BLUE PEN | I was – and still am – a Jackson Browne fan – wilson tichelaar ©2019
I was listening to an old favorite, the song The Only Child by Jackson Browne.
As a teenager in college I proudly wore a badge with his name, drawn with a blue pen, selfmade as a gift by a gorgeous 18-year old admirer. It read Jackson Brown, the ‘e’ was forgotten. (He died when I told him. So adorable when I think of it now 🙂
It was similar to the image above which I made from memory.
Tumbling from my memory while listening to the lyrics the story is now filled with so much more detail (!) compared to when I first loved it. Now that I have a son, an only child, I love it even more. But the feeling is the exactly the same, like a breathtaking inescapable truth.
I love the sleeve design too: There’s protest in The Pretender done in spray paint. A busy sidewalk in an American City in the Seventies. Jackson is a face in the crowd, but wearing a simple white t-shirt, no text, no message. Art direction and design – Gary Burden, Front cover photo – Tom Kelley.
