Song for Adam

"Song for Adam" is a song by Jackson Browne from this 1972 debut album "Jackson Browne". On the surface it tells of the mournful memory of a long lost friend Jackson had known, who committed suicide. "Though Adam was a friend of mine, he ..." is the vocal motif. Instrumentally, it contains a soft acoustic guitar part interlaced throughout by a violin line. One may guess of its allusions to mankind and Browne's place in this lost mankind.

Picked up by Kiki Dee in 1973 on her "Loving & Free" album, which made it seem more like a call for unity between menfolk and womenfolk à la Helen Reddy's coda "Until I make my brother understand". Also picked up by Larry Norman, who by doing so, as a very popular Christian contemporary music performer of the early 1970s, left no doubt as to the reference to Adam as being all of mankind going wayward of sorts. There is also a version in Catalan by the majorcan singer Maria del Mar Bonet.