In 1994, Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump had a scene where this "great American underdog" Forrest starts running and runs cross-state, inspiring much interest. Forrest Gump actually has a superlative soundtrack(probably to make up for very little in the film that's really superlative), and one of the songs that starts of Forrest's run is the title track from Jackson Browne's Running on Empty.
All the songs on Running on Empty are recordings of performances at concerts and probably don't exist as studio recordings. Which is probably very apt, because it is an album about a musician's life on the road. A good many aspects of touring and performing are examined - for example, "The Road" is about the emptyness of performing at city after city, though "a good song takes you far"; "Rosie" is the best song I've ever heard about groupies; "Cocaine", written by Rev. Gary Davis, is about that all-too indispensable little drug which makes touring such a high. There's also "Shaky Town", which I really liked a lot, and "The Load-Out", which is about winding down a show and its aftermath; it perfectly and beautifully segues into Maurice Williams' lovely song "Stay", which so encapsulates the desperate, clutching, empty, gnawing need performers have for companionship(at least) and love(at best) on the road.
The title track, however, is a song of a different stripe, both perfectly capsulising the chief concerns of the album, and also transcending it majestically. Many times, performers find themselves "running on empty" on stage, for sure, with very little left to give; but this was triumphantly true not just for being "on the road", but also for rock music in general, and in a really cosmic backdrop, for the decade too. The Seventies were emptyness itself, for sure; and Jackson Browne had already written the PERFECT song to capture this - the title track from his earlier album The Pretender. Taken with "Running on Empty", we have two songs which pretty much sewed up the Seventies between them:)
As always, Jackson Browne has a superlative set of musicians who mine out every little emotion in his music and bring it to blossom fully. Craig Doerge, for one, writes "Shaky Town", and David Lindley does this refreshing turn in "Stay". Russ Kunkel and Leland Sklar are also superlative. The music has integrity - basically good, folk-rock and country-rock based stuff, with Browne's gravelly yet soaring voice.
It isn't Browne's best, however; there are moments where the energy and inspiration does flag. Not as cohesive or focused as his other brilliant efforts - especially 1976's The Pretender. It's a good study of its theme, no more, no less. Except, perhaps, the dramatic, brilliant, incisive title track.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.
