Songfacts®:

• Jackson Browne has made a side-career out of protesting about environmental concerns. One of the activism hats he wears is his membership of the executive advisory board on the Plastic Pollution Coalition, an alliance that strives for a future free of plastic. Here, he sings of the effect plastic waste has on the world's oceans.
  
  Downhill from God's golden shore
  Downhill from the grocery store
  Downhill from the center floor
  K Street, and the never-ending war
  Downhill from everywhere
  Downhill from all you see
  The ocean is the last stop for gravity
  
  Browne told Uncut magazine he stopped and started the song a bunch of times, coming up with new lyrics during sound checks. "Every single one of those images in the song is to do with something that produces plastic," he said.
• The song features on the soundtrack to the Discovery Channel documentary The Story Of Plastic, released on Earth Day, April 22, 2020. The film details the plastic crisis and the pollution that spans three continents - and the devastating affect it's had on the Earth.
• This is the title track of Jackson Browne's 15th studio album. Released on July 23, 2021, it was the singer-songwriter's first record in nearly seven years.