Lyrics to
The Only Child

This version of The Only Child was released by Jackson Browne in 1976.

Our About Jackson Browne page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for The Only Child from 1976 as well as all of the other lyrics from Jackson Browne that we have in our lyrics database.

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

Boy of mine
As your fortune comes to carry you down the line
And you watch as the changes unfold
And you sort among the stories you’ve been told
If some pieces of the picture are hard to find
And the answers to your questions are hard to hold

Take good care of your mother
When you’re making up your mind
Should one thing or another take you from behind
Though the world may make you hard and wild
And determine how your life is styled
When you’ve come to feel that you’re the only child
Take good care of your brother

Let the disappointments pass
Let the laughter fill your glass
Let your illusions last until they shatter
Whatever you might hope to find
Among the thoughts that crowd your mind
There won’t be many that ever really matter

But take good care of your mother
And remember to be kind
When the pain of another will serve you to remind
That there are those who feel themselves exiled
On whom the fortune never smiled
And upon whose life the heartache has been piled
They’re just looking for another
Lonely child

And when you’ve found another soul
Who sees into your own
Take good care of each other

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Want more lyrics and songs by Jackson Browne?

Jackson Browne has released many songs over the years besides The Only Child. 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 songs looking for more songs from 1976 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Only Child by Jackson Browne

When you decide to study the lyrics to The Only Child, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1976 song by Jackson Browne. Some of the lyrics to The Only Child 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 The Only Child 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 The Only Child" means the words set to the music of The Only Child, 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 The Only Child and the lyrics to The Only Child 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 The Only Child, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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