January 21, 2022 —– Chart #127
Hello Music Friends,
Welcome to a cold Friday in Dallas Texas. I am feeling very good about music today, our BYO Musicians group finally held a jam session last night after a 23 month coronavirus break. Holy mackerel that was a long time to go without organized jams and the musicians were raring to go. It really felt good to see so many musician friends playing their hearts out on stage last night.
So what do we have for this week? I am going with one of my favorite singer-songwriters and a great performing musician, Mr. Jackson Browne and his 1972 hit Doctor My Eyes. This is a hard song to get out of your head, it’s just that good. “Doctor, My Eyes” is a 1972 song written and performed by Jackson Browne and included on his debut album Jackson Browne. Featuring a combination of an upbeat piano riff coupled with lyrics about feeling world-weary, the song was a surprise hit, reaching number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in spring 1972, after debuting on the chart at number 80. Browne would not see the chart’s Top 10 again until 1982’s soundtrack hit “Somebody’s Baby”, although “Running on Empty” just missed the Top 10, reaching number 11. Billboard ranked “Doctor My Eyes” as the No. 92 song for 1972. In Canada, the song peaked at number four.
“Doctor, My Eyes” became a concert mainstay for Browne, and was included on both his later compilation albums. A live version can be found on the 1996 Australia CD release Best of… Live, a double set with Looking East, and the 1997 Japan 2-CD release of Best of… Live, coupled with The Next Voice You Hear: The Best of Jackson Browne.
Jesse Ed Davis played the electric guitar while David Crosby and Graham Nash sang backing vocals (uh, okay they will do). Russ Kunkel played drums and Leland Sklar played bass. Holy cow, that’s the A Team!. Playing the same instruments as on the original recording, Kunkel and Sklar reunited with Browne in May 2021 to rerecord “Doctor My Eyes” for a charity project.
William Ruhlmann on Allmusic.com elaborated on the development of the song: “Browne first recorded a demo of ‘Doctor My Eyes’ for the Criterion Music publishing company in early 1971, and despite its striking imagery and carefully crafted writing, it was a bleak song… By the time he came to record the song for his first album in the summer of 1971, however, Browne had revised the lyric, tossing out the most pessimistic lines. Now, ‘Doctor My Eyes’ was the statement of a man who had stoically endured life’s hardships, but having done so, now worried that he had been rendered unable to feel anything. It still wasn’t an optimistic song, but the unhappy ending had been rendered ambiguous.” Ruhlmann addresses the final recorded version’s “paradoxical sense” between the music and the lyrics: “Working with other musicians, Browne drastically altered the sound of the song on record. A lively 4/4 beat, played on drums and congas, and supported by piano, set up a catchy underlying riff before the lyrics even began. Browne’s singing was supported by Graham Nash and David Crosby’s harmonies, giving the lyrics an emotional edge. On the whole, the arrangement and performance worked against the still desperate message contained in the words.” There was originally a third verse to the song, but it was not retained when Browne recorded the song for his debut album. The lost verse, however, can be found on circulating bootlegs of the song’s original demo.
In part 1 of the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, JD Souther and Glenn Frey discuss at some length the process of Browne’s work methods while Browne was working on the song over a period of some months. The three lived in adjacent down-market apartments; Frey would hear Browne, through the walls, at work on his piano every morning.
Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) has sold over 18 million albums in the United States. Emerging as a precocious teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he had his first successes writing songs for others, writing “These Days” as a 16-year-old; the song became a minor hit for the German singer and Andy Warhol protégé Nico in 1967. He also wrote several songs for fellow Southern California bands Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (with whom he was briefly a member in 1966) and the Eagles, the latter of whom had their first Billboard Top 40 hit in 1972 with the Browne co-written song “Take It Easy”.
Encouraged by his successes writing songs for others, Browne released his self-titled debut album in 1972, which spawned two Top 40 hits of his own, “Doctor, My Eyes” and “Rock Me on the Water”. For his debut album, as well as for the next several albums and concert tours, Browne started working closely with The Section, a prolific session band that also worked with a number of other prominent singer-songwriters of the era. His second album, For Everyman, was released in 1973, and while it lacked an enduring single, has been retrospectively assessed as some of his best work, appearing highly on several “Best Album of All Time” lists. His third album, Late for the Sky, was his most successful to that point, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and earning Browne his first Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. His fourth album, The Pretender, continued the pattern of each album topping the previous by peaking at number 5 on the album chart, and spawned the hit singles “Here Come Those Tears Again” and “The Pretender”.
It would be the 1977 album Running on Empty, however, that would be his signature work. But wait, let’s save some of this history. I have a feeling Jackson Browne may appear in Chart of the Week again someday and we don’t want to tell the entire story all at once.
Fun Fact: Browne was born October 9, 1948, in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father Clyde Jack Browne, an American serviceman, was stationed for his job assignment with the Stars and Stripes newspaper.
Live in 1978. OMG, watch the incredible young David Lindley work the lap steel guitar: https://youtu.be/9wF7zc_YK6A
For our bass players, here’s Leland Sklar talking about recording this song, and showing how to play it: https://youtu.be/PQqJJYfg-6E
Rock on my friends,
Stan