A Raw and Profound Confession of Shared Grief, a Heartbreaking Look at the Cyclical, Unpredictable Nature of Loss.
The autumn of 1976 delivered a defining, devastating album from the singer-songwriter often revered as the poetic conscience of his generation. Jackson Browne, whose music had always explored the sensitive contours of human emotion, released The Pretender during a period of unimaginable private catastrophe, following the suicide of his first wife, Phyllis Major, earlier that year. The album quickly became a commercial landmark, peaking at number 5 on the Billboard 200, yet its fame was utterly eclipsed by its profound, raw sorrow. Deep within this emotional crucible of a record lies a song that was never released as a single and held no chart position, but which stands as one of the most heartbreaking and honest meditations on grief ever recorded. That song is “Here Come Those Tears Again.” Its drama is not theatrical; it is the raw, intimate exposure of a family’s shared agony.
The story behind “Here Come Those Tears Again” is one of the most poignant narratives in Jackson Browne’s catalog, rooted in a profoundly shared experience of loss. The song was co-written by Jackson Browne and his own mother, Bonnie Browne. This extraordinary, collaborative act of mourning elevates the piece from a personal lament into a universal elegy, capturing the devastation experienced not just by a husband, but by an entire family. The drama is the sound of a son and a mother, facing the same insurmountable pain, finding a way to articulate their common wound through art. It’s a moment of unparalleled vulnerability, with the lyrics flowing from a place of necessary confrontation, refusing to sanitize the process of coping with the sudden, inexplicable void left by a loved one.
The meaning of the song is etched into its very title: it is about the unpredictable, cyclical nature of grief. The tears do not arrive in a single, cathartic storm; they return, unbidden and overwhelming, triggered by the smallest, most innocent memory—a familiar street, a phrase overheard, a melody on the radio. Browne’s weary vocal, thick with the experience of enduring, captures the moment when the defenses fall and the pain surfaces once more. The music provides a gentle, mid-tempo folk-rock canvas for this complexity. The sound is simultaneously comforting and deeply melancholic, a testament to the skill of the musicians who gathered around Browne in his time of need. The presence of David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals adds a layer of shared sorrow, making the song feel like a communal expression of pain. Most notably, the legendary Bonnie Raitt contributes slide guitar work, often described by critics as “weeping,” a ghostly, mournful sound that perfectly encapsulates the song’s central, aching theme.
For those of us who navigated the personal dramas of the 1970s with Jackson Browne as our quiet confidante, “Here Come Those Tears Again” is a crucial, if painful, touchstone. It is a nostalgic reminder of the era when the singer-songwriter acted as a public confessor, transforming devastating private pain into enduring, deeply human art. The song endures because it speaks to the one truth of loss: the tears always come again. It stands as a timeless, deeply emotional, and profoundly dramatic elegy, a beautiful, shattering record of the struggle for survival in the face of absolute despair.