Lyrics to
For A Dancer

This version of For A Dancer was released by Jackson Browne in 1974.

Our Jackson Browne Songs profile has For A Dancer lyrics from 1974 and most if not all of the lyrics by Jackson Browne that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Jackson Browne or about the 1970s in general.

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you’d always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found

I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening
And I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
Crying as they ease you down
‘Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There’s nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
By everyone you’ve ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another’s steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you’ll never know

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Want more lyrics and songs by Jackson Browne?

Jackson Browne has released many songs over the years besides For A Dancer. Jackson Browne released songs from 1967 to 2002 spanning across albums like The Nina Music Demo (Songs By Jackson Browne), Jackson Browne, For Everyman, Late For The Sky, The Pretender, Running On Empty, Hold Out, Lawyers In Love, Lives In The Balance, World In Motion, I'm Alive, Looking East, and The Naked Ride Home. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Jackson Browne.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and For A Dancer by Jackson Browne

The lyrics to For A Dancer are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Jackson Browne used when the song was created in 1974. The lyrics to For A Dancer have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Jackson Browne and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to For A Dancer by Jackson Browne. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to For A Dancer" means the words set to the music of For A Dancer, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Jackson Browne. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to For A Dancer and the lyrics to For A Dancer are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Jackson Browne who came here looking just for the lyrics to For A Dancer, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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