Lyrics to
My Opening Farewell

This version of My Opening Farewell was released by Jackson Browne in 1972.

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

A lady stands before an open window
Staring so far away
She can almost feel the southern wind blow
Almost touching her restless day

She turns from her window to me
Sad smile her apology
Sad eyes reaching to the door

Daylight loses to another evening
And still she spares me the word goodbye
And sits alone beside me fighting her feelings
Struggles to speak but in the end can only cry

Suddenly its so hard to find
The sound of the words to speak her troubled mind
So I’m offering these to her as if to be kind:
There’s a train everyday leaving either way
There’s a world, you know
There’s a way to go
And you’ll soon be gone – that’s just as well
This is my opening farewell

A child’s drawings left there on the table
And a woman’s silk lying on the floor
And I would keep them here if I were able
Lock her safe behind this open door

But suddenly it’s so clear to me
That I’d asked her to see what she may never see
And now my kind words find their way back to me
There’s a train everyday leaving either way
There’s a world, you know
You got a way’s to go
And I’ll soon believe – it’s just as well
This is my opening farewell

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Jackson Browne has released many songs over the years besides My Opening Farewell. 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 lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1972 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

The lyrics to My Opening Farewell are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Jackson Browne used when the song was created in 1972. The lyrics to My Opening Farewell 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 My Opening Farewell 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 My Opening Farewell" means the words set to the music of My Opening Farewell, 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 My Opening Farewell and the lyrics to My Opening Farewell 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 My Opening Farewell, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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