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

I do dig the groove here, there's a proper sleazy lounge vibe to it. It's the one time I could see this being a Fleetwood Mac number, meaning Bob Welsh era of course. Terrible lyrics though and the phrasing is far too samey and obvious. This is Henley singing? How can you tell?

I've kept them to myself mostly, but a lot of these Eagles reviews are pretty hilar.

Early on, he promised that the group would educate as well as entertain. That meant clips from the film about what book inspired this song and how they told that producer it’s time to rock. It also meant a lecture about the night’s harvest moon and playful scolding when Professor Frey mistakenly said CD instead of tape and the fans laughed.

“I’ll tell you when to laugh. That wasn’t a joke,” he half-joked.

The nearly three-hour concert... opened when Don Henley and Glenn Frey, on acoustic guitars and vocals, took the stage for the wistful country-rock ballad “Saturday Night.”

“This portion of the show is meant to give you a feeling of what it was like in the early summer of 1971,” Frey said, recalling the band’s first sessions at a hole-in-the-wall studio in Los Angeles.

Those carefree days in 1971 I spent at KeyArena listening to a 60-year-old man sing country-rock ballads.

The second set clipped along at a nice pace with a rousing, honky-tonk rendition of Heartache Tonight, Walsh's chugging rocker Life's Been Good -- one of the night's few forays into the members' solo output -- and The Long Run, which Henley dedicated to the audience.

"This has become kind of our anthem because we're still here and you're still here," he says. "We're here because you're here."

god i just want to run up to glenn frey and laugh in his face and tell him what a pointless old asshole he is

From their show in Saskatoon:

Each main band member took a turn talking to the crowd, usually about how cold it was the last time they were here. Frey told a story about Joni Mitchell, obviously unaware that she has fallen out of favour with some locals.

As the show reached its final third, and the huge hits came out, the crowd went bananas. They danced, sang along and gave ovations for almost every track. When the show ended and the band took time to wave at each section of fans, they did so to raucous applause.

don and glenn: never show when you can tell. and tell and tell and tell and tell and tell and tell and tell ad infinitum…

"This has become kind of our anthem because we're still here and you're still here," he says. "We're here because you're here."

let's hope it's a mutual pact: when one finally dies, the other will too.

is there a portion of the show meant to give you the feeling of what it was like in Henley's bachelor pad, 1979?

"King of Hollywood": This isn't quite as bad as I remember it. Nice guitar work, including some dual harmonies. The locked rhythm section working for rather than against. The lyrics are another matter. Kind of interesting that there's no real chorus. Henley has a good time in To The Limit dissing movie people, or "Movie Pukes" as he calls them. We hear about how Julia Phillips (producer of Taxi Driver, Close Encounters... etc.) wanted to do a film adaptation of "Hotel California" with the band as actors but backed out because she discovered that (a) Henley & Frey were unlikable dicks, and (b) at that time the band's publishing was in dispute with David Geffen being sued by the band and Azoff. Seeing dollar signs, Warner/Asylum released the album anyway, adding a disclaimer "copyright in dispute" to initial pressings of the album. The Donster claims the band was only humoring the coked-out producer, and they never seriously considered going into the movies.

This was all pre-Country Bears obvs.

I'm already looking ahead because I'm dreading the 90s shit show, and because I was confused about when they were releasing new songs. I didn't realize Hell Freezes Over was four new studio tracks AND the whole unplugged jam of the classics.

And looking at the tracks they went back and replayed, I'm surprised by the one solo song they did (not counting In the City.)

we aren't doing the unplugged stuff. in case anyone didn't catch that. just the four new songs on that thing.

Phewwww...

I did catch that. Just didn't realize that album was new studio/greatest hits live combo.

GET OVEEEEEERRR ITTT

Frey told a story about Joni Mitchell, obviously unaware that she has fallen out of favour with some locals.

???? what's up with that?

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/24/joni-mitchell-saskatoon_n_3647004.html

Said Saskatoon's bigoted, just like the deep south.

Walsh looking like a late 70s porn actor regretting his life's choices

aka walsh looking like matthew mcconaughey

i do like the groove -- agreed that there's something fleetwood mac-ish about it -- but mostly this song makes me want to listen to the rolling stones' "tops."

or "World Turning"

but mostly this song makes me want to listen to the rolling stones' "tops."

Thanks to the Eagles limited film licensing, they'll never get to be part of something like this: http://youtu.be/kGViaTOfSow

by this point in our survey, I'd say any song on Tattoo You > any song by the Eagles

TS: Frey solo vs. Jagger solo.

Has Frey ever been involved in anything as delightful as Lucky In Love? No, he has not.

BETTIN' ON UH FILL-EHH, DOWN AT DUH TRACK! hadn't heard that song since '85, and indeed it's charming. the video, particularly.

Sometimes Keith's influence is not the be all and end all, and Mick's interest in keeping up with the Joneses in the charts is refreshing. If keith insists that the stones must go to the blues, country, reggae, chuck berry well over and over again, then I think it's great that Mick is interested in other newer shit. If keith had his way, then no "Miss You," no "Emotional Rescue" no "love comes at the Speed of light."

yes so sick of the Stones sucking that reggae well dry

even Jagger's bid for MTV play "Just Another Night" (it worked) boasts tricky rhythm changes, good synth colors, and Those Vocals.

ahem…I suppose, in light of mr SM Collier's sneering, that I should clarify that jamaican music is kin to the others I cite in that Keith considers them to be true and real and arrgh claarrgghh / heh heh / cackle / fuck him he's such a whore/ his cock is small /phlegmy asides and so on…it's tedious.

Wonder how many takes Henley had to go through before getting the drums rights. Unusually non-clod footed here. (Mick Fleetwood would have been aces playing this)

Nice guitar on the outro though (Walsh?). Gilmour-like

like all the guitar work on this track. doesn't really seem in character for any of the guitarists.

Eagles sighting -- not really a song but a weird mention. I was listening to the Nerdist podcast interview with Slash on my way into work and as they were trying to get around the awkward non-conversation of trying to find out about Axl without saying his name, he said how he watched History of the Eagles on a tour bus recently & loved it, but how a lot of the falling-out part was 'depressingly familiar' to him lol

"Heartache Tonight"

http://www.raw-tcsd.com/Eagles.GER.12394.jpg

http://youtu.be/snPgFNMCXBs

i love this song. mostly for that awesome beat, but i just love it.

Haim know what i'm talking about!

Seth Rogen 5 days ago
my dad brought me here and i'm glad i grew up with classic rock:)THANKS DAD!!!!

respectclassics 5 months ago
Is that autotune I hear? Nope! its called talent! 

This song sounded like an anachronism in 1979: it sounded like a mid seventies holdover. I'll never like it.

that beat is technotronic. they were ahead of their time.

Ugh, I can't stand this. There's a quick bait-and-switch where you think you're on for some Rock And Roll Part II madness; then it turns into this boring mid-paced crap. People will line-dance to this, how can your pride stand it?

Walsh does a decent job tbf, the slide points towards a different song entirely. But the rest is simply awful, from the horrible multitracked Who Are You vocals (which incredibly get worse when set free) to the most leaden of leaden beats from The Don. Bass completely anonymous, words asinine, no risk whatsoever.

I could understand this record were it a wedding band cutting their one demo - play safe, studios are expensive. But when you're The Eagles and you can do whatever you like, I just do not get it.

'Teenage Jail' though, lol no spoilers

This song sounded like an anachronism in 1979: it sounded like a mid seventies holdover.

It almost sounds like a song by that one band, oh what was their name, had a hit in '74 about seeing the stars and not seeing the light....

Haim know what i'm talking about!

― scott seward, Wednesday, October 16, 2013 9:32 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I heard the Haim song this morning, and I'm pretty sure it's a straight sample of this.

Everything I hate about the Eagles -- the awkward-ass cymbal flailing, Glenn trying and failing to prove he can "rock," the nastiness of the lyric (I just assume it's Glenn celebrating dicking someone over), the stiffness of the vocal harmonies, the laughter-inducing "Break my heart!" towards the end -- is pretty much why I like this. They put everything shitty Eagles element into one song and made it count.

the horrible multitracked Who Are You vocals

The "Who Are You" chorus/backing vocals are all Pete, from his demo. He was a one-man Eagles!

So here's the Harold Jenkins version, complete with horn section:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=Conway+Twitty+Heartache+Tonight

This reminds me of Little River Band -- like 70s-era 50s revival "with a country rock edge", like it came out of a food processor. Not my thing then, or ever, unless I have some sort of great life experience while this song is playing, and then I guess anything is possible. Until then, yuk. I made it to 0:32.

Tried to find a YouTube of it, but only found a Conway Twitty impersonator performing it which, let me tell you, led me down the deepest of rabbit holes.

xp

And it does have that LRB vibe to it! Kind of the weird second cousin to "The Other Guy" with the beat.

I worked with this guy at a record store who looooooved to sing at the top of his lungs to shit like this -- esp LRB -- and I will never forget how happy he seemed when he was singing. He looked like Donny Osmond. That's the closest I can get to liking that borderline showtunes country-rock stuff that this song exemplifies.

hate this one intensely, in part for personal reasons (it was a big "bleacher stomp" song during football games at the school my mom taught at in the early '80s---imagine 200 surly/drunk teenagers chanting the opening lines and you know what my personal hell will sound like). but like everyone else said, it's just lame, Frey's vocal is a grotesque harbinger of his '80s career (that last holler he does--gah) and Henley's beats sound like a place-filler guide drum track that they left in the final mix by mistake.

only thing I disagree with is it sounding like an anachronism at the time. It's very much '79 for me: always seemed like a rip of "We Will Rock You," for instance.

what did Seger contribute to this? the chorus?

i really wanted my dad to take me to see the eagles/linda ronstadt/little river band at the yale bowl in the summer of 1980 but he wouldn't do it. oh sure he would drag me to see dizzy gillespie and woody shaw and chico freeman when i was that age but could i see the eagles? nope. wait a minute...uh...thanks dad!

well, it sounds like an anachronism cuz it's a mellow-man vibe trapped in an arena rock shell and doing miserably at both.

This is another Friday night song for me. Remember when it was a current hit on the charts. Stayed in rotation on the Pizza Towne and Eagles Nest jukeboxes. I can still picture (much later after it was a hit) lugging a cooler full of Coors out of a flatbed while another truck cab closer down to the lake blared this one.

Funny thing is that in my mind, I always think that someone's going to have a heartattack tonight. I mean, shit is tense, right?

"but like everyone else said, it's just lame"

not everyone!