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

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.

Xpost I think we should at least cover the exclusives on Live: two solo Walsh numbers and "Seven Bridges Road".

the latter-day live album has four studio tracks i think? will definitely cover those. if there is studio stuff on the first live album than yeah otherwise i might have to put my foot down...

Is the plan to head through all of the "unplugged" versions? Keep in mind that the days are getting darker sooner.

jesus they didn't have an unplugged album did they? no, i just wanted to do all the studio stuff. to hell with any live stuff. it would kill us all.

yeah i agree - only studio stuff

Know what's worse than hearing "Hotel California" so many times that you begin to actively hate it?

Hearing the unplugged version even more.

man i'm so exhausted by the eagles and i know the true challenges have only begun.

They're really pushing the boundaries of what studio can do atm, seems a shame to sully it with inferior live stuff.

The live album wasn't that 'live' if you catch my drift...

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.

Yeah, especially because the paradise referred to in that stanza is heaven, so it's quite a decent gag about gentrification in the afterlife.. or alternatively a cogent point about how religious ideas are simply a reflection of social culture.

Otm about groaners tho

Also: if we do the three bait tracks on the '80 album, that puts three more days in before we get to "Get Over It".

Think about it.

hate will keep us alive

wow. i'm reasonably sure i've never heard "the last resort" until five minutes ago. there's the beginning of a song there, sort of, but it goes terribly awry before they get to the end of the first verse.

i totally get how a song as poorly written and executed as this could wind up on an early album by any number of major bands -- there's plenty worse out there -- but i'm genuinely curious as to how a song like this could wind up on their signature album, on the album they made at the peak of their career. was there no one in the studio that day who could raise their hand and suggest another chord here or another lick there? was there no one who could hide in a corner and come up with a "journey of the sorceror" or something as a replacement while everyone else was eating lunch or screwing drunken teenagers? had they lost j.d. souther's number?

do people who own this album even today know that it's there? i mean no one actually gets all the way to track nine, do they?