Jackson Brown - Lives In The Balance

[surfered]

[Easterncedar]

1. Oh how I wish this were less on point

Gorgeous, heartbreaking and true.

I love this song, and had forgotten it. Thanks.

[surfered]

2. I had forgotten it, too. Sadly, it will always be timely

[Easterncedar]

3. The lines about selling us a president are devastating

Dammit. Some part of me wants to believe the country is better than it clearly is.

[surfered]

4. It's shocking and disappointing

[keep_left]

5. Didn't this come out during the time of the Reagan administration's adventurism...

...in Central America? I seem to recall that the song was inspired by the Salvadoran civil war (and the role the US played in it).

[surfered]

6. It was released in 1986

From Rolling Stone:

Jimmy Guterman, in his 1986 Rolling Stone review of the Lives in the Balance album, wrote approvingly of the lyrics of the song: "For Browne, our crimes in Central America are the clearest example of the wrongheadedness of U.S. foreign policy. 'Who are the ones that we call our friends?' Browne asks on the scathingly trenchant 'Lives in the Balance' and sadly answers himself: 'Governments killing their own.'"