A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

it would be kinda fun to do something like radiohead but only if everyone listening wasn't really a radiohead fan. fresh ears. i think i've heard 2 of their albums. and one of those only via videos on mtv.

but anyway i guess lyin' eyes is the eagles hit i'm least excited to hear if it comes on the radio. maybe because i know for the rest of the day i'm just gonna be randomly singing YOU CAN'T HIIIIIIIIIIIIDE...like a tourette sufferer.

i picture them all in their chairs onstage, harmonizing up a storm and thinking about their piles of money and women.
this thread really made me appreciate tom petty lyrics tbh.

plus tom petty records have a real cumulative effect. over time. a true body of work. variations on a well-loved theme to be sure but in a positive folk/americana way. they leave me refreshed. eagles remind me of FM car radio and cowboys and the sunset strip and other nostalgic american touchstones but there is also a hint and glimmer of exhaust fumes, the much needed rise of feminism, and venereal disease.

Eagles are more despicable than Tom Petty, but man. Tom Petty is like ranch and sour cream Ruffles to me. Yeah, you might see me eat one at the Super Bowl party, but I don't seek it out or anything.

I don't have any qualms calling Tom Petty a better songwriter, musician, and more interesting person (if that counts).

i love the petty.

"Hey, guys! Have you heard the new Tom Petty record?"

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/6c/82/06/6c8206749c6bb94472795abe4380bd7a.jpg

listening to petty is great cuz its like getting a bunch of latter-day byrds albums that were never made. i became such a huge byrds fan later in life so i just love hearing any kinda ersatz byrds. not that tom isn't great in his own right, but he does kinda hits the byrds spot for me.

I don't think Petty is in the pantheon but he deserves the multiplatinum bucks that the Eagles take for granted.

i mean i listened to the byrds ever since i was a kid but in my teens and 20's for some reason i thought they were overrated or whatever you think when you are dumb and now i think they were the best american rock band of all time. and tom knows his byrds inside and out.

“I was working in that music store in Gainesville and like I said, the only way I had to make money was after school I would go teach guitar in this music store. One day this kind of scrawny, scraggly blond-haired kid came in and wanted guitar lessons. I started teaching him guitar and we became friends and I went over to his house a couple of times,” Felder explained.

“He had actually set up a microphone in one of the rooms in his house and he was playing bass in this little band,” Felder said. “He wanted to learn guitar so he could play guitar instead of just bass in the band. So I went over to his house and was hanging around and he would play songs.”

http://cbskhitschicago.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/don-felder.jpg

Really feeling Feldster is becoming my favorite Eagle.

anyone who irritates Frey can't be a terrible person

When you're fired from a band of assholes for being an asshole, I've got heart for ya.

tom petty could give the eagles a master class in saying "honey" without sounding like a total dick

The message of Petty's body of work: I won't back down; don't push me around = conservative
The message of the Eagles' body of work: don't you touch our loot; aren't we hot, you dumb bitches = reactionary

i just think of it this way: working for tom petty would be pretty cool! you'd have to be on your toes cuz he's a real pro and demands the best from his employees, but you'd want to give him your best just to see that fucked up grin. plus, i'll bet you'd get great christmas bonuses. working for don henley, on the other hand, would possibly be the worst job on earth and every day you would go home and take extra long showers and scrub and scrub and the dirt still...won't...come...OFF. in a nutshell.

The message of Petty's body of work: I won't back down; don't push me around = conservative

Unions love to play "I Won't Back Down" at rallies, fwiw.

(Personally I think they should embrace "Invincible" by Pat Benetar for this purpose.)

"The message of the Eagles' body of work: don't you touch our loot; aren't we hot, you dumb bitches = reactionary"

just add a touch of Henleyite politics: "we are America: America is depraved and awful."

(Personally I think they should embrace "Invincible" by Pat Benetar for this purpose.)

― carl agatha,

and with the power of conviction
THERE IS NO SACRIFICE

See??? Perfect.

Love this look, including the rat tail

https://skitch-img.s3.amazonaws.com/20090110-2en7xbh2hbfjb1xtitffaw8jr.preview.jpg

"Lyin' Eyes": Mandolin on on the final verses! Their craftsmanship is improving because this doesn't feel like a 6-minute song. And their lyrical abilities are getting better, or at least their finding less cliched ways to tsk-tsk those mean LA broads.

Simon Frith once called this a perfect pop song. Like "Best of My Love" before it, this song would have a heavy influence on late '70s-early '80s contemporary Country.

From the Director of We Bought A Zoo:

LYIN’ EYES
DON: “Lyin’ Eyes” is one of the songs written when Glenn and I were roommates in a house we rented up in Trousdale. It was built in 1942 by the actress Dorothy Lamour. Glenn and I lived at opposite ends of the house and we actually converted a music room to a full-on recording studio. The house was located at the highest point on the hill and we had a 360-degree panorama. In the daytime, we could see snowcapped peaks to the east and the blue Pacific to the west. At night, the twinkling lights of the city below were breathtaking. The place had a couple of nicknames — “the House With the Million Dollar View” and “The Eagles’ Nest,” of course. We had some great times up there. As for “Lyin’ Eyes,” Glenn’s pretty much responsible for that track and for the title, the choruses. I helped out with the verses and perhaps with the melody. It’s really Glenn’s baby.

GLENN: The house was up on Briarcrest Lane. That’s where we wrote “One Of These Nights,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “Take It To The Limit,” “After The Thrill Is Gone,” and a couple of other tunes for the One Of These Nights album. But “Lyin’ Eyes” — the story had always been there. I don’t want to say it wrote itself, but once we started working on it, there were no sticking points. LYrics just kept coming out, and that’s not always the way songs get written. I think songwriting is a lot like pushing a boulder up a hill. I’d love to get the legal pad for “Lyin’ Eyes” again, because I think there were verses we didn’t use.

"We had some great times up there."

*shudder*

"I’d love to get the legal pad for “Lyin’ Eyes” again, because I think there were verses we didn’t use."

*more shudders*

"The place had a couple of nicknames — “the House With the Million Dollar View"

that's not a nickname, that a line you dropped at bars trying to pick up women with lyin' eyes, henley

OK I loathe this song. I need a bath. Ugh.

and “The Eagles’ Nest,” of course.

Of course.

http://i.imgur.com/jwm8KO8.png

"We wrote songs a lot because the TV reception was shitty for some reason. The girls all called it 'The Tower House,' but I don't know why. Maybe because we were 'towering' over all other acts like Firefall and Poco."

I'm gonna play That Petrol Emotion for the rest of the afternoon.

Glenn:"We used to climb that tower every night. It used to be off-limits 'cause some drunk roadie fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer."

Glenn: We used to climb that tower every night. It used to be off-limits 'cause some drunk roadie fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer.

Don: A pussy.

Glenn: Well, yeah.

Jeez, those two. You're right, a thread for nice guys like Coldplay would be no fun; we need to take on Phil Spector or someone.

FYI: Kansas have 14 albums and i only know, like, 3 Kansas songs. that might be a rough one though...

Glenn: We used to climb that tower every night. It used to be off-limits 'cause some drunk roadie fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer.

Don: A pussy.

Glenn: Well, yeah.

Don: Anyway. That's how we came up with "The Last Resort".

pl don't make the next one of these abt coldplay i beg you

Could do worse

Glenn: We used to climb that tower every night. It used to be off-limits 'cause some drunk roadie fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer.

Don: A pussy.

Glenn: Well, yeah.

Don: That's America: you think you can hang with the boys and you end up fucking yourself in the ass. So that's what "The Long Run" is about.

Skynyrd might be a good one (up to the plane crash, that is). Relative to the Eagles, they have the inverse proportion of duds to great stuff. About 70 songs or so, give or take demos/alternate takes.

I would rather hear the worst pre-crash Skynyrd song on repeat all day than hear "Lyin' Eyes" one more time

yeah, part of me kinda likes the thankless task nature of this thread. skynyrd would be too much of a treat. maybe we should have a nomination thread after this. if anyone really wants to do another one. what if we did elton john: A Single Man up to Sleeping With The Past. roughly ten years in hell. i probably know like one song. 11 albums i've never heard. that might be thankless enough.

That's a great idea!

Good point re: Skynyrd.

Skynyrd would be great

Nah I had wilderness years Elton in mind!

I think these threads are probably more fun/interesting with artists whose catalogs seem like turds from a distance, but closer inspection reveals gummi bears within said turds. Skynyrd would be all gummi bears, no turd.

i can't imagine ever submitting myself to this again
dnw turds

THere are a lot of Skynyrd haters on ILM, at least there used to be.