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

"Take It Easy"

http://ring.cdandlp.com/groove-vibrations/photo_grande/114363815.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS442e79mZ0

in the wild...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XByaqHhBFqE

I won't participate unless Ned does.

it's the soft rock shot heard 'round the world. and the world would never be the same. browne/frey at their most browne/frey. plus, banjos.

Something I like about this song: In the last verse, there's a single substitution of an Am where a C has appeared in all the other verses. It's also supported in the vocal harmonies and is unexpectedly sweet-sounding.

it is, in a lot of ways, dumbed down byrds. musically. except for the demented banjos in the background. the vocals are so slow and deliberate and clear its almost as if they were hoping that it would catch on with children. bubblegum country rock? a lot of countru and southern rock from 1970 to 1972 was seriously dusty or backwoods or blues-based or a hippie homage to old bluegrass heroes. this totally cleans all the dust off. but, obviously, this is the genius. simple, direct, and catchy as hell. it was a song designed to be played 4000 times in a row.

As I've said in other Eagles threads, this song exists in the impenetrable part of my mind labeled CHILDHOOD so is kinda untouchable on critical grounds. It came out when I was two-and-a-half years old, and my family was stationed at an Air Force Base in the middle of the Arizona desert. I probably DID hear it 4000x in a row, with my family driving down desert roads with open windows. It was literally created to be the soundtrack for exactly the world I inhabited at that time.

also think its such an appropriate start. and a true test for the cranky. if you can control the desire to feel superior to this song then you are on the path to sainthood. this song is exactly what people hated about this band early on. it is the Urtext of eaglesdom.

When I listened to this song (and this album) the other day, after not having heard the song for years (I don't listen to the radio, like, ever), I was kinda shocked by the banjos. Somehow, they'd never really registered when I heard the song as a kid. Which is weird, because if there's a sound in the world guaranteed to appeal to small children, it would probably be the banjo. I mean, it's the closest thing traditional musical instruments have to that cartoon "sproinggg" sound!

MUSICIAN: Kootch, what was your feeling hearing Don and the Eagles' early stuff?

KORTCHMAR: I'll ell you exactly what my feeling was. When the Eagles first came out, I thought they were absolutely appalling. I couldn't stand them. Absolutely terrible. Especially things like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Take It Easy."'Cause what they were saying was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear, what was going on in my life. Take Jackson's "Peaceful Easy Feeling": here's this song that says "walking down the road in Tucson, Arizona, seven women on my mind." (sic) And here I am trying to keep my marriage together, and this guy's got seven women on his mind! God, it sounded like they were having fun, but I sure wasn't (laughter).

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~markowit/interviews/dh/musician/both.jpg

as with most Jackson Browne covers this sucks some balls compared to the original. yes that includes you Nico, fuck you.

also Kortchmar is misquoting there, obviously.

There are definitely better Eagles songs. This is pretty wimpy stuff.

Pretty cool to see them on the California Jam stage in that clip from the very camera that Ritchie Blackmore would destroy only a few hours later.

it should be noted that this is a standard country and bluegrass song to cover. thousands of country and bluegrass performers have covered this song over the years.

On A Dark Desert Highway: A Vocal Bluegrass Tribute to the Eagles offers heartfelt versions of the band’s greatest songs with soaring harmonies and delightful pickin’ on the banjo, mandolin, dobro and guitar. You won’t believe how beautiful these songs sound in the hands (and throats) of some of the best Bluegrass musicians in the business. If the Eagles had settled in W. Virginia instead of California, this is how their music would have sounded!

http://www.cmhrecords.com/web/images/products/8917_lrg.jpg

do you think that jackson browne oould live off of "take it easy" royalties? not that he has to. but if he had to. i'm going to say yes.

i have a friend whose father wrote a famous song - in the 40's! - and i was kinda impressed by how much money it made the family in a year. not enough to live on, but not nothing either. its a very famous song.

"loosen my load" is such a gross-sounding phrase

Oh man, I never even thought of the sexual connotation there before.

the only thing i have to say in favor of the eagles is that at least they were kinda pleasantly sleazy

just a ragtag band of misfits...

yeah everything about this song is gross, which is compounded by its expert execution. no doubt dudes could harmonize, but not well enough to make me overlook the material or sentiments expressed.... I can think of other harmony or country acts whose singing is so beautiful and intense that it creates a compelling contrast with otherwise bothersome lyrical content, this tension becomes part of the appeal. But the Eagles are not the Louvin Brothers or the Beach Boys. They aren't weird or damaged or desperate enough, nor are they beatific or angelic enough, they're just gross.

xp

at least they weren't trying to sell us abstinence like the malevolent mumford banjo mafia

• I have the best memory of a buddy finally going insane at two in the morning during a poker game when "Take It Easy" comes on and he can't stop laughing over "running down the road, tryin' to loosen my load."

• Rich Hall has this chapter in his Vanishing America about going to Winslow, Ariz., and waiting for a girl in a flatbed Ford to slow down and take a look at him. He gets a ride with her and asks about Jackson Browne. "Kinda quiet," she says and he replies, yeah, that's what he's heard too.

• I'm sure I'll get into it later, but background vocals on Eagles songs scare the shit out of me.

Ok, I think I'm gonna lose my shit about "loosen my load" now.

everything about the arrangement is so uptight, SOMETHING'S gotta get loosened amirite

I imagine a constipated Yosemite Sam running through Roadrunner territory.

Mumford does not take it easy, which sort of makes them worse. The Eagles were hilariously smug and arrogant making lite music. Mumford delivers its music with that annoying faux gravitas, as if it was Important. I'm sure the Eagles though they were Important, too, but only after enough people told them they were, and that probably only came after they were hugely successful and everyone around them was too afraid to say otherwise. "Wow, guys, 'Hotel California' really is like holding up a mirror to America. Like you said, it's about the American dream, but also the American nightmare!"

Song does nothing for me, and never did. Really, the Doobies' "Listen To The Music" is my own personal substitute for "Take It Easy" (not only banjo, it's got steel drums too!) for that 1972 west coast highway-driving feel.

The phrase "There's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford" does sing nice.

I won't participate unless Ned does.

I am avoiding this shit like the plague. Aside from this post, obv.

All right, everyone. Ned's in.

Being from California, these are the songs of your people, correct?

Only Eagle actually from California was Timothy Schmit.

Listen, this isn't the place to start on any of your anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Being from California, these are the songs of your people, correct?

I take great umbrage at this suggestion, good sir

Sorry to get all Soft Rock Civil Defense Corps on you.

All native Californians are from Iowa iirc

"Listen To The Music" is my own personal substitute for "Take It Easy"

i love "listen to the music" to death. its an amazing song when all is sad and done. and the production is arguably just as tightassed as eagles but somehow it opens up into a field of infinite possibilities by the time you get to the psych break where the lazy flowing river does something to the castles in the sky.

lighten up while you still can

apparently frey came up with the flatbed ford line.

http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/1/2179/3261/5446630016_large.jpg

oh fuck, where is my statues thread.

http://maxmccoy.com/blog/uploaded_images/IMG_0174-769036.jpg

Take It Easy is unfuckwithable; tight structure, sweet harmonising, singalong up to your eyeballs. Was this their first song? What pros.

lol @ the reflection

take it easy is ok

but it is sort of impressive, as far as "first song on first album totally defining the aesthetic of the band"

right up there with "black sabbath"/black sabbath/black sabbath

I feel like the first two missing panels of this cartoon involved Mr. Magoo somehow.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9619/hs56.jpg

What's going on in those upstairs windows?

Well, when two trompe l'oeil figures love each other very much . . .

"it's a girl my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me" is the only contribution Frey made to the song. Save for that one line, the song is written by Jackson Browne whose own version of the song I prefer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMA3lIeqV8M

Of course Frey would write the line that makes him look like Paul Newman.

I'm curious about the exact nature of the relationships with those seven women, particularly the one who says she's a friend. Why is that was enough distinction to call her out specifically? Did most of the women he knew not want to be mistaken for being friends with him?

those ringing opening electric guitar chords that open the song -- and, I guess, their career -- make it sound like something epic is about to happen. but it turns out the laid-back acoustic strum underneath them is what you were supposed to have been listening to.

The Eagles - and especially "Take It Easy" and "Hotel California" - have been so ubiquitous for so long that I'm wondering where and when most of us actually formulated any kind of a critical stance on the group. I was born in late 1982 and they were always kinda just there; I imagine the experience would be much the same for anyone born in America after 1970 or so. IME it's harder to be objective about music you grew up with. So if you hate the Eagles, did you hate "Take It Easy" when you were 5? Or did you grow to hate them later on? I think I always liked that song because it was big and clean and catchy and had good harmonies. I could say much the same for their other hits. By the time I got old enough to think about the smug misogyny of the lyrics and the greedy picks behind them, the Eagles were too much a part of my aural landscape to hate. And even so, I never once felt compelled to buy an album. The radio was enough.

For a contrast, I hated James Taylor for as long as I can remember. I think I could sense the waves of smarm and unctuousness dripping from his voice when I was in grade school.

One interesting thing about "Take It Easy" is that it never even made the top 10 of the charts - it only reached #12. Yet over time it's probably gotten more radio play than 95% of all the #1 hits in history - including a couple of the group's own chart toppers. It's so immaculately produced and finely-crafted - slicker and fuller than probably anything else of its era - that it's always an up, and I never change the station when it's on, yet it's also bland and shallow enough that I never seek it out otherwise. That kind of sums up their appeal and their shortcomings - easy to like, hard to really care about.

Smuggler’s ‘Roids

desperasshole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_World?wprov=sfla1

Sizable Hole in the World

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/nyregion/eagles-lyrics-trial-hotel-california.html

What a world we live in where Iggles ephemera has this kind of value

Eagles’ Don Henley ‘regrets’ cocaine-fueled night with 16-year-old prostitute who suffered seizure: ‘I wanted to escape’ https://t.co/vXUKC4pFRy pic.twitter.com/MDBYXXQYCV

— New York Post (@nypost) February 26, 2024

What a douche

He could have escaped with a pina colada...

Wait wasn’t 1980 the same year a girl hanging out with Walter Becker died via a coke overdose too? Or do I have that story wrong

After the duo returned to New York in 1978, Becker's girlfriend Karen Roberta Stanley, who was an employee of ABC Dunhill Records and personal manager for the band, died of a drug overdose in his apartment on January 30, 1980, resulting in a wrongful death lawsuit against him.

well, yeah

wait you guys think you would want to do tom petty like this? i brought it up somewhere else. any interest? someone or some two said they might. man, i couldn't hang with that massive elton john one you guys did. i was just too busy. but i would make time for petty. i don't know why i'm so fixated on him. total normcore! but i can't help myself.

Absolutely. So many good songs!

OK, Florida Man.

100% down for Petty

Here for that.

A couple years ago I Was tempted to start one of these for RHCP after one of their threads had very successful and funny revive, but I backed down after realizing how demanding it would be: Counting b-sides, bonus cuts, soundtrack & comp tracks, they have way over 200 songs! It would take about a month to get through Stadium Arcadium, and a little bit longer addressing their two most recent efforts. And you can't limit the scope, because the thread needs to be a California death march.

It may get boring because there won't be much to say about the shitty songs.

i'm thinking a more stipped-down petty? just the albums. group and solo. would that be cool? i don't think he had a ton of b-sides and odds & sods anyway? maybe i'm wrong. there are two early Mudcrutch singles that aren't that memorable. oh yeah latter day Mudcrutch. would have to include those albums. so, heartbreakers albums, 3 petty solo albums, 2 mudcrutch albums. and the she's the one soundtrack. gotta do that. that's as good as a studio album. there are 14 heartbreakers albums. that's not nothing.

well, yeah.

by the book petty can be kinda one-dimensional. but its all a part of his grand plan. to make people buy roger mcguinn albums.

LET'S DO IT

can't wait

man, an RHCP one would probably literally kill all of us. jesus. they would just find us all in different towns and cities. dead. rhcp playing quietly in the background. so sad.

okay, one a day. did we do weekends with the eagles? or can we take the weekend off?

also i am not good with pictures. i don't know. my computers are weird now. old laptops. my desktop at work isn't great. so if you guys want to post pictures have at it.

i can post YT vids. if someone else wants to go crazy and be more elaborate i'm happy to let someone do it. otherwise, i will just do it.

one a day with weekends off works for me!

you need your weekends for Northern Exposure reruns.

exactly <3

i could start tomorrow. or next week? no time like the present. do i embed videos or just do links? i did links on this thread but everyone has supersonic computers and phones now, right? i don't think i even remember how to do the link thing. i forgot how to do everything in my dotage.

also we would need a title. someone come up with a good title.

My Middle Name Is Earl: A Tom Petty Listening Thread

ooooh i like it

mine is corny

One of Those Things You Gotta Feel To Be True: A Tom Petty Listening Thread

The Collected Works of Charlie T. Wilbury Jr (Official ILM Tom Petty Listening Thread)

Was tempted to start one of these for RHCP after one of their threads had very successful and funny revive, but I backed down after realizing how demanding it would be

You sure you're up for Petty, then?

RHCP are uhhhh more taxing.

Damn the torpedoes. Perhaps both could have a... simultaneous release.

you guys vote for a winner title i'm gonna do some stuff here at the store but i'll be back in like 20 minutes.

i'm good with the earl one though!

You sure you're up for Petty, then?

For just listening to Petty? Well, yeah. But *running & maintaining a daily thread* on RHCP is another thing entirely (particularly for me in '22-3). I did the math again last night using the Spotify versions of their album catalogue (some of which have bonus tracks), and it weighs in at 225 songs -- which doesn't include some other stray material. Doing five tracks a week...that's almost *a year*.

Like I said upthread, California Death March.

haha pplains was totally making a joke. i laughed. read their post again.

anyway we are live. git on it pettyheads.

XP That darn internet humor!

This is the thread revive that made be think it was possible: Does anyone really like the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

Nice engagement, and most interestingly, a set of varying user opinions about what are the best parts of their catalogue.

Also. Chi-Peps!

https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/eagles-stolen-notes-trial-ends-don-henley-manipulated-prosecutors-1235624765/

At a hearing in open court on Wednesday, Justice Curtis Farber sharply criticized Henley and Azoff’s conduct: “It is now clear that both witnesses and their lawyers … used the privilege to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen.”

The judge said he was also troubled that prosecutors had been “manipulated” into bringing the charges, and questioned why they had not more thoroughly vetted the accusations and the evidence. But he praised them for dropping the case once new evidence had come to light.

Wow. Who could have expected such douchebaggery from Don Henley and Irving Azoff?

Doucheperado

xp I am shocked, shocked.

The Eagles will come up at my Pop Conference presentation in a few hours.

"Uh, Your Honor, new shit has come to light."

time time tickin
tickin

i gave my friend ray records i didn't want for his monthly media/book sale at his shop down the street from me and he posted this picture on social media. :)

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/434048722_808398104658107_5037311667719064062_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg&_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=UXB7OhYyO70AX9uVSNi&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfCrEoEplOoVR7xLsuWbB-XuUSmhomJHT6Va-qZLkTpr1A&oe=6604357D

Howdy ma'am...

https://wornandhaggard.com/products/this-could-be-heaven-or-this-could-be-hell-walnut-hoodie?view=shop-womens

And she’s buying a highway to hell