Jackson Browne performs at benefit in Water Mill

The hip crowd at the Oceana Hamptons “Splash” party Saturday night, listened to Jackson Browne sing these famous lyrics:

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-o-one

We wondered, in his 60s, how does it feel to revisit those words? “I was writing about growing old when I was 17,” Browne told us. “I was drawn to the subject of mortality. We’re really in for a little while. That has always been very compelling to me.”

Browne was doing his part bringing people to this celebration of ocean conservation in Water Mill. “We’re either going to leave a beautiful planet, or we're going to leave a smouldering ruin,” he warned. “But we’re leaving. There’s a great Warren Zevon song called ‘Life Will Kill You.’ ‘Life will kill you and you’ll be dead. Life will find you wherever you go.' That means you have a limited opportunity to do something good while you’re here and that will be what you leave behind.”