Lyrics to
Fountain Of Sorrow

This version of Fountain Of Sorrow was released by Jackson Browne in 1974.

Our Decade Lyrics Jackson Browne profile has all of the Fountain Of Sorrow lyrics from 1974 and many more songs from the Jackson Browne discography that we have on file.

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

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

You were turning ’round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn’t really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
But when you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes, but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight

Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it’s seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love’s pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There’s this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight

You’ve had to hide sometimes but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright

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Jackson Browne has released many songs over the years besides Fountain Of Sorrow. 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 popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Fountain Of Sorrow by Jackson Browne

When you decide to study the lyrics to Fountain Of Sorrow, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Jackson Browne. Some of the lyrics to Fountain Of Sorrow have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Jackson Browne and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Fountain Of Sorrow if you take apart the structure of the words. 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 Fountain Of Sorrow" means the words set to the music of Fountain Of Sorrow, 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 Fountain Of Sorrow and the lyrics to Fountain Of Sorrow 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 Fountain Of Sorrow, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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