Jackson Browne “Hold Out”
Jackson Browne never changed his hair. It’s the one constant in music, maybe on Earth. It may be a wig. Jackson Browne has never rushed anywhere. Not for a plane, or a taxi, certainly not in a song. He’s got rockers, but they’re not going to push it too much. He’s steady. Like a pair of loafers. He also never reinvented music or tried to harness a hot new sound. He does not experiment with the studio like it’s another instrument in his symphony. He never used a vocoder on his vocals to try to get in the mind of an autistic child. He has never listened to ska. He’s one of these anomalies that seemed to understand being old while young. In years, he was only thirty two in 1980. In spirit, he was already past prime. I mean who writes a song as weary as “These Days” at sixteen?
It was two years ago I started listening to “Hold Out.” I was 43, I listened to it while making dinner. I listened to it in the car. I listened to it on the elliptical. What was happening to me? I knew better. I read all the reviews. This album was a clear sign of artistic decline. I looked down to my phone. There was a message from Spotify: Please stop. The phone rang. A hollow voice spoke:
“You understand that the first track is called ‘Disco Apocalypse’”
“Who is this?”
“Never mind who this is, just answer the question”
“Yes, I know the track names, I’ve listened to the record 4,000 times”
“And you think "Disco Apocalypse” is a good idea for a song?”
“Well…”
“Does it amuse you?”
There was a click on the other end before I had time to answer. This was getting out of control. My daughter came into the kitchen and rolled her eyes. “Is this Jackson Browne?” When I nodded she let out an exasperated ugh.
What was it that drew me to this album? It was tearing apart my family. Another voice boomed at me from the rafters of my mid-century colonial house.
“Hold on, my child”.
Who was that?
“Hold on, my child. Hold on………Hold out”
The disembodied voice had just cheekily name-checked the title of the 8 minute 14 second album-closing opus, not to be confused with the title track. I know, “Hold on, Hold out” and a separate song called “Hold out” on the same album. Yes -- it’s confusing. The repetition was cited as proof by reviewers that maybe Browne had run out of ideas. I disagree. I petitioned Browne with a letter writing campaign to add a song in the middle called “Hold” and then just when the sweet final notes of the album fade out, a hidden bonus track called “Out.” There’s not too much of a reason to break the album down into songs. It’s just one song really, a long dream of nice linen pants.
I walked upstairs to my bedroom and found a record cover with a sticky note on my bed. The note read “Fuck this Album”. She was gone. Like that. This would be difficult on the kids. Unfortunately, I needed the comfort of this record more than ever. I asked the kids to take care of dinner themselves, and went to a hypnotist. She put me under and then put on the record I asked her to help me with.
“What do you see?”
“California”
“What else?”
“Relaxed people, in a recording studio figuring out a drum sound”
“What do you feel?”
“I want to be there.”
“Why?”
“I just do”
She snapped her finger and my session was over.
“I can’t help you” she said.
“Hold Out” was actually a number one album. I’m not alone in buying it, if not liking it. If, as I suspected, the reason Jackson Browne was able to write the world weary “These Days” at 16 was because he suffered a rare form of spiritual Benjamin Buttons disease, that would make him spiritually 85 at his birth in 1948 and spiritually 43 at the time of "the release of 1980’s “Hold Out”. Interesting. 43. The exact age “Hold Out” came into my life and would not let go.
The hypnotist wouldn’t tell me, but I knew I was disillusioned. My life was working out more or less; I was not “The Pretender”, Browne’s critically heralded song that wondered “I want to know what became of the changes, we waited for love to bring”. I knew love had changed me for the better, but I both appreciated all I had and didn’t. A lot of the desperate hill charges of my 20’s and 30’s had left wounds, and I did, at rest, default to a general sense of unease. “Hold Out” calmed me. It was earnest enough that I didn’t feel alone, melancholy but not morose, rocked enough to keep me awake, but not so much as to make me afraid. Its lyrics, a notch down from the man who wrote the crushingly honest line “don’t confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them”, were safe enough not to rattle. In a chilling moment, I realized it might be music for a middle-aged mental patient.
There’s a spoken word section of “Hold on, Hold Out”, also cited as proof our songwriter was off his rocker. About 4 1/2 minutes in, Jackson has an imaginary conversation with a beautiful lady at a club and tells her:
You're a hold out
Well I'm a hold out too
“Cool. Thanks for noticing”, is what I imagine she was thinking.
He goes on about what it is to be a hold out and then turns about 12 years old, including some schoolboy stuttering:
I guess you wouldn't know unless I told you
I…I love you
He’s just a California sun-baked man in touch with his feelings. Then, giddy with infatuation:
And just look at yourself--
I mean what else would I do?
BWWWWOOOWWWW — guitars kick us back into the chorus and 40 music critics threw up.
I always picture him pulling Daryl Hannah from the crowd and kissing her at this point, except they didn’t meet until 1983. But they did meet and marry. Lifting up this below average bar come-on to the level of epic album closer, is a kind of wet dream for the average. For me, it suggests that my love for my family is enough, this ziti I’m making is enough, and if I keep jogging to the safe rock of the single “Boulevard", this 1/2 a pound I’ll loose and regain next week is enough. And that means a lot to me. I don’t have to go out and get into Skrillex. Middle-age men are afraid of Skrillex like my Mom was afraid of those make-up monster-men in KISS.
The door squeaked open:
“Hello?”
It was my wife.
“You’re back. I thought I’d lost you”
“No. I just went out to get groceries”
“What about the note? On the album. On our bed.”
“Well, I meant that, but I’m not….”
“So I don’t have to stop listening to “Hold Out””
“I didn’t say that.”