[.ca] Lawyers in Love

Whatever:
Some people won't "get" the satisfacton out of this album as they would get out of other JB albums. But the fact remains that at the time this was head and shoulders above anything else out there at the time. He was starting to enter his real electric and socially concious period here. Lighten up, enjoy, and move forward.

It Still Plays:
Almost twenty years later (and a good part of a law career under my belt), Lawyers in Love still plays well. I was a Jackson Browne fan before I was a law student from 1981-84 (the album debuted in 1983), but I took special pleasure in the title track. I had to live with medical students because I couldn't take lawyers twenty-four hours a day. Played back to back with other Jackson Browne albums, this clearly fits in as the work of a master singer/songwriter. Tender is the Night has a beat you cannot resist. It is the beginning of Jackson Browne's social commentary, so deserves a listen as a bridge between the personal tragedies of early work and the social activism of later work. Well recommended.

If you like JB but not this album, you don't get it:
JB came out of the personal folk-rock tradition of James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, and the Eagles. By the late '70's he was changing directions (The Pretender, Hold Out) and a lot of his fans were disappointed (Disco Apocalypse has to be his alltime worst song). With Lawyers in Love JB doesn't go back to his folk acoustic days but finds a good style with good rhythms, driving guitars and melodic organs. Some reviewers cringe at the title song but after Tender is the Night I think it's the best one on the album. I find it to be a continuation of the Pretender theme: disillusioned grown-ups from the '60's succumbing to the materialism of the '80's. This lyric snippet is one of my favorites: God sends his spaceships to America, the beautiful They land at six o'clock and there we are, the dutiful Eating from TV trays, tuned into to Happy Days Waiting for World War III while Jesus slaves To the mating calls of lawyers in love Of course, the soulfulness and beauty of Tender is the Night has to be considered the high point of this album and one of JB's best musical achievements. The gentle opening and JB's voice as he sings still gives me the chills: Between the darkness on the street And the houses filling up with light Between the stillness in my heart And the roar of the approaching night So, if you gave up on Mr. Browne long ago, you might want to revisit this one--I hope you find it was worth it!

Great CD!:
I own almost every Jackson Browne CD and after reading the shotty treatment this particular one is getting I felt compelled to respond. This is a wonderful collection of songs. The lyrics are intelligently written and the band sounds tight musically. I agree with one of the other reviewers who wrote that it is hard to be compared to yourself, especially if your as talented as Browne is. Can't the guy have a little fun and not have it be said he's "lost his musical direction"? It seems like when an artist does something a little different than they normally would do it, people jump all over their backs for it. I love albums like "Late For Sky," "The Pretender," and "I'm Alive," they are some of my favorites in fact, but I am also finding the more I listen to "Lawyers In Love" the more I like it. My personal favorites on this CD are of course the title track, "Cut It Away", and "Say It Isn't True". It's one of those CD' you can listen to straight through without skipping a track. But then again it is Jackson Browne what else do you expect?

Great ALbum By AnEnduring Artist!:
This is a terrific album, both because it represents a snapshot taken of Browne as he continued his evolvement from sixties folk-rocker to seventies rocker to eighties (and beyond) social commentator. While he still cuts quite a raucous swath through the material with his electrical accompaniment, the lyrics, once dreamy and intensely introspective, are showing much more flagrant concern with social issues and the contemporary political scene. So, while he opens the song cycle with an amusing take called "Lawyers In Love', he reminds us with a number of the lyrics in the song that he may use this irony to try to say a few things between the lines. And increasingly, with each song as the cycle progresses, he comes farther and farther along the road of doing so, so that in "Cut It Away", he's describing the illusions he is being disabused of with the break-up of his romantic relationship, while in the next song, "Downtown", he is talking about the differences among different kinds of people sharing physical proximity in an urban setting. So too, in "Tender Is The Night", he mixes romantic overtones with undertones reflecting the nature of living in an urban landscape. Finally, though, he gets to the crux o the matter, for he uses "Say It Isn't True" to admit his horror in thinking about the reality of what human nature seems to be (with the haunting refrain of "yet there always has been/and always will be war' echoing throughout the song). This is indeed a song one must listen closely to, one that has a lot of verve and relevance even now, after the arms race has subsided, for the threat of nuclear has not been erased. This is one of the major milestones in Browne's continuing evolution toward maturity, and while he has made a number of detours back into more personal ruminations in albums such as the celebrated "Alive", which chronicles his infamous break-up with Darryl Hannah, he keeps returning to concerns with social political, and philosophical issues. This is a great album; enjoy!

• Lawyers in Love
• On the Day
• Cut It Away
• Downtown
• Tender Is the Night
• Knock on Any Door
• Say It Isn't True
• For a Rocker