Jackson Browne - The Pretender ( Original Live Footage Wonderland 1976 “The Pretender” is a song written and performed by American rock performer Jackson Browne and featured on his 1976 album The Pretender. “The Pretender” was composed, according to Browne, in a number of locations; in Los Angeles, within a rented store-front in North Hollywood, and in a “tacky” hotel in Hawaii. Browne is quoted to have claimed that the song was almost complete before he had discovered the defining opening piano