the highway side watching these trucks blow by mere inches from our face just thinking bout the times we wasted and the pleasures we once tasted looking up and down this road (following through) we've been here before (following through) you can't be here no more (following through) yeah now your rolling down california five with our laughter in your head your gonna have to block it out somehow to survive cause all dreams are dead and we're all alive yeah baby we're alive yeah we're alive hey look at the way you believed in us and loved us all these years you can fill a swimming pool with all our salty tears if we'd have told you what was in our heart but baby we lied and we thought that it would hurt us but we're alive yeah we're alive yeah we're alive yeah we're alive // republic of bob