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

re: 'ludes discussion upthread...don't those just make you sleepy? How is that a fun recreational drug?

i love that part of the song. the bass sounds great on this song too. i really love the guitars. that's a solid heavy metal intro too. like slowed down judas priest.

tarfumes at least listen to the guitar sound on that t.v. clip i linked too. they sound so good. that's my kinda tone.

re: 'ludes discussion upthread...don't those just make you sleepy? How is that a fun recreational drug?

I have no personal experience, but an older friend who was an enthusiast in their heyday says that they were the loviest, huggiest drug ever. Way more than MDMA. "We would all just end up sitting in a heap on the floor, everybody with their arms around each other," that kind of thing.

I'm with Don and Glenn. Who needs love?

I have a crystal clear memory of little Carl Agatha, excited to have chosen her dime store plastic witch mask and smock for Halloween, donning her costume and performing an interpretive dance routine to Witchy Woman for her long-suffering parents. This song always intrigued me when I was a kid. It sounded so mysterious! She'll rock you in the night until your skin turns red! What could that mean??!?!? Now I know what the lyrics mean and I've just heard it too many times and find it kind of blah EXCEPT for the breakdwown in the middle with the toms and Don Henley going ham on the falsetto. I still like that part.

My stepfather is a huge, HUGE fan of the Eagles. We spent an evening on the deck rocking Eagles deep cuts and drinking beer on the deck (well, he was drinking beer) when I was visiting earlier this month. Most of my experience with the band is overexposure to the hits and listening to albums cuts refracted through the lens of my stepdad's boundless enthusiasm, so this should be interesting.

Also whoever said that the Eagles and Steve Miller Band occupy the same space in his thoughts is OTM. I just had to take a second to remember which band released Time Keeps on Slippin'.

• This was the song I was thinking about above when I made mention of my fear of Eagles background vocals. That bridge at 2:40 would be the perfect scene soundtrack to a character on PCP realizing too late that they've just murdered a loved one.

It's probably even happened in real life.

hahahahaha OTM

Holy fuck, was there anything Christgau was right about in the '70s (or, frankly, ever)?

― 誤訳侮辱, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

The only thing i can come up with is Skynyrd, other than that, the guy sucked about as bad as you can suck.

Haha xp that's great. Also, the little dropped in bent guitar note at 2:46 is killing me.

The toms on the intro make me wonder if it started out as some kind of "Cherokee Nation" thing.

This. The tom sound is such a Western movie cliche it feels kind of creepy, though the lyrics don't pick up that theme (perhaps the "til your skin turns red" line is left over from an earlier, more racist version?)

All that wooo-oooing is the best part.

As a child, I assumed that the witchy woman was staying up all night casting a spell that would cause you to get a skin ailment similar to a sunburn so that's probably what it is.

wiki says that bernie wrote the music when he was in burrito brothers so maybe he had a western-themed thing in mind. then henley wrote his haunted flapper lyrics.

tarfumes at least listen to the guitar sound on that t.v. clip i linked too. they sound so good. that's my kinda tone.

― scott seward, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 9:57 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow. Yeah, the guitars in that clip help the song exponentially.

I have no personal experience, but an older friend who was an enthusiast in their heyday says that they were the loviest, huggiest drug ever. Way more than MDMA. "We would all just end up sitting in a heap on the floor, everybody with their arms around each other," that kind of thing.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, August 21, 2013 9:59 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah, ok, that kinda makes sense now...my only exposure to 'ludedom was Albert Brooks in Modern Romance ("I have so many great albums!")

that cracked me up in modern romance. i could relate. i actually did that once on one of the only occasions that i did X. i just sat in a chair next to my records all night.

As a child, I assumed that the witchy woman was staying up all night casting a spell that would cause you to get a skin ailment similar to a sunburn so that's probably what it is.

― Lawyer... SUAVE... (carl agatha)

http://www.stolloween.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/witches3.jpg

Hey y'all just wanna suggest a good book to go along with this thread would be Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California, really great account of the whole scene

we talked about that book at length on the eagles thread that spawned this thread. i loved it even though it really bummed me out majorly.

I have no personal experience, but an older friend who was an enthusiast in their heyday says that they were the loviest, huggiest drug ever. Way more than MDMA. "We would all just end up sitting in a heap on the floor, everybody with their arms around each other," that kind of thing.

Tel it to Pulaski.

i thought this and "one of these nights" were the bee gees when i was a kid

then i realized that all the bee gees songs i disliked were actually the eagles

I think this is an excellent song. Agreed about the guitars.

listening to this song for the first time voluntarily -- that's what's going on here, right? -- i think i am unable to separate the association of the eagles' singing/lyrics with boozy (usually old) sleazebags. i like the music ok, and the guitar solo was enjoyable, but i want don henley to stop singing every time he starts.

i feel like eagles played every song just a little slower than anyone else would play the same song. so slow and deliberate. no wonder bluegrass people get such a thrill speeding that shit up.

Bernie Leadon was a bluegrass person!

I'm kinda surprised nobody's ever sampled the little guitar part between 0:22 and 0:29.

"Bernie Leadon was a bluegrass person!"

yah not in the eagles he wasn't. okay crazy banjo in take it easy makes me a liar but in general...

they did country/downhome but it was often way slow country/downhome. though that's why this thread is good cuz there are probably hootenanny tracks i have missed. even their rockers are often very slow rockers. it was the suitcase full of valium...

It's really hard to play fast with one of those suitcases cuffed to your wrist.

I really dig Witchay Woman...I kinda wish they did more material with *that* kinda sound

and let's make sure we're putting ELO's Evil Woman our Halloween playlist

I'm still loling and agreeing with Carl about that 'rocking you in the night til your skin turns red'. I had a childhood fascination with that line too! It sounded very witchcraftian when I was a little kid, that she could turn your skin red but the rocking you was still not clear to me.

Now I'm grown up it's just like ew gross and also ow wtf

idgi

I assume it's just about sex now. She'll fuck you until you're... red? Maybe he means badly chafed.

Yes, rubbed raw. OWWWW

that's all I can think of

who would want that, I mean

Or at the very least giving you a yeast infection.

...

imagine writing about bad chafing, c'mon guys

...whereas VGs original interpretatino was on some I Dream of Jeanie, blink three times and *POOF* the Eagles have vermillion-tinted epidermis.

This will not end well for anyone involved.

And didn't we decide this was a song about Zelda Fitzgerald? Does The Great Gatsby have whole passages about bad chafing?

tbf Tender Is The Night sounds like it might

OKAY I AM MOVING ON FROM THIS I FEEL BAD FOR BRINGING IT UP AGAIN

One thing I found when I relistened to this is that something about the riff (after the wigwam drum jam opening) is that it reminds me a little bit of Sherbet's 'Howzat'

something about the bassline maybe? but same kinda groove

...but it's entirely possible that these sound nothing alike to anyone but me and I just wanted an excuse to listen to Sherbet again lol

Also whoever said that the Eagles and Steve Miller Band occupy the same space in his thoughts is OTM. I just had to take a second to remember which band released Time Keeps on Slippin'.

― Lawyer... SUAVE... (carl agatha), Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:07 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wanna fly like The Eagles....

The main difference is that the Eagles weren't non-playing motherfuckers with only one or two sorry-ass albums.

I'm still loling and agreeing with Carl about that 'rocking you in the night til your skin turns red'. I had a childhood fascination with that line too!

This reminds me of MY childhood obsession with Donna Summer's request to "Do it tonight/You know the moment is right/Turn my brown body white" in "Dim All The Lights"

tarfumes we are gonna have to step outside. i love steve miller. he was putting out spooky 7 minute epics complete with orchestra in 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJALQcCHuF0

"Love's Riddle" on that album...ahhhhh what a beautiful song.

i actually don't even own any steve miller albums after that one. still, that's seven steve miller albums i have at home that i really like a lot. i like spacey steve a ton.

I actually don't mind Miller too much. That spacey track is nice. But he hates the Who ("totally unmusical"), and Miles Davis hates him:

“I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and when we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, and everybody dug it.”