Jackson Browne – Running On Empty

The album Running On Empty album was always very interesting to me. He basically made a new album in front of audiences and in hotels. The songs were not his old songs…they were songs he would have ordinarily gone into a studio with. This song was recorded at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on August 27, 1977. It was the first live rock album with all new songs.

The album and song were about life on the road in all its glory and squalor. To emphasize this notion even further, Browne literally recorded the album on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and, in the case of “Running On Empty,” on stage.

The dates and ages given in the song (“In ‘65 I was seventeen” and “In ‘69 I was 21”) synch up with Jackson’s own timeline. He imagines a life spent running for so long that it becomes difficult to know where it all started or where it will end. He is not looking back in the song…he sings it in the present tense. He wrote about himself and where he was at in 1978.

In 1976 Browne had a terrible year. His wife, model Phyllis Major, had committed suicide, leaving Browne to raise their toddler son alone. The grief of her death permeated his fourth album, The Pretender. You can hear it in the single off of that album, “Here Come Those Tears Again,” co-written by Major’s mother, Nancy Farnsworth.

The song’s title track and opening cut blasted strong right out of the gate, landing on radio playlists across the country as the single soared up the charts. The single peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada.

The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard Album Chart in 1978. and #8 in Canada (the best I can find) in 1978.

Jackson Browne: “I’ve always been real close with my crew, as a matter of fact, the guy who’s my manager now. Lines like, “The first to come and the last to leave,” come from him. His name’s Buddha. He’s a guy that you’d wind up spending an incredible amount of time with… people that you’d get to know because the closeness. These guys work really hard, and at least in those days they really did make practically the minimum wage.”

Running On Empty

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty five I was seventeen and running up 101
I don’t know where I’m running now, I’m just running on

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned, into the road I’m on

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don’t know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that’ll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I’d love to stick around but I’m running behind
You know I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find
Running into the sun but I’m running behind

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

32 thoughts on “Jackson Browne – Running On Empty”

  5. Had a neighbor who played “The Pretender” non-stop. Was in an apartment at the time, so I had no real choice but to like it lol. That being said, he was a big fan of all of Jackson’s music to that point so I got to hear all his songs. I eventually became a big fan as well.

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    1. Your experience ended up better than mine. I had a neighbor, when I lived in apartments, that liked The Long Run by the Eagles at 2am in the morning…that might be the reason I’m not too keen on the Eagles lol.

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      1. There’s a solution to that. I had an upstairs neighbor who invited the whole bar over for a party almost nightly at closing time. Asking them to turn down the music worked for about 30 seconds. One Sunday morning they wound down about 6. I waited until it had been quiet for ½ hour, then put on Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”, held a speaker up to the air vent in the ceiling, and turned it all the way up (to 11;). After 5 minutes I turned it back down. They didn’t bother us again and soon moved out. Some neighbors might come down and shoot you instead, so I’d use this method with some thought.

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      2. That would have worked! I wanted to do the same but they were above me and I didn’t want to upset people beside me. After a few weeks they were warned, by someone else, and they finally stopped…glad that worked for you!

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  6. I said it when you picked it as a Max pick not long ago, I’ll say it again – Browne’s shining moment , among a lot of high points, and one of the best singles of the entire decade. I never get tired of it. the whole album was strong and so innovative in the way he did it. It might have turned a musician or two away from persuing their goals though – it didn’t make life as a rock star seem all that glamorous.

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    1. This was one of those songs that I thought…what the hell? I haven’t done this one yet. I only have covered one of his songs…”Somebody’s Baby” thats it.
      Well he was truthful in it though…the next song I’ll do by him will be The Load Out.

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  7. I love, love, l.o.v.e. that album! In fact, when I BRIEFLY considered pursuing music as a career in my early ’20s, I dreamed of making music like Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty”. I guess I was in a state similar to having cocaine all around my brain! 🙂

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