Fountain of Sorrow

The song is generally assumed to have been inspired by Browne's brief relationship with Joni Mitchell.

Many critics have written of the relationship song (and the album it is from) as reflecting a larger, general zeitgeist for the post-Vietnam War, post-Nixon era Baby boomer audience, particularly the notable "You've known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight" line in the chorus. "The fondly reflective 'Fountain of Sorrow,' is typical of Browne's ability to make personal experience seem universal," said Gil Asakawa, in Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide.[5] Indeed, Joan Baez immediately recorded her own version of the song for her 1975 solo album, Diamonds & Rust, placing it directly in the song listing after her title track, a remembrance song of her relationship with Bob Dylan in the 1960s and 1970s.[6]

In his 1974 Rolling Stone review of Late for the Sky, Stephen Holden wrote that the song "develops parallel themes of sex and nothingness, fantasy and realism, as Browne, looking at the photograph of a former lover, recalls:"

When you see through love's illusion, 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...

"In the chorus, highly romanticized sexuality becomes a 'fountain of sorrow, fountain of light.' Later in the album the water images are developed into a larger metaphor for death and rebirth," wrote Holden.[7]

Robert Christgau called the song the best on the album: "I admit that the longest is also the best, an intricate extended metaphor called 'Fountain of Sorrow.'"[8] Cash Box said that Browne "uses his unique country-influenced balladry to his fullest about the highs and lows of love."[9]

In his 2008 book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, Tom Moon wrote that Browne's lost seeker's "inquiry leads him into the minefields of memory" on "Fountain of Sorrow," in which "a photograph opens the floodgates".

Credits are adapted from the liner notes of The Very Best of Jackson Browne.[10]

• Jackson Browne – lead vocals, acoustic guitar
• Dan Fogelberg, Don Henley, J. D. Souther – harmony vocals
• Doug Haywood – bass guitar, harmony vocals
• David Lindley – electric guitar
• Jai Winding – piano
• Larry Zack – drums, percussion

A live solo version by Browne at the piano is available on his 2005 release Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1.

• Joan Baez – Diamonds & Rust, 1975.