June 11 – The Eagles – The Long Run

You may remember my lack of fondness for The Eagles back when we covered Poco, and now may be wondering why the cassette collection contains one of their tapes. Two words – Don Henley. But if you recall back in the P’s to the workouts to the double best of Poco album, you’ll not only remember my disdain for The Eagles, you’ll recollect that I mentioned my fondness for Henley. But as we are discussing The Eagles as a group right now, we’ll explore this tape and what could have happened to me in my childhood to make me dislike them so much.

I actually do kind of like them now, but I really didn’t way back, and some things are just worth hanging on to. Besides, I’ve got bigger issues to work on. I can still see them being interviewed on TV and one guy was talking about this new song “Tequila Sunrise” and how great it was. Well, I drank tequila sunrises back then (I was young) and how dare they! I found them irksome, which I think came from a sense of arrogance I perceived. And that California sound. And California. I’m a New Yorker, even though I was born and lived the first 21 years of my life on Long Island, going back frequently throughout my 20s and into my 30s. I couldn’t stand “Life in the Fast Lane,” and “Hotel California” makes me cringe. They seemed to like to borrow titles from trendy things like “Tequila Sunrise” “Life in the Fast Lane” and “The Sad Cafe” (There’s the novella by Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad Cafe which is suggested and pretty easy reading). Still, there songs are recognizable, and you can get used to them, no matter how hard you resist, and you find yourself straining to listen in a bar to figure out what the words to “Take it to the Limit” are. And then oh, that lovely Timothy B. Schmit and that lovely “I Can’t Tell You Why” are just breathtaking. The latter is on this tape, and is a big bonus too as it was purchased for the song “Those Shoes.” Yes, there is a nicely done Henley/Joe Walsh collaboration sound-wise, but shoe-wise it’s near perfection. I never had a large shoe collection, by no means, but I have had some mighty great shoes and boots over the years, starting back from junior high.

I watched the movie The History of the Eagles that came out last year, which not particularly well-done, but it wasn’t directed by Martin Scorsese and The Eagles are not The Beatles, neither in magnitude, nor in the love and bond between bandmates. What I did get out of the documentary was that the arrogance I perceived came right from Glenn Fry and Timothy B. Schmit is as sweet as he looks. I’ll never be an Eagles fan, but we will do more on Henley next time.