DJ Jeff’s Spintasms: “Alive In The World” By Jackson Browne

I love it when Jeff — that’s what I call my iTunes DJ — serves up something magnificent at precisely the moment my spirit needs to hear it.

Jeff did that just a few minutes ago while I’m in the midst of working on a piece about community and transformation and feeling deeply connected to so many people I love and who have loved me so well.

The version of Jackson Browne‘s grace-filled epic, “Alive in the World,” that Jeff played was off of the 2008 double-album, Songs for Tibet. If you don’t own it, you should. It’s a keeper.

Here is Mr. Browne performing it live a few years back …

Blessed be.

[wpvideo 2tFarrxQ]

I want to live in the world, not inside my head

I want to live in the world, I want to stand and

be counted

With the hopeful and the willing

With the open and the strong

With the voices in the darkness

Fashioning daylight out of song

And the millions of lovers

Alive in the world

I want to live in the world, not behind some wall

I want to live in the world, where I will hear if

another voice should call

To the prisoner inside me

To the captive of my doubt

Who among his fantasies harbors the dream of

breaking out

And taking his chances

Alive in the world

To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world

To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world

With its beauty and its cruelty

With its heartbreak and its joy

With it constantly giving birth to life and to

forces that destroy

And the infinite power of change

Alive in the world

To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world

To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world

To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world

To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world

(c) 1996, Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP