1976, The Pretender-Jackson Browne ,
Songwriter ：Jackson Browne , Nancy Farnsworth ,
Jackson Browne’s “Here Come Those Tears Again” appears as the fourth track on Side One of his 1976 album *The Pretender*. The album, his fourth studio release, was recorded during one of the most painful periods of his life.
During the making of the album, Browne’s wife, Phyllis Major, died in March 1976. Her death cast a long shadow over the record, and *The Pretender* became a deeply personal work about loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and the struggle to keep moving when life has suddenly changed.
“Here Come Those Tears Again” is, on the surface, a song about someone who has returned after a painful separation.
The narrator has tried to move on.
He has spent nights learning how to live without the other person. He thinks he may finally be strong enough to get through it.
Then that person comes back.
And suddenly, the old feelings return.
So do the tears.
That is what makes the song so powerful. The tears are not simply about missing someone. They represent everything we thought we had finally put behind us, only to discover that it is still there.
Time does not always erase grief.
Sometimes it only teaches us how to live around it.
🎸The story behind the songwriting makes the song even more poignant. Browne shares the writing credit with Nancy Farnsworth, the mother of Phyllis Major. According to biographical accounts, Farnsworth had an unfinished song and asked Browne to look at the lyrics. He was moved by them and incorporated them into the song, eventually completing the piece together with her.
That connection gives the song another layer of meaning.
Nancy had lost her daughter.
Jackson had lost his wife.
And somehow, words that began as an unfinished piece of writing became a song about the return of overwhelming emotion.
The song never tries to make grief sound simple.
There is no easy resolution.
Instead, the narrator finds himself caught between two feelings: wanting to let someone back into his life and knowing that doing so may reopen wounds that have barely begun to heal.
That tension is at the heart of the song.
Sometimes we miss someone deeply, yet still know that we cannot go back.
Sometimes seeing a familiar face does not bring comfort. It brings everything back.
And sometimes the only thing left to do is step away.
The closing image is especially powerful. Rather than continuing the conversation, the narrator retreats inside, turns out the light, and chooses darkness over another encounter with the past.
It is not necessarily an act of anger.
It feels more like self-preservation.
He cannot control the tears, but he can decide where to stand when they come.
That is one reason the song has remained so affecting for listeners decades later.
It takes a deeply personal experience and turns it into something universal: the moment when an old memory suddenly becomes present again.
A voice.
A face.
A familiar place.
A song.
Something can bring the past rushing back before we are ready for it.
The recording also features Jim Gordon on drums and Bonnie Raitt on harmony vocals.
But the heart of the song is not in the list of musicians or in the recording details.
It is in the emotional truth of the words.
“Here come those tears again.”
The phrase feels almost like a quiet admission.
Not *I am still crying.*
Not *I cannot move on.*
Just—
here they come again.
The sadness returns without asking permission.
And perhaps that is what makes the song so human.
We often imagine healing as a straight line: pain, recovery, and finally peace.
Real life is rarely that simple.
There are good days, followed by unexpected memories. There are moments when we believe we are finally free, followed by one small reminder that opens the old wound again.
Jackson Browne captured that experience with remarkable honesty.
*The Pretender* is often remembered as one of his defining albums, but “Here Come Those Tears Again” occupies a particularly intimate place within it.
It is a song about loss, but also about boundaries.
About remembering, but also about protecting yourself.
About loving someone, and still knowing that you cannot allow them back into the same place in your heart.
More than anything, it is a song about the persistence of emotion.
You may think the tears are gone.
You may believe you are finally strong enough.
Then, unexpectedly—
here come those tears again.
And for a few minutes, the past is alive once more.
🍇
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