The Pretender Tender Is The Night Doctor My Eyes Running On Empty Jackson Browne

The Pretender Album: The Pretender (1976)
Tender Is The Night Album: Lawyers In Love (1983)
Doctor My Eyes Album: Jackson Browne (1972)
Running On Empty Album: Running on Empty (1977)
by Jackson Browne

This song is about a man who gives up his dreams and lives a life of routine monotony in order to accumulate money. He is The Pretender.

In a 1997 interview with Mojo magazine, Browne said of this song: "I'm a big fan of ambiguity and its bountiful rewards, and 'The Pretender' is two things at once. It's that person in all of us that has a higher ideal, and the part that has settled for compromise - like Truffaut says, there's the movie you set out to make, and there's the one you settle for. But in a more serious way, 'The Pretender' is about '60s idealism, the idea of life being about love and brotherhood, justice, social change and enlightenment, those concepts we were flooded with as our generation hit its stride; and how, later, we settled for something quite different. So when I say 'Say a prayer for The Pretender,' I'm talking about those people who are trying to convince themselves that there really was nothing to that idealism."

Browne wrote The Pretender after tending to a person with schizophrenia. "We spent about two or three days trying to get this guy help," he told Rolling Stone in 2014. "He disappeared once, and we found him down the street, sitting in the living room of a Latino family, smoking a cigarette and acing like he belonged there, like nothing was wrong. He was faking it, pretending to belong. I wouldn't say 'The Pretender' came out of that story, but the idea is there: that we're pretending to go along with something that isn't quite where we belong, a default version of reality, with a job and a house."

That's David Crosby and Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young) on harmony vocals on The Pretender. Like Browne, they were part of the Laurel Canyon scene in California; all three were romantically linked to Joni Mitchell at one time or another.

Jeff Porcaro, later of Toto, was the drummer on the track. The other musicians were:

Fred Tackett - guitars
Leeland Sklar - bass
Craig Doerge - piano

"The Pretender" is the title track to Jackson Browne's fourth album, made at a challenging time for the singer. After giving birth to their son Ethan in 1973, Phyllis Major, whom Browne married in 1975, fell into a depression, and she died by suicide in March 1976. Browne stopped work on the album for a few months but finished it in time for release in November.

This was the second (and last) single released from the album, following "Here Come Those Tears Again." Neither song reached lofty heights on the charts, but Browne's audience was an album-buying crowd, and they scooped up over 3 million copies, giving him his commercial breakthrough. Throughout his career, Browne focused on complete albums, even in the age of streaming. His biggest chart hit, "Somebody's Baby," he wrote for the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack.

Browne had a very clear idea of what he wanted his songs to sound like, so he acted as his own producer on his first three albums. For The Pretender, he changed course and brought in Bruce Springsteen's producer Jon Landau in that role. The change of heart came when Browne produced Warren Zevon's self-titled 1976 album; he saw the value of having another set of ears in the studio.

A conceptual antecedent is the 1956 doo-wop classic "The Great Pretender" by The Platters. In that song, the singer is the pretender, acting like he's feeling fine but truly shattered by heartbreak.

The Pretender appears on the soundtrack of the 1995 movie Mr. Holland's Opus.

Browne performed "The Pretender" and "Running On Empty" when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live September 24, 1977.

Browne would often let his songs marinate for a while before he recorded them; that was the case here. "'The Pretender' took a long time," he told Rolling Stone in 2008. "It's not that I worked on it every day; I was reluctant to finish it before I had gotten all there was out of it. Songwriting is a search. Most of my songs set up a bunch of questions, and it takes a while to answer them."

The Pretender has remained relevant through the decades and is one the ones Browne plays most often at concerts. Looking back on the song in 2015, he told Mojo magazine: "It's grappling with the question of whether the life you're living is the life you thought you were heading for. 'The Pretender' is an open question: Do you find life's best qualities by having children and a job, or in tearing those things down?"

In his 1819 poem Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats wrote:

Tender is the night
and haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne

F. Scott Fitzgerald co-opted the phrase "tender is the night" for his 1934 novel, which became a classic of American literature. Another 50 years later (OK, 49, but we'd like some poetic license here), Jackson Browne used the title for his song about the wonders of love.

Jackson Browne wrote Tender Is The Night with Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel, whose names are familiar to anyone who has looked over the credits to albums by Don Henley (I Can't Stand Still), Carole King (Tapestry, Thoroughbred), Linda Ronstadt (Mad Love, Get Closer) and many others. Kortchmar and Kunkel - a guitarist and drummer, respectively - played on the Lawyers In Love album and also Browne's previous LP Running On Empty.

Danny Kortchmar explained how the song came together:

"That started with me and Russ Kunkel sitting in my living room and just throwing some ideas around. I liked the idea that we say 'tender is the night,' which is a literary reference, and then combine that with 'when you hold your baby tight,' which is a doo-wop sort of reference. So you had highbrow and lowbrow going in the same chorus. That's what we liked about it."

When the pair came came up with Tender Is The Night, they brought it to Browne knowing that he could turn it into something special.
Browne and his band worked on this song for months, rolling tape as they did one demo version after another at a loft in Los Angeles. Browne figures they recorded hundreds of versions of the song, but they're all very similar.

Rick Vito played the slide guitar solo on this track, which Browne has described as "amazing." Vito was a prominent session player in the '70s and '80s before joining Fleetwood Mac in 1987. He appeared on albums by John Mayall, Bonnie Raitt, Todd Rundgren and many others.

Jackson Browne's songs often ask if it's better to see the world through the harsh lens of reality, or to just leave on the rose-colored glasses. He does just that in "Doctor My Eyes," asking if was unwise to leave his eyes open for so long, as now he must contend with a "slow parade of fears."

Doctor My Eyes had a very literal inspiration. "I did, in fact, have something happen to my eyes," Browne told Rolling Stone. "They became red, I could barely see - I didn't know what it was. They gave me some drops: 'Keep your eyes shut for a few days.' By the time I wrote this, I could see again. But it was a metaphor for having seen too much, a loss of innocence."

Originally, the lyrics were about a guy who tries to get help, but is doomed because it's too late. Browne's record company thought it was too much of a downer, so he made it into a story about a guy who has gone through a lot in life and comes to accept his fate.

Browne's Southern California musical cohorts David Crosby and Graham Nash sang harmony vocals. Brown was signed to Asylum Records, which was owned by David Geffen. According to Jackson, Geffen asked Nash if he thought there was a single on the album (Browne's first), and Nash picked this one, with the proviso that Browne add a high vocal part, which he did.

"Doctor My Eyes" was Jackson Browne's first single. It's far more compact than most of his songs, running a radio-friendly 2:55. It did very well in America and remained a fan favorite, garnering lots of airplay on Classic Rock and Adult Contemporary radio, and often earning a spot on Browne's setlists.

Getting that first hit under his belt was satisfying for Browne, whose first recorded album (in 1968) was never released.

The guitar solo on Doctor My Eyes was played by Jesse Ed Davis, a brilliant but troubled musician who performed on albums by Willie Nelson, Marvin Gaye and John Lennon. Davis died in 1988 at age 43 in what appeared to be a drug overdose.

Browne was just 23 when Doctor My Eyes was released, but he was well known in the Southern California music community, where he had high standing with the likes of Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. A few years earlier, he was part of an early permutation of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which ended up recording two of his songs: "Melissa" and "Holding." He also worked with Nico and Tim Buckley as a backing musician; Nico covered Browne's song "These Days" in 1967.

Browne, though, had never had his own band, so putting one together for the album was a challenge. He ended up anchoring it around bass player Lee Sklar and drummer Russ Kunkel, who where James Taylor's rhythm section and much-admired session pros. Instead of working with a high-powered producer, Browne put engineer Richard Orshoff in that role and gave his players lots of input. They were able to transform the songs he had been playing solo on acoustic guitar into full arrangements.

Jackson Browne and the Eagles were creative kin and rose to fame around the same time in 1972. Browne was first on the charts, with "Doctor My Eyes" peaking at #8 in America in May 1972. In July, the Eagles reached #12 with their first single, "Take It Easy," a song Browne co-wrote with Glenn Frey. Browne included his version of "Take It Easy" on his next album, For Everyman.

Browne played the piano himself, which starts off Doctor My Eyes and originally played all the way through. The arrangement changed in the studio as Browne encouraged the musicians to explore. "If the song was a hit, it was because of Russ Kunkel's swing rhythm and David Crosby's fantastic harmonies," Browne told Rolling Stone. "That's what those things are made of - the stuff that sticks to you."

In the UK, it was The Jackson 5 who had a hit with "Doctor My Eyes"; their 1973 cover went to #9. On their version, Jermaine Jackson came in too early and ended up repeating the first line. His error was allowed to remain in the final mix.

Paula Cole sang Doctor My Eyes for the 2004 film Eulogy. Other artists to cover it include Wilson Phillips, Gretchen Wilson, and Garth Brooks.

Recorded onstage, backstage, in three different hotel rooms, and on a Continental Silver Eagle tour bus during a cross-country tour in 1977, the Running on Empty album is a paean to life on the road. The title track, along with "The Load-Out/Stay," was recorded live during a concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on August 27, 1977.

"Running On Empty" is a popular metaphor for being exhausted, but the phrase had a much more literal meaning for Browne when it came to him. Browne wrote it while he was driving back and forth to the studio each day to make his album The Pretender. He told Rolling Stone: "I was always driving around with no gas in the car, I just never bothered to fill up the tank because - how far was it anyway? Just a few blocks."

Unlike Bryan Adams, who was 9 years old in the summer of '69, the timeline in "Running On Empty" is accurate: Jackson Browne really was 17 in 1965 and 21 in 1969 (when he "called the road my own").

Running On Empty is the opening track on the Running On Empty album. The album version opens with 30 seconds of hooting and hollering from the crowd as they eagerly anticipate the performance. When the song ends, we hear about 20 seconds of cheering before it fades to silence and the next song, "The Road," recorded at a different venue, comes in, continuing the travelogue. Most of the cheering on "Running On Empty" is cut from the single release.

Belying the title, "Running On Empty" has a lot of energy, which Browne attributes to the vocals of his backing singer, Rosemary Butler, who brings the heat in the chorus.
Jackson Browne released four studio albums from 1972-1976 - a hectic pace, but a schedule that was typical for artists in the '70s. To catch a break while still honoring their obligations to their labels, acts would often put together a live album every now and then, which saved them the trouble of recording new songs.

This was Browne's plan, except he wanted to include some new songs as well (a very prolific songwriter, he had lots of material). Stops on Browne's tour during the summer of 1977 were recorded for the album, and when they started compiling it, Browne and his crew decided that it sounded best with all new songs, and that "Running on Empty" would make a great title track. When the album was released, it was a landmark: The first live rock album with all new songs.

Running On Empty was so part of mainstream culture in America that in the sitcom Mork & Mindy, a framed copy of the album cover hung on the wall in Mindy's apartment.
In August 2008, lifelong Democrat Jackson Browne filed a lawsuit against Republican presidential candidate John McCain, after the politician used a portion of this song in a presidential campaign TV ad without permission. Browne's lawyer Lawrence Iser said: "Not only have Senator McCain and his agents plainly infringed Mr. Browne's copyright in 'Running on Empty,' but the Federal Courts have long held that the unauthorized use of a famous singer's voice in a commercial constitutes a false endorsement and a violation of the singer's right of publicity."

While McCain had every right to play Running On Empty at campaign rallies, synching it up to video requires special permission, which is why songs used in commercials, movies and TV shows must be cleared.