I am stealing this trope from someone, but I am hoping he doesn’t mind. Each Friday, I’m going to post a Flashback – a book, song, movie, whatever – because, let’s face it, I’m a Cancer and we practically tattoo our nostalgia on our foreheads. Today’s Flashback Friday: Jackson Browne.

I had a cool boss when I worked at my favorite job on Long Beach Island, and she introduced me to Jackson Browne. Looking East played in at least one of the stores each day, so when I would make tee shirt drop-offs or pick up a friend for our break, he'd be there, coming out of the seven-disc player, muffled by hooded sweatshirts. I got to know the CD well. One night on a summer about 14 years ago, my boss, a new mom and barely 30 years old, got into a car accident she didn’t survive, and I stood in a blacktop church parking lot on the bay during her funeral, tears mingling with sweat, singing this song in my head, over and over.

I didn’t mean for this to be sad; I just think of her often, and so I think of Jackson Browne often. Her death was really the first one I had experienced (lucky for me, considering I was in my late teens) and those kinds of things usually carve new synapses into your brain, leaving you permanently marked.

Anyway, the funny thing I just learned about this song and this album is that it was released in the mid-90s. This whole time, I thought it was from much earlier than that, like most of the music we listened to in those stores. The more you know!