It seems safe [now], if somewhat brash, to make a claim: Jackson Browne is the most important American songwriter since Bob Dylan and is perhaps as true a voice of the 70's as we are going to hear.

The claim requires apologias on several fronts. The first is that Browne is nowhere near so loose, prolific or wide-ranging as Dylan, and we still have not seen all that much of his work yet….

The second apologia is to recognize that "The 70's" is a vague and amorphous term….

[This] decade does have its feel, defined, as all eras, by the overriding political and economic realities of the society. Much of the tone of the 70's is a result of the accommodation of people's minds to a geometrically expanding technology. (p. 242)

The songwriter has a special place in this scheme, for at his best he verbalizes the state of...