Here Come Those Tears Again
"Here Come Those Tears Again" | |
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Song | |
B-side | "Linda Paloma" |
"Here Come Those Tears Again" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne and included on his 1976 album The Pretender. Released as a single, it reached #23 one year to the week after the death of Browne's wife, Phyllis Major, spending nine weeks on the chart, after entering the Billboard Hot 100 on February 5, 1977 at position #64, the highest debut of the week. It also reached #15 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The single was the eighth-highest charting of his Hot 100 career. It was also released as a single in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.[1][2][3][4]
History
The song was credited as being co-written with Nancy Farnsworth, the mother of Browne's wife, model/actor Phyllis Major. Major had died in March 1976 of an overdose, an apparent suicide, during the period of the recording of the album. According to the Internet Movie Database, Major's mother visited with Browne and Phyllis on vacation in Paris following the Late for the Sky tour. Farnsworth "asked Jackson to peruse an unfinished song she had written. Jackson liked the lyrics and incorporated them into a song."[5] The lyrics concern a lover who had left because that person "needed to be free" and "had some things to work out alone," and the narrator's reaction to that return, with the lover claiming they had "grown:"
- ...When I can look at you without crying,
- You might look like a friend of mine.
- But I don't know if I can
- Open up enough to let you in.
- Here come those tears again.
The song concludes with an apparently final rejection of the lover:
- I'm going back inside and turning out the light,
- And I'll be in the dark, but you'll be out of sight.
John Hall of Orleans plays the guitar solo, although the arrangement is dominated by Billy Payne's piano and Mike Utley's organ, as well as Bonnie Raitt and Rosemary Butler's harmonizing backup vocals. Tim Powers from Waltham, Mass. and a voice talent for WBCN Boston just happened to be in the studio when the song was recorded and was asked to play drums when the studio drummer never appeared for the session. Producer Jon Landau is credited in the album credits with "random notes."
Chart positions
Chart (1977) | Peak position |
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U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 23 |
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary | 15 |
Notes
- ^ Billboard.com. Jackson Browne Chart History. Accessed July 10, 2012.
- ^ Wikipedia Jackson Browne Discography Accessed July 10, 2012.
- ^ Paris, Russ. JACKSON BROWNE COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY Archived 2012-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Whitburn, Joel. Billboard Hot 100 Charts - The Seventies. Wisconsin: Record Research, 1990.
- ^ Heuck, Mark Edward. Internet Movie Database. Phyllis Major Biography. Accessed July 10, 2012.