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

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?

tomorrow: my favorite Eagles song!

yeah that's the thing - i mean they were part of that whole so-cal/soft/country rock/geffen axis so it's like goddamn they had access & the cash to get songs from some of the most killer pro songwriters.

"We started the song early in the record, and Don finished seven months later."

i'd like to think that it actually took him seven months to record the song.

it feels like it takes seven months to listen to it anyway.

"tomorrow: my favorite Eagles song!"

everyone loves christmas songs!

they had access & the cash to get songs from some of the most killer pro songwriters.

"desperados under the eaves" would have been an awesome song to end this album with.

Frey-Henley would argue that J.D. Souther was a killer pro songwriter.

i'm not saying he wasn't i'm saying get MORE stuff from him! instead of the last resort!

I was waiting, or more like laying in wait, for this one. (and the first track on the next LP)
It is an epic, for sure ... I like the lyrics, but as with most Eagles tracks, the production and arrangement are annoying, not to mention Henley's stretching for the next faux-sincere note. (he just about finds the right touch when he launches into that 'You can leave it all behind ...' verse, though)
Second thought, were this a democratic band, Randy shoulda sung it.
I always thought this aspired to be a gospel song, not a soul song. And in the early verses, don't those keyboards seem to have trouble keeping up with the slowwwwww steady pace?

Going back a song, 'Try and Love Again' is a pretty good Randy song, that could benefit by being about 2 minutes shorter. Production-wise, it's got too much in common with the Eagles' more cloying work, and with the standard AOR pap of the era. Kind of a clump of missed opportunities there... it could have had a little KICK. Maybe it's his bid for a 'Peaceful Easy Feelin' , the kind of song couples want to fuck to.

More on TLR in a sec...
D

Scott, are you gonna do the three bait tracks on "Eagles Live"?

putting garbage into space? 'we were interested in anti-nuclear benefits' ?? In 1976? -- WTH was Glenn smoking?

The last verse is a slam at religion, but it's only informed by the lie of California being paradise. The paradise these guys RULED like GODZ by the way... their climb to the top of the garbage heap and subsequent subhuman hijinks could have happened nowhere else.

As for whether anyone who owned the album even getting this far, get this: A couple I knew in the late 1970s, my friend's brother and sister-in-law, had lived in Cali about the time of HC, and one time after they had moved back to upstate NY they insisted on sitting us down and playing this song, having us HEAR what it had to say. They believed it summed up the experience of living there, in a very profound way. I don't agree, and I didn't even come close to getting it then, but they truly bought it as a grand statement. I suppose they got suckered in by the form - earnest gospelly white-boy soul - as much as the words.

But that doesn't preclude the damn thing from having some power.

Another outsider - Kelly Jones of the Welsh band Stereophonics - does a killer cover of this song. Take it away from Henley and 1976 L.A., and it ... shines. (not on youtube, paste this in yr browser and hit return...
<http://allmuz.org/audio/9759962/-250305/Stereophonics-The_Last_Resort>;

D

myonga, i don't know if i ever got back to you about that seger tribute tape my pal josh put out. it came out pretty good. i keep forgetting to ask him if he has copies. he gsve me one without a cover before he put it out.

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-4124712-1356107794-1898.jpeg

A1 Ruth Garbus – Main Street
A2 Steamrollers – Old Time Rock N Roll
A3 Jurt Bansch – Beautiful Losers
A4 Uke Of Spaces* – Ship Of Fools
A5 Baab Ceegar – The Fire Down Below (The River Up Above) Excerpt
A6 Shawn McMillen – Night Moves
A7 Cop Pride – Ballad Of The Yellow Beret
B1 Duck That – Heavy Music
B2 Frozen Corn – Tales Of Lucy Blue
B3 Magik Markers – Ramblin Gamblin Man
B4 Super Spirit – Feel Like A Number
B5 I Love Rust – Turn The Page
B6 Bob Fay – Still The Same
B7 Dark Master – Sunspot Baby
B8 Big Blood – 2+2

oops, here's the cover: http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=4124712

oops, never mind there it is here. weird.

Comment posted by YouTube user poindexter van halen on Eagles version of Walk Away: "Don Henley might as well be a drum machine....."

"Please Come Home For Christmas"

http://www.eaglesonlinecentral.com/images/xmascover.jpg

http://youtu.be/XeShHAZk3to

See, if you just have Henley sing someone else's piece(and a great R&B songwriter like Charles Brown's to boot), he suddenly becomes soulful: this may be his best-ever Eagles vocal--take the bitter, desperate way he sings "happy" at the close. The solo (Felder?) is just the capper.

This is the first Tim Schmit recording, iirc.

I didn't need to see these people in bathing suits around a condo pool.

I've never understood why the Christmas song is a thing, but this is fine. Steady songcraft shining through after yesterday's dirge. But I would still never listen to it again, there's nothing here I haven't heard hundreds of times before.

Took me a sec to piece together who Weekend at Bernies guy was in the center until through the power of deduction I realized it was Doned Flanders.

this may be his best-ever Eagles vocal

OTM. I'm not surprised that the best Eagles vocal is Henley's, but damn surprised that it's this good. It just completely erases the memory of whatever that last poo on Hotel California was.

That poolside photo...I wish they'd sprinkled the palm trees with oocaine to make it look festive

Thanks for that Seger info, Skot!

when I said yesterday that this morning we'd get to my favorite Eagles song I didn't meant this one.

I guess I meant tomorrow's.

Funky New Year?

tomorrow is the collision of funk matter and funk antimatter (Henley, D.)

I had no idea that thing existed.

Well, if you think listening to a New Year's song in October is weird, wait until you see how funky it is.

funky like the dirt between Frey's toes

as for this Xmas nonsense, when Henley sings "There'll be no sorrow and no pain" I imagine him pressing a pillow against a young prostitute's face.

And it got to #18!

Alfred, I really thought this one was going to be your fave (which seemed a bit weird)!

this has entered the christmas radio canon for sure: every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's, this sucker plays non-stop on classic rock radio (hell, even "easy listening" xmas radio) throughout the land

TS: This versus "Wonderful Christmastime"

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5z85dzeAo1qghwxto1_500.gif

Dear god I hate wonderful christmastime

now imagine Glenn Frey singing "Wonderful Christmastime" over the same arrangement.

might be mccartney's greatest crime against humanity.

SimpLY HaaVING a Wonderful Chug All Nite

its like throwing a bomb that just keeps exploding for decades.

Like a landmine, eh?

"At any moment, children in Bosnia are in danger of hearing a song recorded 35 years ago..."

as dire as "Wonderful Xmastime" is, any recording of "The 12 Days of Xmas" trumps it in relentless, unending awfulness for me.

i gotta admit i kinda like the chipmunks version of 12 days.

http://www.you.tube.com/watch?v=vxz2cRYnZoA

Xmas in October
Jesus Christ
In reverse

Um, I don't think that link goes where you think that link was supposed to go.

I didn't see any Christmas songs, at least.

LOL, what happened there

it's nowhere near the best version of this song ... but maybe Don was emboldened to try it after his recent faux-soul exercise.

there should also be a hall of fame for any major artists who does NOT succumb to pressure to release a Christmas song...

Thought I had one, but I was waaaay off.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T1GNA129L._SY300_.jpg