In my late teens, I recall the radio playing a song I loved by Jackson Browne that I thought was just called “Stay.” But then friends corrected me with the title I could never remember. The “song” was actually two songs played together “The Load Out” and “Stay.” I can still sing every word of both songs.
In 1977, Jackson Browne released a live album called Running on Empty full of songs Browne had never released on a studio album. The album’s songs together created a theme of being on the road, with the songs recorded on the road, live, in hotel rooms, etc.
The title song “Running on Empty” became a top-20 hit, followed in 1978 by the release of “Stay” as a single. The B-side of that single was “The Load Out.”
“The Load Out” begins with the singer looking out at empty seats after a show, remembering “the people were so fine” and that the crowd made the show. And then the singer lauds the work of the roadies.
Now roll them cases out and lift them amps;
Haul them trusses down and get ’em up them ramps;
‘Cause when it comes to moving me,
You know, you guys are the champs.
And “The Load Out” recounts a bit of life on the road. Then, the singer returns to the joy brought by the music, asking the audience and the roadies to stick around a little longer (“People, you’ve got the power over what we do / You can sit there and wait or you can pull us through.”) Then the singer goes into another song, “Stay.”
“Stay” became a top-20 hit, boosted by the fact that radio DJ’s chose to play the two songs together. They played the B-side first, in the order the songs appeared on the album. So, as on the album, radio listeners heard “The Load Out,” written by Browne and Bryan Garofalo, lead into a cover of the Maurice Williams‘s classic “Stay.”
Maurice Williams & “Stay”
Browne was not the first artist to have a hit recording of “Stay.” Anyone who bought Browne’s album would likely have already known the song “Stay.”
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs scored a hit with “Stay” in 1960. Williams, who was born in North Carolina and started out singing gospel music, wrote “Stay” when he was only 15. And in 1963, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons also had a hit with the song, even though they had originally released it as a B-side.
In Williams’s original version, “Stay” is a love song, inspired by Williams’s real-life attempts to get his teenage date to stay out after 10 p.m. The singer is asking his love to hang around a little longer: “Won’t you press your sweet lips / To mine; Won’t you say you love me / All of the time.” The singer asks for just one more dance.
Now, your daddy don’t mind,
And your mommy don’t mind,
If we have another dance,
Yeah, just one more.
Williams got a hit song out of his entreaties, but his real-life date ended with his girl going home at the time assigned by her parents. Below is the original version of “Stay” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. According to Wikipedia, the hit song was the shortest single (1:36) to top the U.S. record charts.
For the Running on Empty album, Browne tweaked some of the lyrics of the original version of “Stay.” The changes made the song more consistent with the appeal to the crowd and the roadies in “The Load Out.”
So, instead of asking for one more dance, the singer asks the crowd to let the band play a little longer. And instead of referencing whether or not mom and dad mind, the singer refers to the promoter and the union.
People stay just a little bit longer;
We want to play, just a little bit longer;
Now the promoter don’t mind,
And the union don’t mind,
If we take a little time,
And we leave it all behind and sing,
One more song.
“The Load Out” and “Stay” Breaks the Rules
Together, Browne’s duo of songs clocked in at nearly nine minutes, with “The Load Out” taking up 5:38 minutes. In early rock history, the common thought was that records had to be under three minutes to allow room for commercials. But FM radio relaxed the rules, and DJs could spin longer songs (and take longer breaks). One reason DJs may have liked the songs is that “The Load Out/Stay” is a tribute to the industry, more specifically to roadies as well as music fans.
The recording is memorable too. “The Load Out,” while lacking a traditional chorus structure, is easy to sing. Because of the length, one may impress others by singing along with all the words because of how the lyrics tie together so easily. And then, when the song goes into “Stay,” everyone knew the song already and could feel the burst of joy.
Brown recorded the version of “The Load Out / Stay” on the album on August 27, 1977 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. At the time, he was on tour supporting the release of his album, The Pretender.
Below, Browne plays the song in 1978 live on the BBC.
Covers?
Few artists cover “The Load Out” / “Stay” combo. The lack of covers partly may be due to the song’s length, making it unlikely an artist would devote so much time to a cover. Also, artists may be hesitant because the song is so identified with Browne.
One exception is country artist Eric Church. He performed the song in concert in Grand Rapids with help from Joanna Cotten, concluding it in less than five minutes. Check out the performance below, with Church hitting the high notes himself. And also note how the audience knows the words.
Browne’s Perfect Ending
On Jackson Browne’s version, he gets some help from some extremely talented musicians and singers. Rosemary Butler and Browne’s lap steel guitarist David Lindley traded the falsetto on “Stay.” Their voices take the songs to a higher level. Toward the conclusion, they build from Browne’s slow “The Load Out” into an explosion of joy.
Besides the voices, what makes the combination of songs the perfect ending to Browne’s album of being on the road is the message they give. Wherever the road takes you, it is important to thank those who helped you along the way.
And it is also nice to stop for a moment, to stay in one place, and to appreciate the moment wherever you happen to be.
Leave your two cents in the comments.
. Zevon created the album after doctors had diagnosed him with 
. Joe Henry is producing the new album, Whistle Down The Wind.