The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys

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Brian Wilson Is A Once-In-A-Lifetime Creative Genius. But The Beach Boys Are More Than Just Him.

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Brian Wilson is inarguably responsible for the Beach Boys' most flabbergasting creative triumphs, from 'Pet Sounds' to "Good Vibrations." But as a new boxed set, 'Feel Flows,' shows, they could have kept on blossoming under his brother Carl's leadership
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Aug 27, 2021 - 11:58 am

The Beach Boys may be the only canonical band in their league to be essentially cleaved in two, commanding two separate audiences. But it goes even deeper than that: Fans tend to understand them via two incompatible narratives.

One is that Brian Wilson—a once-in-a-lifetime harmonic innovator and studio visionary by the age of a typical college student—can do no wrong, only muzzled by that meddling Mike Love. The other is that their critically acclaimed mid-'60s experimental period—Pet Sounds, "Good Vibrations"—was where their run as hitmakers ended. Through that lens, their Brian-free 1988 tropical hit "Kokomo" wasn't a trapdoor into kitsch, but a desperately needed comeback after years of zero hits.

Such is the reductive, binary discourse surrounding these classic rock legends: It's "Brian good, Mike bad" or some form of the opposite. This brings us to the 1970s when Brian took a backseat due to mental health issues and creative demoralization. If Brian Wilson "walks on water"—as Love once put it—this may seem like the beginning of their long sundown. Dennis Wilson himself said it: "Brian is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his f***ing messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."

Again, Brian is a national treasure, but his drummer brother was wrong on this—and a new boxed set proves it once and for all. Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971, which arrived August 27, contains brilliant remasters of those two excellent, underrated albums from that fork in the road, plus plentiful outtakes and live tracks. Gorgeous songs like "This Whole World," "Add Some Music To Your Day" and "Don't Go Near the Water" show they could have continued like Pink Floyd post-Syd Barrett, making masterpieces without their erratic founding genius.

More importantly, Feel Flows underlines the radiant and lionhearted soul of Carl Wilson over and over. When Brian's struggles became untenable, his brother assumed the role of musical director without drawing attention to himself or making a big deal about it. And although they spent the following decades looking over their shoulder for Brian to return, Carl helmed the band throughout the '70s and beyond. When he died in 1998, the center gave way and the members toured as separate entities.

The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys. Photo courtesy of UMe.

"I think in a post-Brian Wilson world when the band started touring extensively in the late '60s and especially the early '70s, it was clear that Carl was the leader of the band," Erik Long, who produced a major Beach Boys concert in the '80s and was close friends with Carl, tells GRAMMY.com. "I think what stood out about Carl is that when you were with him, he made you feel more special than he was. That's a remarkable feeling."

The largely home-recorded Sunflower came out in 1970, which was indisputably primetime for singer/songwriter music: Carole King's Tapestry, Joni Mitchell's Blue and Neil Young's After the Gold Rush came out within a year of it. That was the album where the Beach Boys grew out of their Pendleton shirts and rebranded themselves as a commune of hairy, soulful folkies. On the cover, they pose with their children in verdant climes; Al Jardine rocks cowboy getup; Love looks like he never left Rishikesh. They'd grown up.

While the music is a little more commercial and lighthearted than Pet Sounds, it's no less lush and cohesive. Here were six singer/songwriters at full bore: Dennis bared his soul with the majestic "Forever"; almost-founding-member Bruce Johnston wrote the loping, lovesick "Dierdre"; Al Jardine and Love have several co-writes. And Carl's musical and personal qualities shine through almost every note of it—especially when he takes one of his warm, punchy vocal solos, like on the goosebumps-inducing "Add Some Music To Your Day."

"Carl wasn't really credited for this, even though he was on the original track sheets, but he was producing this overall and just kind of quietly, methodically making sure everything was getting finished," Beach Boys archive manager Alan Boyd tells GRAMMY.com.

Feel Flows producer and engineer Mark Linett agrees, contrasting Brian's and Carl's temperaments and approaches. "Brian tends to be very instinctive," he tells GRAMMY.com. "Get it down, get it done quickly. As opposed to Pet Sounds, where the musicians recorded en masse, "When multitrack recording came in and became more a matter of layering vocals and different parts, I think Carl was better at dealing with a long-haul type of thing."

The Beach Boys got darker and more ecologically conscious with 1971's Surf's Up, whose shadowy cover features a defeated-looking Native American slumping on his horse. Whereas Sunflower was a democratic effort with Brian still part of the team, he was scarcely involved with its moodier, more scattered follow-up.

In his relative absence, Carl shone even brighter, contributing signature songs like "Long Promised Road" and, yes, "Feel Flows." Elsewhere, Love lets off some social commentary with "Student Demonstration Time" and Johnston slams it out of the park with his drop-dead gorgeous "Disney Girls (1957)." While the title track is a majestic Brian holdover from 1967's never-finished Smile and it contains oddities like the dirge "A Day in the Life of a Tree"—crooned by their then-manager Jack Rieley—Surf's Up is a rough-hewn classic.

To be clear, there is nothing quite on par with "God Only Knows" or "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)" or "Good Vibrations" on Feel Flows. But it shows how their branches were growing in fascinating directions nonetheless, especially in the wealth of previously unheard bonus material.

Carl Wilson

Carl Wilson. Photo courtesy of UMe.

Could they have built on the funk of "Slip On Through," heard here in a trippy, groovy alternate version? What if they got deeper into the delicacy of "At My Window," giving us a run of Incredible String Band-style acoustic albums? To say nothing of the hard rock in these live tracks, which this band rarely gets credit for: What would the Beach Boys look like as unadulterated stadium rockers?

We'll never find out because the Beach Boys opted to take half-measures in Brian's absence. Given his monster talents, this is somewhat understandable. There are a small handful of other quietly great, Carl-helmed Beach Boys records throughout the 1970s, like 1972's Carl and the Passions — So Tough and 1973's Holland. But whether due to creative insecurity or outside pressures, that was it for their imperial reign as artists, even if they remain unbelievably popular and beloved six decades after they formed.

But while Feel Flows teases what could have happened, it also shows what did: With Carl as their center and essence, the Beach Boys pushed beauty into the world even when Brian couldn't be there for it. There's a very visible and celebrated genius at the center of this story, and most of the attention is heaped on him as a result. But the reality is so much sweeter: There were six of them.

Why This Viral Beach Boys Cover, Meant To Heal A Grieving World, Almost Didn't Happen

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Good vibrations cover
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Why This Viral Beach Boys Cover, Meant To Heal A Grieving World, Almost Didn’t Happen

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Last summer, almost 30 musicians banded together from home to record a cover of the Beach Boys' 1967 classic, "Good Vibrations." After widespread COVID-related deaths and global protests hit, the group wondered if it would ever see the light of day
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Feb 5, 2021 - 7:33 am

The saxophonist, flutist, and keyboardist Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen's father was her number-one fan. A lover of soul artists like George Clinton, Lou Rawls and The Temptations, Julius Johnson danced at any opportunity—at the supermarket, after bowling a strike, or in response to good news of any type. Sometimes, his dancing made his daughter feel shy, but today, she misses it more than anything. Granted, Johnson wasn't particularly a Beach Boys fan. But when Melkeraaen—who records and performs as Lady Albatross—took part in a massive cover of America’s Band, it ended up a testament to his goofy, music-loving spirit.

In a YouTube cover of the exuberant "Good Vibrations” recorded last June, created to give a world in lockdown a much-needed lift, she played flute alongside almost 30 other musicians in virtual collaboration. Released this year after a months-long delay, the cover grew so popular that it caught the attention of Brian Wilson himself.

But because Johnson died of COVID-19 the month of its making, he's not around to cut a rug in response.

"In my mind, I'm picturing being able to tell him, and he definitely would have had an ear-to-ear, massive grin," Lady Albatross, who came onto the project by word-of-mouth, tells GRAMMY.com from her home in Odda, Norway. “He would have given me a really big hug and told me how proud he was."

Making The Cover

"Good Vibrations," which a 24-year-old Wilson concocted as the centerpiece to 1967's aborted Beach Boys album Smile, is only the latest tune that organizers Doc Crotzer and Matthew Smith have tackled. In the confusing, suffocating early weeks of lockdown, they cast out a net to record a quarantine-friendly cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." "We thought maybe a few other people might be interested in doing it with us but didn't expect too many people," Smith tells GRAMMY.com. 

Through a network of friends recommending friends, like in Lady Albatross's and Jones' case, they followed up the Petty tune with a pitch-perfect rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run."

"By then," Crotzer says, "more people had seen the video and reached out to us, so we were able to grow our Social Distance Session Band, which added to the fun and challenge. 'Good Vibrations' came out of trying to answer 'How do we top "Born to Run'" with our group?'"

To help manifest their sun-kissed dream, Crotzer and Smith contacted Anders Fehon and Edwin Herder of Beach Boys musical replicators The Fendertones. Then, they recorded a scratch track for the instrumentalists, and Crotzer sang rough takes of each vocal part to place the singers properly in the harmony stack.

Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen and Julius Johnson

Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen and her father, Julius Johnson.

Two of those singers were MInhee Jones, a London-based alternative pop artist, and her friend, Celeigh Chapman, a country singer originally from Bakersfield, California. The recording process helped Chapman exhume the song from TV ads and oldies stations and examine it anew.

"For us, it was cool to pull apart the layers because [most of us] appreciate it in a passing way or understand that it's revolutionary for the time," she tells GRAMMY.com. "But then, to pull it apart and learn a specific part and see all those parts stack up, I think, gave us a whole other level of appreciation for them doing that at that time, considering where the technology is now and where it was then. When you look underneath the hood, there's a whole other level of, "Oh, this is actually why this is so omnipresent in our culture and has been able to sustain generations of fans and musicians."

Stitching together nearly 30 socially-distanced takes wasn't easy, but Crotzer and Smith found ways to circumvent potential hiccups. "For the instrumental part of the track, we let people do their own thing a bit more," Smith says, "but everyone was still playing to a guide track so that everything would stay in sync when we got the tracks back."

Near the end, the number of tracks so overwhelmed his laptop that he had to buy a better computer. "Fortunately, we had an awesome editor named Chase Johnson cutting it," Crotzer says. "He made it look easy and seamless."

Hitting A Roadblock 

The month they recorded the cover, the George Floyd protests hit. "Good Vibrations" wouldn't come out in June as planned. 

While the musicians never explicitly mentioned current events over the email chain, Chapman says there was an unspoken agreement that the timing wasn't right. In the midst of global racial upheaval, releasing a happy-go-lucky cover may have come across as blithe or tone-deaf. The following months brought mostly silence. "I remember sending an email asking, 'When is this coming out?''" Lady Albatross remembers. 

In the months leading to his death, Lady Albatross's father became inward and uncommunicative; she's not certain he even knew about the "Good Vibrations" cover. Lady Albatross was already saddened her father would never hear it, but after a while, it seemed like nobody would. As the months stretched out between George Floyd's killing and the fractious 2020 election, the "blossom world" Wilson sang of seemed more out-of-reach than ever.

Jones felt wary of a world seemingly drained of the Beach Boys' promise. "I was pretty down around that time because it was so polarized," she tells GRAMMY.com. "You saw some disappointing ideals coming out of people. Just a lot of ignorance, I guess. It didn't seem like the right time to put out anything too light." 

Going Viral

On the heels of the inauguration and with vaccinations starting to roll out, it finally felt right to drop "Good Vibrations" on YouTube in the spirit of healing and brighter days ahead.

"I remember when I got the email from Doc and Matt saying, 'It's up! It's finally here! It's done!'" Jones says with a grin over Zoom. "It was right after the inauguration. I think they posted it on Facebook just like that: 'This could not have come at a better time. So many good vibrations. A weight has been lifted.' I thought the inauguration was amazing. We were all watching it around the world. I was over here with my glass of champagne in London. I thought the timing of that was spot-on." 

Almost immediately, the video was met with global excitations—and Brian Wilson's. "Watch this amazing video from Social Distance Settings of 'Good Vibrations' featuring Minhee Jones and Jesse Hernandez, and musicians around the world," he tweeted. "Their goal for this performance is to make everyone SMiLE." At press time, the video was on the cusp of 50,000 views.

Overall, the response has bowled over Crotzer and Smith, who had merely organized the video for the fun, fun, fun of it.

"I couldn't believe it when Brian Wilson shared our cover on his social media," Crotzer tells GRAMMY.com. "The first rock 'n' roll music I heard as a kid was written by him and got me into music in the first place. Waking up to see that Brian liked it was an incredible way to start a day. Just absolutely surreal.”

A No. 1 hit in its day, "Good Vibrations" was sparked by Wilson's curiosity about the human emotions that dogs pick up on. Had the crew had released their cover back in June, it might have clashed with the will of the universe. But because they released it in a long-awaited moment of political optimism, "Good Vibrations" acted as a beacon of light through the gloom—and elicited a hard-won smile from thousands of viewers. 

And Lady Albatross, who sticks out in the virtual crowd in her hand-crocheted octopus hat, says her old man would be right there with them.

"He would have given me a really big hug and a kiss on the forehead," she says, envisioning his response to the Brian Wilson-approved video. And, of course, "He would have done a little happy dance."

Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together

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Lindsey Buckingham

Lindsey Buckingham

Photo: Lauren Dukoff

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Lindsey Buckingham Holds Forth On His New Self-Titled Album, How He Really Feels About Fleetwood Mac Touring Without Him

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Lindsey Buckingham has taken some life situations on the chin lately, from bypass surgery to Fleetwood Mac removing him. But as his new self-titled record attests, almost nobody is better at flipping awkwardness and darkness into joyous melodies
GRAMMYs
Sep 16, 2021 - 1:18 pm

Lindsey Buckingham's new album comes prepackaged with obvious talking points. Crane your ear, and you can faintly hear the click-clack of MacBook keys assembling the following lede: Open-heart surgery, almost losing his voice forever, a looming divorce (they've since thrown that into reverse—love never fails!) and a certain über-dramatic rock institution handing him the pink slip.

But that readymade narrative leaves out the most important part, which is how it all comes out the other side of Buckingham's brain. For decades, the two-time GRAMMY winner alchemized pain and awkwardness into effervescent pop music like almost nobody else—and sold millions and millions of records as a result. How does he keep that psychological and spiritual mechanism well-oiled?

Perhaps the answer is best articulated in good ol' music: His new album, Lindsey Buckingham, which arrives September 17, is permeated with this big-picture thinking. And everything he's been through since he recorded tunes like "Scream," "I Don't Mind" and "On the Wrong Side"—honestly, the album is three years old now after a comical number of delays—gives the tunes added heft, import and longevity.

But for now, the singer/songwriter and guitarist can give it the old college try. "It's not like I'm attracted to any of the dark at all. It's just that I think it exists hand-in-hand with the light," he says over FaceTime. "There's nothing you can do about that." That was the attitude he maintained during the Jerry Springer-style lovers' fiascos that fueled Rumours, and it's how he feels today, when predicaments and headaches that "weren't on the radar" blindside him.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Buckingham during rehearsals for his current U.S. tour to discuss the long road to the new album and how he maintains a PMA with the Sword of Damocles over his head. Near the end, he spills the tea about why he's really no longer in Fleetwood Mac. (See Stevie Nicks' recent comments for the counterpoint.)

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How's it feel to be rehearsing with your bandmates?

It's great! The camaraderie can't be beat. There's none of the politics that always were there with Fleetwood Mac. We had several attempts to get this album out over the last three years because it's been ready to go for over three years. Certain things kept getting in the way. So, we're finally here and it's good to be playing. I love it.

Is it weird to be promoting music you made a while ago? I didn't know it was so old.

You know, it's funny: When I did that duet album with Christine [McVie], my original intention—becuase I was working on this simultaneously—was to put it out back-to-back with that. Because of Fleetwood Mac politics, that didn't happen.

And then, after all the stuff we'd done with Fleetwood Mac, I thought "Well, rather than put the album out then, I thought I'd put out the anthology"—the best-of [compilation album] that I did in 2018, which was great fun and it was sort of cathartic to revisit all that.

And then [Wry chuckle] we really were starting to get ready to rehearse and then I had this bypass I had in 2019. That took some recovery. And then, we started to begin to rehearse—and then the COVID hit! So it's been kind of a running gag of trying to get this thing out and having to kick it down the road.

I think, in the process, the material itself—and certainly the subject matter—has taken on a somewhat deeper meaning given all that's happened over the last few years, you know?

You seem like you're in a great mood despite the turmoil.

Well, I mean, you know, stuff happens. Rock 'n' roll bands are rock 'n' roll bands. Health issues are going to come and go. So it's all good! I didn't know how I was going to feel at the beginning of rehearsals—whether doing a set twice a day was something I was even up for—but it all turned out to be great. I'm looking forward to it.

I remember seeing the news about the bypass surgery. I was so worried. Music fans worldwide were so worried. I'm so happy you made it back to 100 percent.

Oh, yeah. There was this moment that lasted for a few months because, in the process of doing that, somebody, I guess, a little overzealously jammed a breathing tube down my throat when they were about to do the thing. It kind of damaged my vocal cords for a while, but they came back. That was the other thing: I didn't know how my voice was going to be, putting it to the test, doing a set twice a day in rehearsal. But it's been pretty good, so I'm happy.

In general, what's your life been like since exiting the band?

Well, there have been a lot of things that weren't on the radar, that just sort of showed up like that. And, of course, the whole COVID experience was something nobody saw coming. That wasn't so difficult for me, in a lot of ways, because I lead a fairly insular life anyway. I'm somewhat of a loner. And when I'm working, I'm working by myself most of the time. Certainly, on solo work, all of the time.

You know, we've gotten through that, and I think that was harder on my kids than it was on me. I think there's been a lesson in there somewhere, although I'm not sure what it is. Now, I mean, my god. Everyone wants to go out and tour, but now we've got this Delta variant, and who knows where that's going? 

In the meantime, you just sort of look at all the things you didn't see coming over the last few years and put them in context with where you are now, and it actually provides a little more meaning, I think, for the tour and putting the album out now as opposed to putting it out three years ago. I think the subject matter and the music itself probably resonates a little more because of all that, too.

You've always had a knack for making effervescent music out of difficult or stressful topics. What about this contrast, or this tension, continues to attract you all these decades later?

[Long chuckle.] Wow. I don't know! It's not something I wish on myself. Whether it's a band or a family or a long-term marriage, there are going to be challenges that come up that require not only that you adapt, but accept things that you can't change. You have to come to the realization there's only so much you can control—to try to concentrate on what is positive and try to keep your wits about you in a situation that can lead you off in not-very-constructive directions.

That's something on a more general level that goes back to Rumours, even—where we had this huge test and were maybe poised to fall prey to all the external expectations that there were out there. To make a Rumours II and to become a piece of product that had been formulized. Obviously, I made the choice to go another route. So much of it is about the choices you make with the challenges that come along and how you choose to process them.

Read More: Fleetwood Mac Rumours Producer On Making An Iconic Album

I don't know. It's not like I'm attracted to any of the dark at all. It's just that I think it exists hand-in-hand with the light, and there's nothing you can do about that.

To qualify my question, it's not like you're wishing pain on yourself as grist for the mill for songs. Everyone deals with the awkwardness and darkness of life to one degree or another. But it's rare that someone like yourself can flip it, or alchemize it, into something joyous.

Right. Well, I think you've got to try to keep the overview. And, again, in the same way, to go back to Fleetwood Mac and the Rumours album and how we were going through all this stuff as couples and breaking up and not being able to get closure. I was dealing with a lot of pain at Stevie having moved away from me and yet I was producing the band and was the bandleader—you've got to make choices for the bigger picture, so you've got to rise above all of that.

I think that's something you learn how to do. You try to transform that into something more transcendent.

Back in that bacchanalian era of Rumours, how did you guys survive compounding, compounding, compounding crises where one of them would have ruined any other band? As you say, were you guys just seeing the big picture through all of it?

Well, I don't know! I'll take some of the credit for that, but I think you're talking about people who, on paper, don't even belong in the same band together. But the synergy we created because of what was greater than the sum of the parts, and I think underneath all that darkness, there was a lot of love for each other. There was certainly a huge amount of chemistry.

I think it's just what you try to do. You can choose to react darkly to a dark situation or you can choose to react in a way that is somewhat cathartic or transformative and gets you away from that—without denying it, but just sort of contextualizing it.

With all the highs and lows, do you remember that as a particularly happy time, or in some other way?

Both. But even so, obviously, you can concentrate on the musical soap opera that was so much the subtext of our success back then, but I think you just move on.

In your solo work, what do you feel you can say that you can't with Fleetwood Mac? You touched on the politics and how it's easy-breezy in this format, but from a songwriting perspective, do you write in one box or the other?

I think my lyrics have gotten better—I would like to think—over the years because they've become less and less literal. Some of that has been arrived at because the process I use to record solo albums is far more—I've said this many times—but like painting. Because I'm playing everything and engineering it, it's basically you and your work. It's you and your canvas, so to speak. A musical canvas.

I think the solo work has just allowed me to continue to improve, because that process has allowed for risk and pushing the envelope and discovery in a way that the political process of Fleetwood Mac sometimes disallowed. It allowed it during the Tusk album, but then there was kind of a backlash politically when Tusk didn't sell 16 million albums. Mick [Fleetwood] comes to me and says, "Well, we're not going to do that again."

Lindsey Buckingham

Lindsey Buckingham. Photo: Lauren Dukoff

That's when I started making solo albums, because I realized if I was going to aspire to be an artist in the long term and continue to take those risks—and, to some degree, continue to thwart people's expectations of what they thought we were or I was—then I was going to have to do it with solo work. That's always where I've continued to grow as an artist, I think.

So, the songwriting has gotten, I think, more interesting and has more depth. It's also become somewhat indistinguishable from the production process, whereas with a band, you've got to bring in a complete song and bring it from point A to point B and it requires a lot more verbalization and politics. It's probably more like moviemaking.

The painting process is really something you can build and build and build off of. It's been an interesting sense of forward motion over the years.

It's fascinating that you've had this whole arc parallel to your journey in a major rock institution. This is your first solo album in a decade. What was your vision for it as opposed to the others, in any regard?

I think much of it was, again, subject-matter-wise: My kids are all basically grown up. I still have a 17-year-old daughter, but they're basically not children anymore. My wife and I have been together for 24 years. You start to have to—again, as I said—accept things and adapt to a thing you, perhaps, at one time, earlier on, you thought you'd never have to adapt to.

And yet I think you need to look at that with an acceptance and almost a celebration that that's just part of what it takes to keep learning and growing as a couple. To have your relationship continue to build on itself. Much of the album, lyric-wise, the content is addressing that: Lamenting it, but also celebrating it.

On a musical level, what I wanted to say, really, is something very simple and fundamental. I thought it'd be very cool to make more of a pop album than I've made before—maybe ever. But certainly since [1992's] Out of the Cradle. There was a sense of referring back to pop sensibilities that existed in Fleetwood Mac and in solo work, but probably in Fleetwood Mac to the point where you could probably connect the dots to a song like "On the Wrong Side" and "Go Your Own Way." 

There was a conscious desire to circle back on something and revisit it. I wanted to make a pop album, and of course, there are a few tracks on there that represent the leftest edges of that. "Power Down" is one song that comes to mind. But generally speaking, the album has pop accessibility that I wanted to achieve, and I think, for the most part, I got there.

I definitely think of you as a melodist first and foremost. As opposed to favorite writers or musicians, per se, who are your favorite melodists out in the ether?

Well, obviously, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach. Geez, I don't know. Henry Mancini. How's that?

Back to your recovery from the heart surgery. Was it scary to think that you might not get to sing again? I mean, that's your whole livelihood.

Well, you know, it was interesting, because there was only so much I could control about it and I was also, in a larger sense, just dealing with recovering from the bypass, which took a few months.

I was probably more concerned with the specifics of what I had to do just to recover from such an invasive procedure, but yes—there was a point where we first saw someone in Los Angeles, a doctor. She turned me on to a voice therapist who would come to the house and have me do exercises. None of that seemed to do anything.

Eventually, she referred me to someone in Boston, who I guess is the guy who deals with singers who have voice problems. My wife and I flew to Boston a couple of times and he looked me over and said, "Look, this is going to take care of itself. I can't guarantee you that your voice is going to come back 100 percent."

And it probably hasn't, really, quite honestly. It's probably come back 95 percent. In rehearsals, we decided to lower the keys of a couple of songs a half step because I was having trouble hitting the notes I used to hit. But some of that just comes along with getting older. That's something we've done continuously over the years anyway, so that's all there is to say about that.

But at the point where this doctor says to me, "I can't guarantee you it's going to come back to 100 percent, but there's nothing you can do. You've just got to wait and it'll do what it's going to do," I just stopped worrying about it because I realized it was just a waiting game I had to play. Again, over a period of months, my voice returned and it seems to be working quite well now, so we're good.

Did you have to carry around a notepad and the whole bit?

No, no, no. I could talk, but it was [Affects rasp] kind of like that for a while. It just was not clear for a month and a half or two months, and then I started to get better.

Now that you're back in fighting shape, have you been writing any?

Well, when COVID hit, we had just moved from the house the kids were raised in to a slightly smaller house that we built. Right after that move, COVID hit, and the studio was still in the process of being finished up. It's downstairs in sort of a guest house in the backyard, and it's in the basement of that. 

It was funny: I didn't have any great motivation to go down and work when COVID hit. I'm not sure why. But after a few months, I said to myself "I've got to force myself to go down there."  So I did, and I got into a routine for a few months down there where I ended up starting and finishing maybe three new songs. There is something to pick up from whenever it's time to make another album, but I haven't done a huge amount of writing, no.

Well, it's not a very inspiring time.

It's pretty strange, yeah.

I must ask: What went through your head when you heard that Peter Green had died?

Well, when I heard about Peter Green, the first thing I said was, "I've got to call Mick," which I did. Mick and I had probably talked once before that since all the Fleetwood Mac stuff went down. He texted and emailed with me and stuff, but we hadn't had a lot of conversations. He and I were obviously on completely good terms at that point and I think he felt bad about that whole thing.

He didn't really want that to happen, but that's another conversation. But he and I commiserated about Peter. He was actually way more [undeterred] about it than I would have expected because I think the term he used was "He died a king's death," which means you go to sleep at night and you don't wake up. That's what happened to Peter, but it was sad. It was quite sad, obviously.

Read More: Remembering Fleetwood Mac Co-Founder Peter Green

He wasn't really on the scene for very long, but he left quite a mark. Mick and I were able to share our sadness about that, for sure.

Do you remember the last time you saw Peter or spoke to him?

I think the last time would have been in 2015—the last time we toured in the U.K. with Fleetwood Mac after Christine came back. He was a funny guy when it came to interacting with me. Obviously, he wasn't maybe in the best mental shape anyway; I don't really know the finer points of that. He was always a bit standoffish with me; I'm not sure why. 

Maybe he felt, as John McVie once said to Mick, that what we were doing was a long way from the blues. It could have been that, or maybe it was the other way: Maybe he was slightly threatened by it. I don't really know. But he was never overly warm to me for some reason. 

But it was in 2015, probably. He used to come to our shows.

Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in 1979. Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns via Getty Images

Feel free to not broach this at all, but is there anything you can share about where you stand with the rest of Fleetwood Mac at this time?

Look, that whole thing was really something that Stevie wanted to do. It was her doing. It wasn't Mick's doing or Christine's doing or John's. 

Whatever she used as a pretense for my behavior in terms of saying she never wanted to work with me again was so minimal by comparison with what we'd been through over the previous 43 years that it didn't ring true at all to me. But on some level, I think she was a bit unhappy in her own life and was trying to remake the band slightly more in own image. 

Again, this is all me theorizing—I don't know why—but I think over the last x number of tours, even going back to the Say You Will tour back in 2003, but certainly 2008 and '09, 2013, 2014 and '15, after Christine came back, my moments on stage were quite peak. I had many peak moments. 

I had "The Chain"; I had "Tusk"; I had "Never Going Back Again"; I had "Big Love"; I had "So Afraid." I think my evolvement as a stage presence over time had sort of enlarged, and I think her—if you want to call it devolvement—as a stage presence over time had diminished a little bit. I think that was hard for her. 

Obviously, she will be and was always the figurehead singer out there, but in terms of those peak moments, I don't think she enjoyed as many. And maybe she just didn't want to be around that anymore! I don't know. I don't blame her for anything, but I haven't really spoken with her about it.

As far as the others go, you know—Mick and Christine—I was a little disappointed with their lack of strength in terms of not standing up for me at the time, but I think they all had reasons they felt they couldn't stand up to Stevie, because she basically gave them an ultimatum: "Either Lindsey goes or I go." 

It's a ridiculous ultimatum. It would be like Mick Jagger saying "Well, either Keith goes or I go." I mean, come on! It's not going to happen! But if you've got to choose one, I guess you've got to choose the singer! [Edgy laugh.]  I got a text or an email from Christine not long after that apologizing: "I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you. I just bought a house." So, that pretty much says it all, you know?

In the ensuing years, I certainly have had good conversations with Christine and everything is great, but mostly with Mick. He and I were and will always be soulmates and he's said "I'd love to get the five of us back together." Of course, he knows I would come back like a shot if that was something that were politically feasible. It remains to be seen whether that is or not.

But one thing I will say is that when all of that went down, I didn't necessarily feel left out because I didn't get to do that tour. The only thing that really got to me is—as I mentioned a second ago—we spent 43 years rising above so many difficulties in order to fulfill our destiny, you know. That has always been the legacy of Fleetwood Mac beyond the music: We always got to do that. For 43 years.

I did not see the show they did with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn, but I did see the setlist. It had Peter Green and Bob Welch songs and it had Crowded House [breaks into a giggle] and Tom Petty songs! I thought, "Well, it's awfully generic at this point. Some might even call it a cover band to some degree." It's probably not a fair term to use, but even so, I don't think it did anything but dishonor that legacy that we had built for those 43 years. That was the only thing that bothered me.

So, to be able to come back and reestablish that legacy would be quite meaningful, I think. Whether or not that's possible remains to be seen, you know? I don't blame anybody or hold a grudge against any of them, including Stevie. I know what she did, she did it out of unhappiness or perhaps out of weakness. It's all part of being in a rock 'n' roll band, I guess.

I don't know who really knows who in this circle of musicians, but I hope there wasn't any awkwardness regarding Mike and Neil joining the band.

Well, it wasn't with me because I never really interacted with them. I think there probably was in terms of coming to the band. I know Stevie was not happy with Mike Campbell later on because it was a "He's not playing that part right!" kind of thing. I've always been a fan of Neil Finn anyway, but, you know, it's a strange situation to come in like that.

When you made that point about Mike, my first thought was "Hmm... I think there's a guy who knows how to play those parts just right!"

[Mischevious laugh.]

You're very much an artist in the now and you have a whole creative future ahead of you. But when you look back on the arc of your career—all of it so far—is there anything you'd do differently or tell yourself as a younger man?

Oh, boy. I don't think so! Whatever my part was in making Stevie feel the way she did in order to have to give the band an ultimatum, I would obviously not do that. 

I think one of the things that maybe has been a good thing for me over the last three or four years since that happened—and not directly because of that—but because of that and the bypass and perhaps COVID and whatever else, I've gotten a little less self-involved, maybe, and looked around me a little more. Maybe that's something I could have done better from time to time.

Jackson Browne On New Album Downhill From Everywhere, Balancing Music & Messaging

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David Crosby

David Crosby

Photo: Anna Webber

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David Crosby On His New Album 'For Free' & Why His Twitter Account Is Actually Joyful

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David Crosby has had a rough go of it recently, losing his income, a child and nearly his house. So why does his new album, 'For Free,' sound so springy, joyful and enamored with the gift of human existence?
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jul 22, 2021 - 1:23 pm

The music community murmurs about David Crosby's Twitter account like it's a mythical sea monster. To many people online, he's the consummate curmudgeon, an octogenarian sourpuss who shares his dislike for hip-hop and shared his disapproval of the Phoebe Bridgers guitar smash on TV. (Bridgers' retort: "Little b****.") While that vibe is certainly present, a cursory look at Twitter reveals the opposite: An 80-year-old rolling around with his dogs, digging into tacos by the pool and giving thanks for the gift of life.

"It's a game I'm playing, really," Crosby tells GRAMMY.com from his Santa Ynez, California, home on a "stunning" day. "I love my friends and my family and I'm trying to be a decent member of society. I've got no problem with me right now. Since I am here today, all I want to do is use today to do whatever I can to make stuff better." Despite a series of recent, brutal tests, he sounds lighter than ever over the phone — and his new music is his bounciest and most galvanized to date.

We're talking about For Free, his new album which arrives July 23 and represents the brightest star in his recent constellation of albums. (In the 2010s, he put out the good-to-excellent Croz, Lighthouse, Sky Trails and Here If You Listen.) Aside from the elegiac closer, "I Won't Stay For Long," the mood is inexhaustibly upbeat, whether he's covering his beloved Joni Mitchell on the title track or teaming up with his hero Donald Fagen on "Rodriguez for a Night."

Ahead of his performance at the GRAMMY Museum, GRAMMY.com spoke with Crosby about what Twitter teaches him, why he recently sold his catalog and why he's not really a grumpy contrarian, but a man enamored with music and human beings.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How are you, David?

Elderly and confused! No, I'm fine, man. I'm sitting up here in central California and it's a stunning day. I'm a very happy guy. How are you?

I'm good. I'm originally from around your area. Is the heatwave still happening?

No, it's not real drastic, no. It's OK. It's in the 70s someplace.

Some people tend to paint your Twitter account as being cantankerous, but I find it to be the opposite. It's all about appreciating life as you just described it. It's a very joyful account to me.

To me, it is too, man. Every once in a while, I take a shot at somebody I don't like when they get really pretentious and blown-up. The Kanye Wests of this world, I'll occasionally stick a pin in their balloon. But mostly, I'm not trying to be Howard Stern. I'm really trying to just have fun here. I like people. I think they're fascinating. I like communicating with people.

The other thing about Twitter is that if someone tries to pick a fight, you just delete them. You don't have to deal with it. I don't have to engage in a fisticuffs battle with someone who thinks QAnon is real, for God's sake. If you're that dumb, I don't have to waste my time with you! I like that a lot. It makes it more fun.

It's interesting that you willfully open yourself up to both good people and the lowest common denominator of your fanbase.

Well, some of them are fascinating. You've got to remember: There are both kinds on here. There are Trumpers and other kinds of people who just don't understand what's going on. But there are a ton of fascinating people there too, man. People I've found up being friends with. That's where I met Steve Silberman, my friend from San Francisco. I met him on the Net.

You do meet people. It takes a while. You have to watch what they say and then you get a glimpse of who they are. Then, you test them out. You send something, they respond to it and you eventually suss out who's who. I have actually found some very fascinating people there, and I enjoy it. I like it.

I've seen Steve's tweets. He seems like a sweet guy.

He's a really bright guy. He used to write for Wired. He wrote the best book that anyone's ever written on autism. It's called NeuroTribes. It's a very scientific book, but it's written so well. It reads like a mystery novel. He won some awards with it and stuff. If you're interested in autism, I highly recommend it.

You recently sold your catalog to Irving Azoff. I've seen a lot of opinions out there as to why artists are doing this in droves, much of it misguided. Beyond the financial reality of it, what do you think this deal might do for your catalog and legacy?

It doesn't enrich my catalog or my legacy. I didn't want to do it. I did it because I had to. Here's what happened: We had two ways of making money: Touring, records. Streaming came along; streaming doesn't pay us. It's like you did your job for a month and they paid you a nickel. You'd be pissed. We're pissed. It's a wrong thing.

They threw half of our income away. Half. Gone. So then, we're trying to keep our heads up and we say, "OK, we'll be grateful we can still play live because we're paying the rent and taking care of our families. It's all good." And then, here comes COVID-19, and we can't play live!

What the hell was I supposed to do? I've got a family. I've got a home. I didn't want to lose my house. I don't want them to throw me out in the street. Are you kidding? I take this responsibility seriously. I love these people. I'm trying to do my job. So I did the one thing I could do: I sold my publishing.

Now, the reason everybody did it at the same time is a little more prosaic. A little more grubby. Everybody did it when they did it not because they were out of money like me, but because they know their taxes are all going to be different next year. In the case where you're doing a deal like $300 million, well, you're talking a $10, $20 million difference in taxes. So of course, they did it when they could get that advantage.

Regarding streaming, do you think the other shoe will drop?

I do not. I do not think it will change. I think all content — audio and video — will be streaming.

What happened, man, is they thought the technology up. They went to the record companies and they said, "Imagine no physical object." The record companies, who are not stupid, said "That'd be wonderful! No packaging? No pressing plants? No shipping! No returns! Nothing! We just send a signal and collect the money?"

They said, "What do we have to do to do that?" The streamers said, "You have to change the pay structure. You're paying all that money to these rich rock stars. You have to pay it to us instead." The record companies said, "We can do that! All you'd have to do to get us to do that is give us a piece of your company!" And they did. 

The reason the record business is doing just fine on paper is they're making a f***ing ton of money. Except they're not sharing it with the people who make the music. So, that's why we did it. I didn't want to. That's the one thing that I own. I didn't want to sell it. Of course, I didn't.

The Cameron Crowe documentary Remember My Name showed how you live modestly in a comfortable home. You don't live in the lap of luxury.

Yeah. It is comfortable, and you're right, it's not grandiose. I live in a little adobe house in the middle of a cow pasture, in the middle of a clump of trees. But it's really pretty and really peaceful and really sweet. We've been planting these plants and trees for 25 years and we love it a whole lot. So, yeah, we didn't want to lose it.

Clearly, having to sell your sailboat was heartbreaking.

Yeah, that hurt. I've had a lot of painful stuff in the last couple of years. Things couldn't go right.

Leaving CSN, I feel, was a very good thing, but very hard. I didn't like the guys. Nash and I were really not getting along at all. 

So, I'm kind of glad I did it, but the following couple of years have been hard. Financially hard, physically hard — a lot of physical stuff going on. I lost a son, which was just painful to a level that's hard to describe. And I, frankly, am very worried about my country. I think we're in a lot of trouble. I think it's better than it was, but I think we've got some real problems.

But, you know, I'm not whining and sniveling here, man. I'm lucky that I'm alive. Let's start there. There's a very good chance I wouldn't be. And I am, and I'm grateful for it. I'm lucky that I get a family that's wonderful, and I love them. 

I'm lucky that I can still sing. That's sheer luck. I did everything wrong. There's no excuse. And yet, here I am and I can sing. What do I do? I don't know if I've got two weeks or 10 years. I do know that I'm here right now. And if I concentrate on that, I can still have a lot of fun right now, today, making art that's good.

Frankly, man, the world is in kind of s*** shape. There's a lot of stuff wrong. Music's a lifting force. It makes things better.

That's what I feel when I listen to For Free. The music is so bouncy and galvanized. It seems like a tribute to the way music can be a counterweight to boredom and suffering.

Yeah, that's the idea. Yes, the record does feel like that, mostly. We didn't have a plan, man, but we certainly like it. That's what we certainly want to do: Be as joyful as we possibly can.

The best song on the record isn't joyful. It's thoughtful and sad and spooky and beautiful: "I Won't Stay For Long." There's a joy to that, too: That's how good [my son and collaborator] James [Raymond] has grown up to be.

And that seems like another part of the record's essence: Your love and admiration for your family, friends and fellow musicians.

It's a thing that happens to me, man. I wrote "Wooden Ships" with Stephen Stills and Paul Kantner. At the time, it just sort of happened. But in retrospect, I realize that's really a good thing. The other guy always thinks of something you didn't. It widens your palette of colors. It widens the possible reality that you're addressing. It's an excellent idea.

Most people take all the credit and all the money and they play it that way. [affects smarmy tone] "I'm the one who did it. Just me." I think my willingness, my joy at writing with these other people have extended my useful life as a writer for about 10 years, 20 years. And that's really a good thing, because here I am. I'm 80 years old, I've got a really good record ready to drop and I'm working on two more.

How has James developed as a songwriter and musician over the years?

He's written a ton of good songs with me. Frankly, a lot of the best stuff I've done in the last 20 years — Crosby & Nash; Crosby, Stills & Nash; the Croz record; the Sky Trails record; and now this record. He's matured as a writer. That's the best song on the record, "I Won't Stay For Long." No question.

It gave me shivers earlier.

Oh, my god. It's a beautiful song. He nailed it. Am I proud of him? Yes, I am. Am I grateful that he's still my joyful pal? Yes, I am. I just got off the phone with him. We're a really good match. The only weird thing about the relationship with James is that he's the adult and I'm the kid.

How's that?

Well, there's a rumor that I was going to grow up, but it just didn't really pan out. I'm not really a very adult person. I'm sort of like the nine-year-old in the relationship and he's the 30-year-old. He's the designated driver. He's a much more serious person than I am and definitely smarter.

David Crosby

David Crosby performing with the Byrds in 1965. Photo: CBS via Getty Images

On the topic of your family — and feel free to not broach this at all — I was thinking about Beckett and the saddening news about him. Losing a child is tragic on any level, but I was thinking that it must have kicked up extra-complicated emotions since another couple raised him.

Yeah, very tough. He was a nice kid. If you'd have known him, you would have been devastated, because he was a shiny, brainy, funny, laughing, curious, sweet, extremely bright kid. He and his sister, that was me and [my wife] Jan [Dance] trying to be good human beings and share the joy that we had.

We had Django; that was a stunning kid. Melissa [Etheridge] and Julie [Cypher] came to visit us and said "Oh my god, how do you get one of those?" Jan pointed at me, and they said "Wha… you kidding?" And she said, "No, he'll do it." I thought it over and I said "Yeah." We liked them a lot. They had been together for nine years or something. They looked stable and good. It seemed to us that lesbians have just the right to have kids as anybody else.

So, we volunteered to do that and the kids were stunners. Bailey [Jean Cypher] is just an absolutely brilliant girl, and beautiful. Beckett was the same. Bright and beautiful. Well, it didn't go well for that family. They wound up fighting each other, Melissa and Julie. That's not good, and he wound up being unhappy and he went out in the world and ran into some fentanyl that killed him.

It's a bitter pill, man. There's nothing you can do to make it light or funny or good. It's just awful.

Well, the joyful thing I can think of is in Beckett's life. You mentioned your insatiable curiosity about the human condition, which stretches through your work. I imagine the apple didn't fall from the tree with those kids, since you describe them as so brilliant.

Mm-hmm. Yep. The visits here were a lot of fun. They got along very well with Django and we were a joyous bunch together. 

From Croz to Lighthouse to Sky Trails to Here if You Listen to For Free, the throughline, to me, is you holding onto life kicking and screaming: "Please give me more years on the planet. Don't take music away from me. I love my house and family and dogs and horses. The world is largely a beautiful place."

That's a really clear read on it, man. That's good. You can do my eulogy. It is like that. It's just like that. I'm very grateful and I'm going to keep working until I drop. It's more fun than sitting around waiting to drop.

All these people are like, "Crosby's such a bitter old man!" and I'm like, "What are you talking about? He's more positive than anybody my age!"

I try to be, man. There's a certain curmudgeon thing that's fun to do. To be a crabby old man. [affects geriatric voice] "You kids don't know nothin'!" That kind of thing. It's fun and I'll do it to a degree, but it's a game I'm playing, really. 

I feel good. I feel good about the choices that I make and I feel good about my life. I feel good about what I think is valuable. I'm behaving relatively sanely. I have a good time. I smoke a little pot; it doesn't seem to hurt anything. I love my friends and my family and I'm trying to be a decent member of society. I've got no problem with me right now. Since I am here today, all I want to do is use today to do whatever I can to make stuff better.

We're arguably living through the most turbulent era since the '60s, but back then, someone like CSNY would write "Ohio" and it'd be on the radio within days. It doesn't seem like culture is stepping up to produce work that reflects or shapes the times. Do you feel that way, and if so, is it frustrating to watch?

Yeah, to a degree, I do feel that way. I wish the art were addressing the situation more. You see people being very brave. This Greta Thunberg girl is so brave out there telling the truth. 

You think, "Geez, why aren't the adults going along?" Well, we've got a whole bunch of people in our government who don't even believe global warming's real and couldn't care less anyway. They want power, and they're going to try to stop everything Joe Biden and the Democrats want to do to address it. Not because it's wrong, but because they want to stop everything the Democrats want to do. It's about power. It's not about the subject at all. 

And in so doing, they're ruining us and the rest of the world, many of whom are trying to do the right thing. It's a tough situation. Tough. I don't know how it's going to play out. The point is, if you can read and think, you'd better get down to your voting office and vote as often and as responsibly as humanly possible.

Jackson Browne On New Album 'Downhill From Everywhere,' Balancing Music & Messaging

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Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne

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Jackson Browne On New Album 'Downhill From Everywhere,' Balancing Music & Messaging

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Jackson Browne's new album, 'Downhill From Everywhere,' was the product of years of contemplation and craft. Despite dealing with heavy topics from immigration to the environment, the music has a spring in its step
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jul 21, 2021 - 2:15 pm

Randy Newman may have sang it best: "No one gives a s*** but Jackson Browne." For more than 50 years, the singer/songwriter has cared, tackling environmental collapse, organized religion, the war machine and everything in between, performing at birds-of-prey exhibits, anti-hunger benefits and Farm Aid and railing against nuclear power plants, plastic water bottles and the Iran-Contra affair.

But if this brings to mind a scolding, moralizing folksinger, you've got the wrong man: Browne writes velvety, engaging pop songs, suitable both for solo communion and your next get-together.

"I always want to make sure you aren't paying for the substance or the content by having the music be in second place," Browne tells GRAMMY.com. "That's the main quest my whole life: How to sing better, play better and make sure I get the best arrangements." For example, The title track of his new album, Downhill From Everywhere, is about society's ruinous addiction to plastic. But, again, it's music first and foremost — not a lecture to separate your polyethylene and polyurethane.

This applies to the rest of Downhill From Everywhere, which arrives July 23. If fans wish he'd make more than one album every six or seven years, it's because he remains the most careful and incisive craftsman in the game. At 72, the seven-time GRAMMY nominee's ability to house big subjects in gleaming tunes, like "Still Looking For Something," "The Dreamer" and "A Little Soon to Say," remains undimmed.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Browne over the phone to discuss the long gestation of Downhill From Everywhere, how everyday folks can help the planet and how engaging in civics — not politics — can lead to material change.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

As with your whole body of work, Downhill From Everywhere deals with heavy sociopolitical issues yet maintains this spring in its step. How do you maintain that balance?

I've always wanted music to be engaging without even having listened to the lyrics. I felt like the lyrics were there for anyone who wants them. I always want to make sure you aren't paying for the substance or the content by having the music be in second place. To me, that's the main quest my whole life — how to sing better, how to play better and make sure I get the best arrangements.

I've been learning how to be a bandleader in earnest for about 20 years. It's a journey of many steps. I really feel like I got someplace in recording this record that I hadn't been before. It mainly has to do with the amount of time it took to do it. It sort of enforced the seclusion and introspection of it. But I think it's always the case that you want songs that sound good and that are fun to listen to.

My friend Holly Near — a prominent activist and singer/songwriter — said many years ago: People see me coming and expect to hear 900 verses about fuel rockets. You can't do that. You have to sing a song that they know. Also, what we all share together is the life we have together.

Tell me more about becoming a bandleader — that sense of unspoken communication with your accompanists.

The bandleader thing is a quest. Around the beginning of the '80s, I started to try to involve myself in arranging more than I had before. I just lucked into a lot of players that were great in the studio — very creative and made stuff up. I would sift through it and pick the best stuff.

But as far as being proactive in the studio and asking for them to do certain things, I sort of got that message or quest from Jon Landau, who produced my fourth album, [1976's] The Pretender. I saw him working with the musicians in the studio and thought, "He can really shape this." It just took me a long time to get good at it.

Part of it is that you think you can tell them in words, but you can't. So, there's a whole process of getting people to play the song and get the best of them. Part of it, also, is that the main band on this record are people that I've been working with for quite a few years now. [Multi-instrumentalist] Jeff Young and [drummer] Mauricio Lewak. Bob Glaub is the bass player. He'd done a lot of my earlier records from the '70s and rejoined the band a few years ago, so he's on the last couple of records. 

It's a band that's evolved. I'm really lucky I've got two amazing guitar players who not only do unique things, but inspire each other and play to each other and make amazing things happen.

I love Leslie Mendelson's vocals on "Human Touch."

Yeah, I got to meet her because we both know the filmmaker Paul Haggis. He made this film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. The film is called 5B—the name of the preferred ward dedicated to AIDS patients. We were sort of put together by him and it was a very lucky pairing. Her vocals come with the song and I loved her singing from the beginning. 

She could be singing from the South, but she's actually a New Yorker. It's a wonderful quality in her vocal that's really engaging. I don't usually sign up to work with people I don't even know or haven't heard before, so it was luck.

Is it weird to be talking about music you made pre-pandemic as though it's new?

Well, no. It always takes me several years to make a record because it takes me that long to write songs that I like. I don't write a lot of songs. I start a lot of songs, but I don't finish a lot of songs. So, that's just my process. But it is weird to finish something and have to wait.

The songs are written out of personal experience and immersion in certain ideas. They come to fruition over a period of several years — and those are the quick ones. Some of them came to fruition over many years, like "The Dreamer" or "Still Looking for Something." They're songs I tried to write a long time ago.

Some of these songs are half-written when you get into the studio. I had the feeling and the chords and the music and the first few lines of "Until Justice is Real." I didn't know where I was going to go, and I started working on it in the studio and words came. That was a fairly recent song, but like I said, the beginnings of the music were in my head for a while.

For instance, that song was a riddle. Like many songs, the first few lines I had for that song were a question. I don't know what I'm talking about. Why did I sing that? "Ain't on your TV/Ain't on your phone/You want to find it, you got to find it on your own." I [revised it to] "You want the truth, you've got to find it on your own" because I wanted it to be more directly about that from the beginning of the song and not have to wade through the song to find what it was about.

Really, that's what the songwriting process is about: To delve into something and ask myself a lot of questions. In a way, I think they also become songs that ask the listener questions. You don't have to necessarily answer them.

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne with engineer Kevin Smith. Photo: Lori Fletcher

In that song, you seem to posit that equality can be obtained for free — not via a TV station or newspaper or self-help book. It might be by looking your neighbor of another background in the eye and listening to what they have to say.

I actually think you've got something there. I agree with that. I think it's a lot simpler than it appears to be. I think very often that we're divided by various people selling us things. I struggle with this a lot: "The truth is going to cost you in the land of the free." The truth is for sale. I messed with that [line]. It's not easy for a line like that to roll off the tongue.

But that is the truth. Everybody's trying to sell you something, and very often, it's the same thing that keeps you from immersing yourself in an issue. We all have an understanding that people want you to sign up for something and want your participation, but they really want your money. They want you to join up and pay.

In the next song on the record, "A Little Soon to Say," the lines "Searching the horizon for what we can't quite see/When all we've ever needed/Has been there all along inside of you and me" do suggest that the solutions are within us and can be found.

There's so much going on. There are people who are experts in dividing us. Politicians, but also marketers. People who use our need for identity to sell us on a program or a version of life that you can buy. You can't buy it because it is for free. It's only found by searching.

The topic of environmental collapse weighs heavily on the album. I see this topic as kind of weaving in and out of the news depending on what else is going on. What can the average person who might feel helpless on their own to alter anything contribute to preserving the planet?

What you do really does matter. What you consume and how you live your life day-to-day really do matter and have an impact. As a matter of fact, we as consumers have a greater power than we could ever imagine we do. You have tremendous power. You have the power to do that.

Maybe an electric car costs a little bit more, but in a very short time, you're going to make up that money. Within a year or two, you'll be saving money and paying yourself. Same with making solar improvements to your house. 

When it comes to cleaning up the environment, if you throw away a plastic package and think it goes somewhere away, it doesn't go away. It goes into the environment — either the street, the landfill or the ocean — and it has to be cleaned up. And that is actually a cost to society. You wind up paying for it in your taxes. 

I think you have to sometimes look for it and spend the time examining those issues, and sometimes, they don't seem as present as other issues. Like you say, it kind of comes and goes, right? There's only so much you can do. "Exxon can do the rest." And that's fine. However much you can do is fine. Whatever steps you can do now will lead to a greater understanding and will actually make a huge difference. 

Every generation has got their crop of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed venture capitalists who want to disregard the science and the problems that come from waste. They don't consider waste cleanup part of their bottom line, but it should be their responsibility. All these companies should be figuring out a way to [manufacture] these products without choking the life out of the oceans and waterways of our country.

That's a real fight, and it's more than you can put into a song. That's why "Downhill from Everywhere" mentions this stuff. It's a rallying cry, maybe. It's a question to be asked. What I like about this [song] is that the images are just images from contemporary life. "Downhill from the church and the stadium," or the prison and the mall. 

They're comparisons or juxtapositions. It's a cavalcade or panoramic view of society, and all these are images that produce or use great amounts of plastic. I like the idea that the ocean is downhill from everything we do. Downhill from humanity, just receiving all this crap.

Of course, we need the ocean to survive as a species. A long time before the ocean dies, humanity will die because the ocean can no longer support [it].

I've been thinking that perhaps a million little actions might be the answer. Should we be thinking less in politics and more in terms of civics and community action?

I do. I think that's well put. I think that's more succinct than I could ever put it, but I do agree with you on that. Taking an interest in how your city is run. A lot of young people are doing exactly that, whether it's the young people that have involved themselves in trying to advance gun legislation or the kids from Stoneman [Douglas] High School. Greta Thunberg going to the U.N. and speaking. I think that's a very powerful voice.

When you say "civics," I think about how few city council meetings I've recently attended. You can listen to them on the radio, but yeah, God. It's like watching paint dry, of course. But, then, so is songwriting. It's such a glacial process. I think everyone has some way where they have some possibility of engaging and making a difference.

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