Excellent choice The incredible David Lindley on fiddle Along with the ladies Joyce Everson& Beth Fitchet in the back ground you have Dan fogelberg Don Henley JD souther Terry Reid
Yeah, it’s about the death of the hippie dreams. I can’t say it any better than Jackson did here. And yes, predicting a future in which we are (almost) all washed away. (Cross-reference Leonard Cohen “The Future”). The deluge could be anything… any disaster that could be coming our way. It’s easy to imagine any number of possibilities… Nuclear war, AI apocalypse, new ice age, etc etc. This WAS written in the 70s, but even then, it wasn’t too hard to imagine these trends which are easier to see now. A key phrase says there WILL be survivors, but says that they will believe that they were chosen to survive. That’s heavy.
You put it well. Your thoughts are similar to mine on it over the years. This was before he was overtly "no nukes" but I'm sure he was aware. As I commented above I've often wondered if it's not about Natives Americans. So thought provoking.
Around this time Jackson wrote this song, the world was just beginning to embrace nuclear power without a full understanding of how dangerous it could be. So there were a lot of fears around it. In 1979, Jackson Browne was one of the organizers of the 'No Nukes' concert at Madison Square Garden and their cause was to promote "safe energy" over more potentially dangerous nuclear power. This song alludes to the dangers of nuclear power with the deluge being the nuclear disaster that destroys the world. Jackson and the other organizers were the "some of them who were angry at the way the earth was abused by the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power and they struggled to protect her from them."
M.U.S.E. This song was an anthem for the anti-nuke movement of the 70s. Kind of a big deal. There was a film with a phenomenal soundtrack album. No Nukes.
One of my absolute favorite songs of all time. The older I get, the more it chokes me up. I always saw it as an anthem for the back to the land movement of the late 60s early 70s. As a matter of fact this song was a part of the reason I left the city in 1976 and moved to the woods. Been here ever since
This song is a precursor to the song, The Pretender. Jackson was singing about the lost dreams of the 1960s generation. The people who wanted to change the world were becoming part of the world or just giving up.
I am convinced Jackson has always been an old soul.....I am still astounded that he wrote These Days at age 16......I have everything he ever recorded.......vinyl....then to 8 track..then to cassette.......to cd......mp3. So happy to have had his music in my life from the beginning of his career. Thank you for choosing this one.
I was wondering if anyone would come around to reacting to this song that I was fascinated by ever since I bought the album "Late for the Sky" in 1974. I had already nearly worn out his "For Everyman" album by the time this was released. This album was deeper and much more thought provoking.
What a hypnotic song - growing up in an often chaotic & very LOUD house and his music had the ability to quiet the noise & transport me to another place. His songs could always bring me calm and peace and silence all the yelling, accusations and chaos. Great reaction!
D.T. - As with every Jackson Browne, I will once again say that Jackson Browne is a true gift to the music of the past ...oh gosh, 50+ years. This entire album is epic and this song in particular was a well chosen submission. Bravo D.T. and Harri.👏👏
This song was released five years before Jackson became involved in the Musicians United For Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts which were directly aimed at the growing trend for nuclear power and born out of the murder of Karen Silkwood. Silkwood was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for reporting concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility. Karen was on her way to meet with a journalist and she had a packet of proof about the questionable safety practices in the nuclear power industry, but she never made the appointment with the journalist. Later, her car was found off the road and crashed into a culvert. She was dead and the packet of documentation was missing. There was damage to the rear of her car that had not been there before. "Deluge" sort of became the anthem of MUSE, along with John Hall's "Power." While “Before the Deluge” undoubtedly focuses on the fragility of the environment at a time when few songwriters were dealing with it, Jackson also touches on the theme of how easily ideals can be compromised. That’s why it’s both a cautionary tale and a call to action. He’s suggesting that the individual has to make the choice before any kind of grand-scale change can be enacted. (David Lindley's fiddling is heart-wrenching.)
I take the meaning literally, looking at the atmospheric river hitting the West Coast right now. We don't control the elements, much as we'd like to think we can.
Great job, Harri. I think you’re right on the money with your interpretation. (That is mine, as well. With, perhaps a little environmental message thrown in). I think you’ll find that theme in many of his songs. The promise of the dreams or ideals of youth meeting the compromises we make for reality as we get older. Also, you’ll note the use of the image or sand and sky. That’s a common one for him. Sand is time (as through the hourglass) as well as the earth, or earthly. The sky as the eternal or ethereal, or heavenly. Hopes and dreams meet reality during the journey. To where? For what purpose? If there is an answer, (so say his songs) it has something to do with Love and possibly music.
@jacksswastedlife - thanks. For more examples, just notice the words dreams, reality, sand, sky and love used in each of these songs: Farther On, For Everyman, The Late Show, Late for the Sky, Looking into You, For a Dancer, Rock Me on the Water, Doctor my Eyes,, the Pretender. You’ll also notice repetition of journey/road.
I've been a fan since day 1!! Always underrated and underplayed during his beginning years. I have worn him out on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, cd and back to vinyl!! Back when artists actually has a story to tell instead of nonsensical noise!! There is a message here still today.
for some reason, probably old age, I thought this song was on the previous album. Check out 'For Everyman' live from The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. (Sting too, singing, Message in a Bottle!) Both are on UA-cam.
Early verses speak to me about the loss of ideals to the day to day concerns of life. The later verse seems to make a statement about environmentalism and the coming deluge of nature's fury at having been abused. Sorry, to all if this misses the mark.
I think of "deluge" in this magnificent piece as apocalypse. I believe he is talking about a dramatic loss of ideals and hope. Because he championed the "No Nukes" movement, I think of the apocalypse as nuclear horror, but it could be any disaster. I felt like he was lamenting that the hope of the 60's wasn't carried through by action in the 70's. On a tribute program for Joan Baez's 75th birthday, she and Jackson sang this together. They were superb.
Have you done "sky blue and black"? That's pretty much become my favorite Jackson Browne. I've given him his own genre. Not soul music, more like "soul searching music"
SO excited that you're listening to this one. I don't know but have always thought it was about the moment in history when the gentle hippie movement was co-opted by the much militant antiwar movement. He was there to see it and is the perfect one to preserve the image.
No Harri, you're not off the mark. This song, like "Let It Be", is a requiem for the Hippie Movement ( which was so heart-felt but way too innocent for our cynical and power-mad political/economic systems). The Deluge is metaphor for the bomb!!
From an interview with Jackson Browne: Browne sadly points out our situation is now even more dangerous. “That song was inspired by a writer named Paul Ehrlich,” he says. “He laid forth a scenario in which the world’s dysfunctions compound and create an apocalyptic outcome, but even he couldn’t have predicted the calamitous situation we’re in now where we have a world leader who is flagrantly disregarding information from the scientific community.”
This wasn't part of the No Nukes movement, at least not originally. It was on Jackson's great Late for the Sky album which came out in 1974. The Nuclear Freeze movement was a phenomenon of the 1980s. Before the Deluge was speaking about the dreams and aspirations of the the back-to-the-landers and other environmental dropouts and activists who tried to create and live lives that respected the earth and nature and recognized, in the end, that living lives of heedless consumption and exploitation would eventually lead to our destruction as a civilization and species. It's about the difficulty of staying true to those convictions and the seductive power of capitalism. It's about the erosion of those convictions and the settling for the" glitter and the rouge" and being swept before the deluge as a result of the surrender . And in the end, they traded their tired wings For the resignation that living brings And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow For the glitter and the rouge And in a moment they were swept before the deluge This was and is still an absolute anthem for the lives and times of those of us who struggled with this process and either abandoned their youthful convictions or tried to find ways of not selling them out altogether as we adjusted to aging, having and raising kids and surviving in the maw of a profoundly destructive society. Some of them were angry at the way the earth was abused By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power And they struggled to protect her from them, only to be confused By the magnitude of the fury in the final hour The song was sadly prophetic of the climate disasters currently becoming more and more prevalent with each passing year. And when the sand was gone and the time arrived In the naked dawn, only a few survived And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge Believed that they were meant to live, after the deluge It's been said many times and it's true. Jackson Browne was/is one of the very greatest song writers and performers of all time, and especially so for the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. He was and is our bard!
Thanks for your choice; you are one of the few; Many Americans hate committed songs. The No Nuke live version 1979 with David Lindley's violin is unique, as is the country standard The Crow On the Cadle with Sydney Carter and Graham Nash. Of course, this live album also features Stay with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Rosemary Butler.
Late for the Sky and For Everyman are two of the greatest albums of all time. You should do a reaction to every song on the two albums I mentioned. I also used to think that they were some hidden meanings in this song but I think Jackson Browne is literally talking about some fantasy world he created with an actual deluge like a Noah’s ark period.
Are I say that Moving Hearts' version of this is even better. (Talking of Moving Hearts - an incredible Irish band - please listen to them doing Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette. I GUARANTEE you will be bowled over)
I agree, the Moving Hearts version is superb. Christy Moore’s vocals and the full power of the band behind him, with these incredible lyrics is an awesome combination. Have seen Christy do it live, acoustic, a few times, and it’s a spiritual experience.
@@johngriffin1092 Try as I might, I've yet to find a UA-cam reaction to Moving Hearts. Shame really...their music isnt being picked up by younger people.
Yes there are a few reactions to Christy Moore, but none that I can see for Moving Hearts. There’s a chance that in 20-30 years this music will be little known; a shame.
You did a video on Carole King's well known song "Jazzman" but I know you'd love hearing one that made the charts briefly but not big, called "Corazon" Awesome jazz and piano the whole way.....Listen to "Corazon" hq....Her live version in Montreal was good, but the studio version is the best.
I've always thought this song is about the stalling of the hippie movement. He sings about people becoming tired and disillusioned, and they eventually joined the rat race. They gave up on getting back to nature as they became adults. His recent performance of "Late for the Sky" on Austin City Limits is really good. Somehow his songs sound better as his voice ages, and the band is incredible.
Philosophically, i never quite understood if he was singing of a real group of people or just a story.... but i've come to think it's about Native Americans.
David's fiddle absolutely soars on this song RIP. God I miss him.
fantastic fiddle outro!! this track must be played as loudly as you can stand it to really enjoy it! also the lyrics become more meaningful!!
I agree everything on this album is profoundly alive and eloquent.
this is all about climate change!!
The entire album is brilliant, lyrically untouchable.
One of my all-time favorites.
In my opinion the greatest album of all time
Late For The Sky is the most perfect album ever made. It is the best record ever made.
Excellent choice
The incredible David Lindley on fiddle
Along with the ladies Joyce Everson& Beth Fitchet in the back ground you have
Dan fogelberg
Don Henley
JD souther
Terry Reid
Late for the Sky......Greatest album of all time! A masterpiece! Fiddle by the late, great David Lindley....
This entire album is a gem..... Love JB.
Yeah, it’s about the death of the hippie dreams. I can’t say it any better than Jackson did here. And yes, predicting a future in which we are (almost) all washed away. (Cross-reference Leonard Cohen “The Future”). The deluge could be anything… any disaster that could be coming our way. It’s easy to imagine any number of possibilities… Nuclear war, AI apocalypse, new ice age, etc etc. This WAS written in the 70s, but even then, it wasn’t too hard to imagine these trends which are easier to see now. A key phrase says there WILL be survivors, but says that they will believe that they were chosen to survive. That’s heavy.
You put it well. Your thoughts are similar to mine on it over the years.
This was before he was overtly "no nukes" but I'm sure he was aware.
As I commented above I've often wondered if it's not about Natives Americans.
So thought provoking.
This is Prophecy!
Around this time Jackson wrote this song, the world was just beginning to embrace nuclear power without a full understanding of how dangerous it could be. So there were a lot of fears around it. In 1979, Jackson Browne was one of the organizers of the 'No Nukes' concert at Madison Square Garden and their cause was to promote "safe energy" over more potentially dangerous nuclear power. This song alludes to the dangers of nuclear power with the deluge being the nuclear disaster that destroys the world. Jackson and the other organizers were the "some of them who were angry at the way the earth was abused by the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power and they struggled to protect her from them."
M.U.S.E.
This song was an anthem for the anti-nuke movement of the 70s. Kind of a big deal. There was a film with a phenomenal soundtrack album. No Nukes.
One of my absolute favorite songs of all time. The older I get, the more it chokes me up. I always saw it as an anthem for the back to the land movement of the late 60s early 70s. As a matter of fact this song was a part of the reason I left the city in 1976 and moved to the woods. Been here ever since
Sweet. Nice to meet you. It's been one of mine too.
Jackson is a living legend
This song is a precursor to the song, The Pretender. Jackson was singing about the lost dreams of the 1960s generation. The people who wanted to change the world were becoming part of the world or just giving up.
My favorite Jackson Browne album. Late for the Sky is my favorite song on it.
The greatest songwriter of our time. Late for the Sky is a remarkable album. Maybe For a Dancer next
David Lindley takes this album over the top, perfect music
Jackson wrote alot of wonderful songs over the decades
He sings beautifully and his message is always meaningful.
I am convinced Jackson has always been an old soul.....I am still astounded that he wrote These Days at age 16......I have everything he ever recorded.......vinyl....then to 8 track..then to cassette.......to cd......mp3. So happy to have had his music in my life from the beginning of his career. Thank you for choosing this one.
Who can live at the end of the world. The great flood, singing as the ship goes down. It’s a deep song.
A great song from a album that truly is one the greatest ever created.
Jackson Browne had some very deep and thoughtful songs.
I was wondering if anyone would come around to reacting to this song that I was fascinated by ever since I bought the album "Late for the Sky" in 1974. I had already nearly worn out his "For Everyman" album by the time this was released. This album was deeper and much more thought provoking.
IMO this is one of the most beautifuly written songs I have ever heard. Thanks for giving it a platform!
What a hypnotic song - growing up in an often chaotic & very LOUD house and his music had the ability to quiet the noise & transport me to another place. His songs could always bring me calm and peace and silence all the yelling, accusations and chaos.
Great reaction!
The flood!!! Noah! But still ringing true!
Thank you, thank you for listening to a lesser known JB song. This is beautiful!
Jackson Browne, Mark Knopfler, and John Denver. Give them a guitar and they will give you a 2 hour modern Master Class on the Art of the Troubadour...
What a great request David. Jackson Browne is so awesome. Thanks Harri and David 🌺✌️
D.T. - As with every Jackson Browne, I will once again say that Jackson Browne is a true gift to the music of the past ...oh gosh, 50+ years. This entire album is epic and this song in particular was a well chosen submission. Bravo D.T. and Harri.👏👏
This song was released five years before Jackson became involved in the Musicians United For Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts which were directly aimed at the growing trend for nuclear power and born out of the murder of Karen Silkwood. Silkwood was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for reporting concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility. Karen was on her way to meet with a journalist and she had a packet of proof about the questionable safety practices in the nuclear power industry, but she never made the appointment with the journalist. Later, her car was found off the road and crashed into a culvert. She was dead and the packet of documentation was missing. There was damage to the rear of her car that had not been there before.
"Deluge" sort of became the anthem of MUSE, along with John Hall's "Power."
While “Before the Deluge” undoubtedly focuses on the fragility of the environment at a time when few songwriters were dealing with it, Jackson also touches on the theme of how easily ideals can be compromised. That’s why it’s both a cautionary tale and a call to action. He’s suggesting that the individual has to make the choice before any kind of grand-scale change can be enacted.
(David Lindley's fiddling is heart-wrenching.)
David Lindley, R.I.P. on Fiddle also plays slide guitar. Must watch, Something Fine, at the Old gray whistle test.
I take the meaning literally, looking at the atmospheric river hitting the West Coast right now. We don't control the elements, much as we'd like to think we can.
One of my FAVORITES.
David Lindley's violin makes this album musically. So melodic.
Fun to share the 🎶 love Harri, Thanks:)
The great David Lindley on the fiddle!!!!
Always happy to hear your interpretations of lyrics off the cuff. Great song by a great artist. Be well Harri!
Great job, Harri. I think you’re right on the money with your interpretation. (That is mine, as well. With, perhaps a little environmental message thrown in). I think you’ll find that theme in many of his songs. The promise of the dreams or ideals of youth meeting the compromises we make for reality as we get older. Also, you’ll note the use of the image or sand and sky. That’s a common one for him. Sand is time (as through the hourglass) as well as the earth, or earthly. The sky as the eternal or ethereal, or heavenly. Hopes and dreams meet reality during the journey. To where? For what purpose? If there is an answer, (so say his songs) it has something to do with Love and possibly music.
Very insightful, gave me food for thought. Thank you
@jacksswastedlife - thanks. For more examples, just notice the words dreams, reality, sand, sky and love used in each of these songs: Farther On, For Everyman, The Late Show, Late for the Sky, Looking into You, For a Dancer, Rock Me on the Water, Doctor my Eyes,, the Pretender. You’ll also notice repetition of journey/road.
it's about all us guys coming back from Vietnam with our dreams destroyed. The 60s were over, time to start life not dreams.
Another rock anthem.
I've been a fan since day 1!! Always underrated and underplayed during his beginning years. I have worn him out on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, cd and back to vinyl!! Back when artists actually has a story to tell instead of nonsensical noise!! There is a message here still today.
Very nice and, such a great song..Thanks David and Harri.
for some reason, probably old age, I thought this song was on the previous album. Check out 'For Everyman' live from The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. (Sting too, singing, Message in a Bottle!) Both are on UA-cam.
Wonderful observation. So true.
Early verses speak to me about the loss of ideals to the day to day concerns of life. The later verse seems to make a statement about environmentalism and the coming deluge of nature's fury at having been abused. Sorry, to all if this misses the mark.
I think of "deluge" in this magnificent piece as apocalypse. I believe he is talking about a dramatic loss of ideals and hope. Because he championed the "No Nukes" movement, I think of the apocalypse as nuclear horror, but it could be any disaster. I felt like he was lamenting that the hope of the 60's wasn't carried through by action in the 70's. On a tribute program for Joan Baez's 75th birthday, she and Jackson sang this together. They were superb.
Good music, i like it, thanks Harri 👍
Have you done "sky blue and black"? That's pretty much become my favorite Jackson Browne.
I've given him his own genre. Not soul music, more like "soul searching music"
Request Song for Adam
SO excited that you're listening to this one. I don't know but have always thought it was about the moment in history when the gentle hippie movement was co-opted by the much militant antiwar movement. He was there to see it and is the perfect one to preserve the image.
This was part of the No Nukes movement. Saving Mother Earth 🌎 ❤️
No Harri, you're not off the mark. This song, like "Let It Be", is a requiem for the Hippie Movement ( which was so heart-felt but way too innocent for our cynical and power-mad political/economic systems). The Deluge is metaphor for the bomb!!
From an interview with Jackson Browne: Browne sadly points out our situation is now even more dangerous. “That song was inspired by a writer named Paul Ehrlich,” he says. “He laid forth a scenario in which the world’s dysfunctions compound and create an apocalyptic outcome, but even he couldn’t have predicted the calamitous situation we’re in now where we have a world leader who is flagrantly disregarding information from the scientific community.”
This wasn't part of the No Nukes movement, at least not originally. It was on Jackson's great Late for the Sky album which came out in 1974. The Nuclear Freeze movement was a phenomenon of the 1980s.
Before the Deluge was speaking about the dreams and aspirations of the the back-to-the-landers and other environmental dropouts and activists who tried to create and live lives that respected the earth and nature and recognized, in the end, that living lives of heedless consumption and exploitation would eventually lead to our destruction as a civilization and species.
It's about the difficulty of staying true to those convictions and the seductive power of capitalism. It's about the erosion of those convictions and the settling for the" glitter and the rouge" and being swept before the deluge as a result of the surrender .
And in the end, they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in a moment they were swept before the deluge
This was and is still an absolute anthem for the lives and times of those of us who struggled with this process and either abandoned their youthful convictions or tried to find ways of not selling them out altogether as we adjusted to aging, having and raising kids and surviving in the maw of a profoundly destructive society.
Some of them were angry at the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them, only to be confused
By the magnitude of the fury in the final hour
The song was sadly prophetic of the climate disasters currently becoming more and more prevalent with each passing year.
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn, only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live, after the deluge
It's been said many times and it's true. Jackson Browne was/is one of the very greatest song writers and performers of all time, and especially so for the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. He was and is our bard!
Thanks for your choice; you are one of the few; Many Americans hate committed songs. The No Nuke live version 1979 with David Lindley's violin is unique, as is the country standard The Crow On the Cadle with Sydney Carter and Graham Nash. Of course, this live album also features Stay with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Rosemary Butler.
💖💖💖💖
Late first the Sky is an amazing album. Not a throwaway song on it.
Late for the Sky and For Everyman are two of the greatest albums of all time. You should do a reaction to every song on the two albums I mentioned. I also used to think that they were some hidden meanings in this song but I think Jackson Browne is literally talking about some fantasy world he created with an actual deluge like a Noah’s ark period.
Are I say that Moving Hearts' version of this is even better. (Talking of Moving Hearts - an incredible Irish band - please listen to them doing Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette. I GUARANTEE you will be bowled over)
I agree, the Moving Hearts version is superb. Christy Moore’s vocals and the full power of the band behind him, with these incredible lyrics is an awesome combination. Have seen Christy do it live, acoustic, a few times, and it’s a spiritual experience.
@@johngriffin1092 Try as I might, I've yet to find a UA-cam reaction to Moving Hearts. Shame really...their music isnt being picked up by younger people.
Yes there are a few reactions to Christy Moore, but none that I can see for Moving Hearts. There’s a chance that in 20-30 years this music will be little known; a shame.
You did a video on Carole King's well known song "Jazzman" but I know you'd love hearing one that made the charts briefly but not big, called "Corazon"
Awesome jazz and piano the whole way.....Listen to "Corazon" hq....Her live version in Montreal was good, but the studio version is the best.
I've always thought this song is about the stalling of the hippie movement. He sings about people becoming tired and disillusioned, and they eventually joined the rat race. They gave up on getting back to nature as they became adults. His recent performance of "Late for the Sky" on Austin City Limits is really good. Somehow his songs sound better as his voice ages, and the band is incredible.
The song is about whatever the listener thinks it’s about.
Philosophically, i never quite understood if he was singing of a real group of people or just a story.... but i've come to think it's about Native Americans.
Could also be the machine age.
Thought provoking beauty.
I always thought he was talking about the idealism of the peace and love era.
he was jackson browne as opposed to michael & his brothers who were the brown jacksons!!!
I see it as very fitting for a climate change future. Almost literally.
It sounds like a description of future ecological collapse and non-reversable devastation although some could see it comming.
Jackson Browne, Mark Knopfler, and John Denver. Give them a guitar and they will give you a 2 hour modern Master Class on the Art of the Troubadour...