“The Pretender” by Jackson Browne

"The Pretender" is the title track of Jackson Browne's 1976 album, and he wrote it all over the map: in Los Angeles, in a storefront he rented in North Hollywood, and in a hotel in Hawaii he called tacky. The song was nearly finished before he found the piano riff that opens it, and Craig Doerge plays that piano right out front.

Browne says the pretender isn't exactly him, though there's some of him in it: it's anyone who has let their dreams slip and settled for going through the motions, chasing the comfortable life other people seem to have. Jon Landau produced, Jeff Porcaro, Bob Glaub and Fred Tackett lay down a steady, rolling bed, and David Crosby and Graham Nash lend harmony, and Browne sings it like a man half resigned and half ready to fight.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.