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

"The Last Resort"

http://www.donhenleyonline.com/images/eaglesGEFnoscore.jpg

http://youtu.be/RG-XBz1tjIU

She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place people were smilin'
They spoke about the red man's way,
and how they loved the land
And they came from everywhere
to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars,
out for a good time,
Can't wait to tell you all,
what it's like up there
And they called it paradise
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
while the town got high

Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast, to
the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,
people bought 'em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name
of God

And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it's like up there
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye

The Eagles do privilege

"She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island"

move over, Wallace Stevens

Glenn Frey told Redbeard on an episode of In the Studio with Redbeard (which devoted an entire episode to the making of Hotel California) “I have to give all the credit for "The Last Resort" to (Don) Henley. It was the first time that Don, on his own, took it upon himself to write an epic story. We were very much at that time, concerned about the environment and doing anti-nuclear benefit (concerts). It seemed the perfect way to wrap up all of the different topics we had explored on the Hotel California album. Don found himself as a lyricist with that song, kind of outdid himself...We're constantly screwing up paradise and that was the point of the song and that at some point there is going to be no more new frontiers. I mean we're putting junk, er, garbage into space now. There's enough crap floating around the planet that we can't even use so it just seems to be our way. It's unfortunate but that is sort of what happens".

In a 1978 interview with Rolling Stone, Henley said: "'The Last Resort', on Hotel California, is still one of my favorite songs... That's because I care more about the environment than about writing songs about drugs or love affairs or excesses of any kind. The gist of the song was that when we find something good, we destroy it by our presence — by the very fact that man is the only animal on earth that is capable of destroying his environment. The environment is the reason I got into politics: to try to do something about what I saw as the complete destruction of most of the resources that we have left. We have mortgaged our future for gain and greed."

Poor Randy looks like he's getting pushed right off the sofa

when we find something good, we destroy it by our presence

I believe that was printed on their satin tour jackets that year.

If anything on here, I'm justifying my Eagles hate.

Not sure if it's worth sitting through seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds of how the west was wasted.

more leaden drumming, a non-melody endlessly repeated, 7:28 minutes long ... welcome to the Hotel Califillernia

He found his voice alright: Henley's been bitching and moaning about lost paradise ever since

More than 25 tracks left and we haven't even started The Long Run yet, I'm starting to get the "check in any time you'd like...." feeling.

more leaden drumming, a non-melody endlessly repeated, 7:28 minutes long ... welcome to the Hotel Califillernia

― Brad C., Tuesday, 8 October 2013 14:33 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep. Awesome track. Audacious in its douchbaggery.

"man is the only animal on earth that is capable of destroying his environment"

ever owned a dog, Don?

ugh, this track is the slog to end all slogs. It's merciless. The trudging pace. Henley singing the same phrase ("call it PAR-uh-DISE...she came from PROV-uh-DENCE"...light their NEE-on-WAY") over and over again and again. The schlocky accompaniment of the Irving Azoff Light Orchestra. The sense that Henley got the idea for the lyric while griping about an ugly new luxury condo being built down the road from "The Eagles' Nest." The knowledge that this is the start of the line that leads to the high ponderousness of "End of the Innocence" and scores of other such songs.

The Last Resort. The Sad Cafe. The Sunset Grill. The Abandoned Luncheonette, o wait.

This is horrific, everyone otm.

Farewell Hotel California, I will never hear you again. Amazing to see this upthread: this album/aja/rumours. the holy trinity of FM sound. It doesn't even *sound* that good.

god from the mopey opening piano ripped off from "Imagine" to the hackneyed "gear shift" with Hollywood strings, this is a total fuckin' piece of shit. Wow.

Honestly, I think some of these I'm hating even more than I would otherwise because of all these posted snippets of interviews where Frey or Henley sit there and "explain" their painfully obvious "metaphors" like a fuckin' jr. college professor, one of the things that will most burn me up in life is being condescended to by a really stupid person and the Eagles are basically the musical version of that experience. They are so fuckin' shallow and mediocre and just not that good at what they do but they have this totally unjustified smugness about their own supposed quality.

also the whole idea of "i'm going to write an epic" - that's like trying to give yourself a "cool nickname" is high school u idiot.

"It doesn't even *sound* that good."

i meant the singles. the singles will always sound great on fm radio.

Put like that I'm astonished they could put this on the same album as the title track, an actual epic, and not see the difference.

i mean, they were truly made for it. those singles. i hate to say it but the car radio may have been invented to play something like life in the fast lane. its just the optimal sound for the fm frequency. a scientist could tell you why probably.

scott, is the Xmas single up next, or does Long Run start? (forget the order when they came out)

Hey remember that awesome Walsh/Felder guitar outro on Hotel California

ITS DEAD WE KILLED IT WHY COS WE'RE THE EAGLES MAAAAAAN

MWAHAHAHAHA

The line from this to "The End of the Innocence" is complete.

the henleybot-1000 is complete

"scott, is the Xmas single up next"

yup

I am a sucker for epic songs and there were a couple of times on this one where I perked up and thought "Now there are the makings of a seriously epic song!" but it is a promise that never delivered. Also the lyrics. Also Henley. I'd like someone to take the parts of this that I liked and use them in another, better song.

i bet Walsh fell asleep in the studio listening to the upteenth playback of this epic

"The Last Resort": I don't like this one. The opening line is sooooooooooo dopey, and goes down from there. Every once in a while the arrangement feels Jimmy Webb-ish. But...no. We're a long way from "MacArthur Park", much less standin' on that corner in Winslow.

Explaining themselves to the autuer behind Singles:

THE LAST RESORT
GLENN: “The Last Resort” was the final piece of the Hotel Californiapuzzle. We started the song early in the record, and Don finished seven months later. I called it Henley’s opus. I helped describe what the song was going to be about and assisted with the arrangement, but it was Don’s lyrics and basic chord progression.

One of the primary themes of the song was that we keep creating what we’ve been running away from — violence, chaos, destruction. We migrated to the East Coast, killed a bunch of Indians, and just completely screwed that place up. Then we just kept moving west: “Move those teepees, we got some train tracks coming through here. Get outta the way, boy!” There were some very personal references in the song, including a girl from Providence, Rhode Island, who Don had dated for some time. She had taken an inheritance from her grandfather and moved to Aspen, Colorado, in search of a new life. Look where Aspen is now. How prophetic is “The Last Resort” 28 years after it was written? Aspen is a town where the billionaires have driven out the millionaires. It was once a great place. Look at Lahaina; look at Maui. It’s so commercial. It’s everything Hawaii was not supposed to be. Whether we’re carrying the cross or carrying the gasoline cane, we seem to have a penchant for wrecking beautiful places.

DON: The final burst on this one happened in Benedict Canyon at a house I was living in with Irving [Azoff, the band's longtime manager and friend]. I was thinking of all the literary themes based on nature that I had studied back in school — the awesome beauty and the spirituality inherent in the natural world and the unrelenting destruction of it, wrought by this thing that we call civilization or progress.

Some years earlier we had done a couple of benefit concerts with Neil Young for the Chumash Tribe, Native American people who are indigenous to California. We became friends with an elder in the tribe named Samu, and, eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies. Samu was on a mission to raise funds for an education program which would teach the young people in the tribe about their language and their culture. The old man feared, rightly, that the white man’s culture was stripping his people of their identity. They were losing the memory of their language, their ceremonies, their history. We were fortunate enough to be able to help.

Also, I’d been reading articles and doing research about the raping and pillaging of the West by mining, timber, oil and cattle interests. But I was interested in an even larger scope for the song, so I tried to go “Michener” with it. I remember going out to Malibu and standing on Zuma beach, looking out at the ocean. I remember thinking, “this is about as far west — with the exception of Alaska — as you can go on this continent. This is where Manifest Destiny ends — right here, in the middle of all these surfboards and volleyball nets and motor homes.” And then I thought, “Nah, we’ve gone right on over and screwed up Hawaii too.”

I still think, though, that the song was never fully realized, musically speaking. It’s fairly pedestrian from a musical point of view. But lyrically it’s not bad. Especially the last verse, which turns it from one thing into another and it becomes an allegorical statement about religion — the deception and destructiveness that is inherent in the mythology of most organized religion — the whole “dominion” thing. The song is a reaffirmation of the age-old idea that everything in the universe is connected and that there are consequences, downstream, for everything we do.

I wonder if Henley ever paid a hooker to beat him with copies of Michener hardbacks?

We became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named SamuWe became friends with an elder in the tribe named Samu

I still think, though, that the song was never fully realized, musically speaking. It’s fairly pedestrian from a musical point of view.

Henley otm

eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies

I bet those injuns were better on the skins than our Donster.

hahaha.

Glenn: They made us honorary members of the tribe, and we were given names. Don's was "Plays With Stiffness"!

Don: And Glenn's was "Big Face Talking Phallus"!

Randy: Those weren't tribal elders doing the ceremony. I think it was some drunk teenagers.

Don: You're on thin ice, "Sings Like Chipmunk"!

Felder: I think he's right about those teenagers.

Glenn: Shut up, "Ass I'm Gonna Kick"!

So after this I cranked up a random track on Rumours (You Make Loving Fun) and I gotta say the difference is startling. There isn't a way in which this isn't inferior - it's just so flabby, like the bloated corpse of the worst kind of complacent 70s rockstar. Not a second of the Fleets' is wasted, there's always something interesting and new happening; with The Eagles *every* second is wasted, it's all this-and-hold-for-four-bars, then change to that-and-hold-for-four-bars, then repeat. Even the intro bores me.

Glenn: I'll tell ya what: that bucktoothted squaw that Henley fucked? She was "Ass in the Air"!

Don: Well, yeah.

"DON: I was thinking of all the literary themes based on nature that I had studied back in school"

"White Fang"? "Last of the Mohicans"?

in re: comparing Hotel Calif. to "Rumours." You put most of "HC" against Eddie Money's debut album, and the latter sounds like gold by comparison.

or bat out of hell for that matter. or the stranger. speaking of 1977. and the stranger even had a (reprise).

speaking of 1977 FM gold anyway.

(technically HC a '76 album but it came out in december so you know...)

Well that changes everything.

two months after HC came came out, rumours came out.

and a few months before, songs in the key of life came out. which may be a better analog to rumours and aja.

This is my brain problem, apparently, but I like this song.

Hey now, I'm a 'fucking' jr college professor' and I'm not only smarter than Don Henley, but I play the drums with more feeling than he does. I'm glad others are finally feeling the real burn of the Eagles -- being condescended to by someone stupid!! It's the worst. They remain the worst.

La Lechera - i sincerely did not mean to lump professors in with Don. please accept my apoligies. that's a horrible thing to do actually now that i think of it. :(

I'm not offended, but we do get a bum rap. No harm done!

You know who else got a bum rap? The red man.

This changed Don's life: http://youtu.be/j7OHG7tHrNM

I am going to be so intrigued to learn what you guys think of the cocaine psychosis called the Long Run. There are two songs in particular, deep —and deeply hypocritical— cuts, that I will be really surprised if many of you guys hate it like you hate most of their shit…

what about eagles Live?

I'm gonna risk becoming a figure of fun on ilx and go on record that I actually like the final verse. "Call anywhere paradise and kiss it goodbye" is kind of sharp IMO.

Of course, the song as a whole is loaded with groaners. But at least it feels felt in comparison with most Henley.