Songoftheday 10/8/14 - As if I really didn't understand that I was just another part of their plan, I went off looking for the promise believing in the Motherland...

Jackson Browne - "For America"
from the album Lives In The Balance (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's Song of the Day comes from rock singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, whose 1983 album Lawyers In Love shuffled out two top-40 pop hits with "Tender Is The Night" and the title track. In the three-year span between albums, Browne guested on E Street Band sax-man Clarence Clemons' hit single "You're A Friend Of Mine". Also, along with girlfriend Daryl Hannah had become more and more involved with social and political causes, and that influenced his work on his eighth studio set Lives in The Balance. The first single from the project, "For America", had a Reagan-era-friendly title but a subversive message about the blind apathy of its people behind an addled leader, be it Ronnie or Richard, and it sounded like it was taken out of an 80s movie or Miami Vice...

"For America" became Jackson's eleventh and so-far most recent top-40 pop hit in April of 1986. It also was his biggest hit single on the Mainstream Rock radio chart in Billboard magazine, climbing to #3.

Browne's follow-up single, "In The Shape Of A Heart", ended up his last Hot 100 appearance at #70. His next album in 1989, World In Motion, didn't have any reception on pop radio but did score a pair of top-ten rock hits, with the title track reaching #4. His next record I'm Alive's title track went to #18 in 1993 on the rock list (his last there). Most recently, in 2002 his single "The Night Inside Me" nicked the adult contemporary radio chart at #25, though his last four albums have hit the top-40 on the albums chart, so he's still got quite a following.

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and here's Browne performing "For America" live...

Up tomorrow: a Fab-Fiver gets you all tied up at the movies.