Browne's music obscures his best vocal performance on "Here Come Those Tears Again." Here, backed by Bonnie Raitt, he passionately mourns "his baby walking out the door." But when Browne subtly rejects his lover ("I'm going back inside and turning out the light, and I'll be in the dark but you'll be out of sight," the well-crafted message is drowned in a guitar riff. Evidently, producer Jon Landau--also responsible for Bruce Springsteen's commercial selling-of-the-soul album, Born to Run--deserves the blame for this confusing melange of lyrics and music.

..Nonetheless, at times the lyrics do achieve direct impact. On the title track, "The Pretender," there are flashes of insight as Browne's cynicism comes to the surface:

And we'll fill in the missing colors,

In each other's paint-by-number dreams,

Ant then we'll put our dark glasses on,

And we'll make love till our strength is gone.

Rather than striving for real emotion, Browne urges his lover to fulfill her preconceived fantasies and avoid facing reality. Browne, too, rejects emotional commitment, choosing success and fortune over love. Despite all his attempts to describe, love, Browne ironically only achieves meaning when he sings of its corruption.

Browne's ability to communicate his feelings is clearly tainted by involvement with his personal tragedy. He is too caught up in his private world to see the need to generalize. So, although Browne stands out in a street scene on the cover of The Pretender, his songs betray that he is just another face in the crowd of would-be rock poets.