Speaker 1: This is Spunky Comstock.
Speaker 2: I'm here with Wolfman Mike.
Speaker 3: We're from the seventies versus the Eighties podcast, and we
want to introduce you to a little album called Hotel California.
So you could hear this album absolutely everywhere when it
first came out, and the only thing worse if you
weren't a huge Eagles fan. They split up, and then
they all took up solo careers, and then they started
assaulting you on different fronts. I remember as a kid,
when i'd go with my dad to the auto parts story,
you'd hear the Eagles.
Speaker 1: You'd go with your mom to the grocery store, you'd
hear the Eagles.
Speaker 4: You go with your grandparents to the proctologists, you'd hear
the Eagles.
Speaker 3: These nice dudes at the Shirley Campy Serious podcast invite
it to sign, and I think we're just wrecking it.
All right, let's go to the guys from Shirley Can't
Be Serious.
Speaker 2: Well, everybody, welcome back to the Shirley You Can't Be
Serious podcasts. Jason, there are i would say three American
bands that defined the seventies sound. Okay, okay, Number three
I'm gonna say is Lennard Skinner. Okay, okay, haven't covered
them yet, right, but would love to. Florida band Southern rock,
right yeah, sure. Number two Aerosmith Oh okay, yeah, I
mean and we have that, we have covered them, but
they have Boston boys from Boston, totally different sound.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the band that we're here today, I think
is the American band that defined what the seventies sounded like,
and that is the Eagles. And you know the that article.
It's interesting because we've had some talk about it. It's not
the Eagles, it's Eagles, but I just watched the documentary.
Every one of those guys calls themselves the EA. I
know every one of them, So I'm gonna call them
the Eagles because if they can do it, I can
do it, right. That's right, That's right.
Speaker 4: Here's my trivia question for you before we get started.
Speaker 5: Yeah, give me the top six selling albums in the
United States all time?
Speaker 4: Ready go uh?
Speaker 2: Thriller.
Speaker 5: Thriller's number two, Covered It Back in Black. Back in
Black is number four.
Speaker 2: Covered It Hotel California.
Speaker 5: Hotel California is number three. Getting Ready to Cover It?
Eagle's Greatest Hits, Volume one number one.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I've what I've gotten?
Speaker 2: Two more five and number six? Okay?
Speaker 4: Are they?
Speaker 2: This is of all time in the United States in
the United States Bodyguard soundtrack.
Speaker 4: No, but that's a good guess. How you get a hint?
Uh here?
Speaker 5: Well, both are from the seventies. Okay, we haven't covered
either one of these yet, but we will next week.
Speaker 2: Okay, So rumors rumors.
Speaker 5: By Fleetwood Mac number six all time in the United.
Speaker 2: States, okay. And then what's the other one on?
Speaker 5: And then the number five spot is led Zeppelin four?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2: Right. So interestingly this album come out, they had greatest
Hits released while they were recording this album, kind of against.
Speaker 4: Their will, kind of without their knowledge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, sorry band that we released the
greatest selling album of all time.
Speaker 4: It means an extra one hundred million dollars in.
Speaker 2: Your pocket, yeah, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so then they record this in seventy six, release
it late seventy six. This has to be This is
nominated for Album the Year, right, it had to win, right,
It did not win.
Speaker 4: It did not win.
Speaker 2: Hotel California, which is literally a Greatest Hits album by itself,
By Itself did not.
Speaker 5: Win, did not win Album of the Year, what one
rumors by Fleetwood Mac.
Speaker 2: So what you're saying is we've got a hefty match
up here, right, It's going to be one for the ages. Guys,
if you don't know how we do are, if this
is your first time to listen to us, the way
that we do things is we picked two heavy hitters,
like two icons, and we compare them and we just said, hey,
these guys share a relationship. I mean, you've got Don
Henley and Stevie Nicks having a relationship together. These albums
both came out with just like in a few months
of each other, both huge, But I did not realize
that it was that close. That Album of the Year
Hotel California is nominated but loses to Rumors, which we
will be covering on our next episodes.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think you overlooked one connection that's kind
of under the radar. Stevie Nicks and Joe Walsh were
together for three years and she called him the love
of her life.
Speaker 2: Let me say this. I'm going to say this right now.
Joe Walsh is an American treasure. And the fact that
we don't talk about him more. Is a travesty, all right.
He is one of the greatest human beings I've ever
had the chance to study in my life. Okay, So
nineteen sixty seven, the guitarist for a band called the
James Gang is a wall from the Armony and decided
he wants to leave his wife, so he itches the
band and goes out to California start his own band.
And then they like a little while later, they get
to knock at the door and it's this kind of
crazy looking guy who's like, hey man, hey man, you
need a guitarist, and they bring him in and he's
obviously phenomenal. It's a five piece band again for about
a week, like, they lose two of their members, try
to replace one of them, he's gone again, and they
have this show set up and they're like, we don't
have all of our people, but we really need the money.
So they perform it as a three piece band, and
they're like, hey, we're pretty dang good as a three
piece band. And so, then of course time goes on,
they developed, they get signed. James Gang has a couple
of great tunes really off their second album, but Funk
forty nine is an icon. He shows what kind of
guitarist Joe Walsh is and do you know who produced
those albums? That's correct, yes, And so fast forward about
eight years and Bernie Leeden is kind of pissed off
about the direction that the Eagles is headed, and Glenn
Fry is particularly excited about the way that the Eagles
are headed right, and he's talking it up and Bernie
Leeden says, you need to cool off, buddy, and dumps
a beer on his head. And that was just effectively
the decision that terminated him from the band.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, just hearing that disrespect, even if it
was kind of meant jokingly.
Speaker 4: I mean, Glenn Fry, these guys are uptight. I told
you they are the least taking it easy people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Glenn Fry and Don Henley do not take it easy.
Speaker 4: They do not. They take it to the limit.
Speaker 2: So Bernie's out of the band and they've been doing
this joke thing for a while because Joe Walsh was
opening for them. Where when they get done with their
i think their first set or maybe their first encore
as a joke, they bring out this guitar case and
Joe Walsh pops out of the guitar case like a
woman out of a cake. They play a couple of
James Gang songs and they play some Eagle songs together,
and when Bernie's gone, Bill Simsuck's like, why don't you
have Joe joined the band? And they said that sounds
freaking phenomenal, you.
Speaker 5: Know, just on that note. Glenn Fry is a demanding, tough,
street smart, tu fisted, profit driven, no taking it easy
kind of guy, and Don Henley is a perfectionist, absolute,
can hear every mistake, tight malcontent, and then you bring
in this.
Speaker 4: Guy what the band needed.
Speaker 2: He is the end of their Yang mans.
Speaker 5: Hey, I sent you the beginning of the Joe Walsh
song Meadows.
Speaker 4: Did you listen to it? Them? We play this for
you well, so I can't remember.
Speaker 2: Was it Rocky Mountain Way or was it Life's Been
Good to Me so far? That ends in this kind
of weird cacophony of bizarre animal noises.
Speaker 4: I think it's Life's been good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh so so. In that interim, in
the middle of the time of James Gang's success and
him joining the Eagles, he opens for a band called
the Who Yes and the drummer for the band The Who.
Is a guy named Keith Moon who is known as
the ultimate party rock and roll machine, world famous, resulting
in his own demise right, you know, famously found in
a swimming pool, face down, right, who knows exactly what
happened to him, but do you know drives a roll
Royce into a pool a lake, I don't remember, just
just full of crazy stuff. But while Joe is touring
with The Who, Keith Moon's like, I like you, you
are going to now beat my protegee.
Speaker 4: We're buddies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so Joe then becomes the ultimate hotel trash
master and an epic end to a story that we
talked about on our Greatest Hits episode. The story was
when he met Jim Belushi. They decided to go to
a fancy restaurant. They wouldnt let him in because they
were blue jeans, so they sprayed painted their jeans black,
went back in and sat down on the you know,
Queen Anne needle Point, very fine expensive chairs, got up
and realized the back of their jeans were blue again,
but the seats were now black on these chairs, and
they backed out and ran away. But then that night
they decided to see if they could set the record
for the most hotel damage. And in nineteen whatever it
was seventy seven dollars. It was twenty eight thousand dollars
of dam.
Speaker 5: That doesn't even come close to my favorite Joe Walsh's story.
And well, this is before we've even got to the album.
But he was on Jeopardy a few years ago and
he was playing against Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray, who
is cleaning up yeah, and Graham Nash, who also it's
all foggy because of the sixties and seventies, but the
question was somehow related to who was Joe Walsh's first wife,
And Joe Walsh sat there and was like thinking about
Mark McGrath's, like out of respect, he was waiting.
Speaker 4: For him to answer. He's like, well, I guess I'll
answer for him.
Speaker 5: Uh huh, And Mark McGrath got the answer correct before joesh.
Speaker 4: That's great, that's great.
Speaker 2: Well, we've blathered on a bit, but the important thing
to note is this is the first album to feature
Joe Walsh on it. We had lost Bernie Leadon after
the beer incident. And it is also the last album
to feature Randy Meisner. That's right, and we'll get into
that whole story once we get further along in the album.
But I think we need to stop talking about stuff
and start diving into the music.
Speaker 4: Okay, before we.
Speaker 5: Do, I've got just a couple of tidbits. Overall on
the album, Okay, Okay, third most selling album in the
United States of all time, twenty six times platinum. It
went platinum in one week.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: It was released December eighth, nineteen seventy six. Before the
year is over, it's already platinum. The cover of this
album is so iconic. It's actually there you go, right there,
That is the Beverly Hills Hotel, shot at Golden Hour.
I just love this cover so much. David Alexander's the photographer.
They actually got a cherry picker rose up over Sunset
Boulevard to take this picture. And when the Beverly Hills
Hotel was looking at They're like.
Speaker 4: Hey, wait a minute, that's our hotel. They tried to sue.
By the way, I checked Beverly Hills Hotel.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just to see what are going rates, you know,
and it's.
Speaker 4: Between four and you know, two thousand dollars a night.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so is it the same hotel that
Axle Foley was trying to check into. I was going
to do a piece on Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5: That's right, but they don't let any Yeah. This album
was nominated for five Grammys in nineteen seventy eight. It
won two, including Record of the Year, which was for
Hotel California, WHI we're going to talk about here in
a second. But they refused to show up unless they
were guaranteed to win.
Speaker 4: That's weird these guys.
Speaker 5: For as much as I respect them as artists and musicians,
they are capital D douches about some things.
Speaker 2: Take it easy, guys, they do not easy. Get a peaceful,
easy feeling. Oh my gosh. So in nineteen seventy six,
Don Felder is fiddling around on his guitar, which he does.
He was told by Bernie who I mean childhood friends.
Speaker 5: They played on the same high school band together.
Speaker 2: I'll tell that story in a bit. But Bernie says, hey,
just record your musical ideas. Put them on tape. Give
him to Glenn and and they will figure out what
they like, right, and they'll put words to They'll make
good words to whatever music you're putting down. Make a
musical bed for them and so on one of probably
a dozen songs on a tape he had given them,
of probably dozens of tapes he had given them, they
listened to a song that they describe as a mix
between Mexican Latin music and reggae, and it strikes them
and they start to write a song. And Henley is
probably the main songwriter for this about the well you
put it in many different ways, about the disillusionment of
America and thinking that you want success and then finding
out that it's not as good as you thought it was.
But I think he summed it up perfectly on the
Howard Sterns Show. He said, it's about that thin line
between the American dream and the American nightmare. And that
song is called Hotel California.
Speaker 5: The we're talking about one of the greatest songs of
all time.
Speaker 2: It is the hub of the wheel that this album
was conceived around. Okay, they did this song first, and
every other song on this album is involved in the
concept of this first song, and they didn't even release
it as the first single. This was the second single
that they released on A.
Speaker 6: Way in the Distance, Right.
Speaker 1: Down Night.
Speaker 5: It doesn't make any sense, I mean it does make
sense because at the time radio would not play six
minute songs. It had to be three and a half minutes.
And it certainly you better be singing by the thirty
second mark or else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to radio edit this. No, No, I'm
not going to No, it's got to be shorter. No,
not doing it. If you don't want to play it,
don't play it.
Speaker 5: Oh, by the way, there's a two minute and thirty
second guitar dueling guitar solo at the end.
Speaker 2: I gotta say this, there are a handful of guitar
solos from the seventies that belong on the Mount rushmore
of best guitar solos of the decade. This is unquestionably
in the conversation and might be number one.
Speaker 5: Joe Walsh and Felder shredding at the end of this,
And that doesn't even discuss the kind of cryptic lyrics,
the kind of the mystery and the tone in Henley's voice.
Speaker 2: The lyrics are cryptic, as you've said, and that led
to all kinds of weird interpretations. Glenn Fry said, we
like to kind of keep the mystery of the song,
you know, like put it out there and let people
do with it, what they want to do with it,
and man, people went crazy with this. One talks about
the Church of Satan based on images in the photograph
that are not actually those images at all. It's just
crazy stuff.
Speaker 5: I know when I grew up, my parents were uncomfortable
a little bit with the line, you know, you could
stab it with your steely knives, but you just can't
kill the beast and then sort of running for the door.
It's kind of this weird ghost story, the shining type
of thing.
Speaker 2: It's a journey, yeah, yeah, I mean it's the hero's journey.
You're he's gone into a place that is the underworld
and he's just trying to escape.
Speaker 4: I think it's brilliant, and I think people read into
it way too much.
Speaker 5: I just think it's kind of a cool story that
they were kind of pushing the limits on. Glenn Frey
talked about how they wanted to create like a Twilight Zone.
Speaker 4: Type of thing.
Speaker 2: That's I certainly got that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: By the way, this song reached number one. It was
the second single, as you said, which still seems crazy
to me. This was released February twenty second, nineteen seventy seven.
It reached number one May seventh, nineteen seventy seven, stayed
number one for one week. Do you want to hear
the top five real quick?
Speaker 4: You know that I do?
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm gonna start with number six Right Time of
the Night by Jennifer warrens Okay. We talked about her
on our Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 5: Number five Don't Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston.
Speaker 4: Great disco song.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, Number four maybe the only Stevie Wonder song I.
Speaker 2: Actually like, Sir Duke.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, yep, all right?
Speaker 5: Number three Southern Nights by Glenn Campbell and number two
When I Need You by Leo Sayer.
Speaker 2: Okay, man, I would two. No, I was one. I
was yeah, I wasn't even two yet when these when
these things were happening.
Speaker 4: But here's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: This album is really where the band cracks and they
get one more album out before they're done. But this
is when they really crack. And what's crazy is it is,
in my mind, unquestionably the best Eagles album ever. Oh
it is it is. We you know, we talk about
albums that are that are good from beginning to end,
and we've talked about albums that don't have any skippers,
but this is so far beyond that. I think you
should put it like that. It's not that there are
no skippers, it's every single song is perfect, like it
is just a blend, perfect blend, perfect music. Like it's
not only no skippers, it's like you have to listen
to every song. You can't skip anything.
Speaker 5: So I told you that this was in my house,
Like my parents listen to this music, my uncle listen
to this music. And when I was a little kid,
it was kind of around and then I as I
grew it kind of became rear view mirror type of
thing for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I went on a ski trip with Chris Alexander, Chris Bauer,
I call him Bomber. My buddy Eric wenton and they
popped in a tape of Eagles Greatest Hits Volume one
on one side, Eagles Greatest Hits Volume two on the
other side, and I came crashing back into the Eagles
as a super fan.
Speaker 2: I remember this song specifically was not my introduction to
the Eagles, because I had heard their music, but I
didn't know anything about them. I couldn't have told you
that any particular song was an Eagles song. I'd heard
them before, but it was just like things on the radio,
and you just don't not right. But I would have
been thirteen or fourteen years old. I had recently been
teaching myself how to play the guitar. I can remember
being mom had just passed the year before. I'm hanging
out with my dad. He had a TV in his bedroom.
We're sitting there. I don't know why we would have
been watching MTV, but literally, the video, the live performance
of this song comes on and I'm like, oh, I
love this song. I'd seen it several times. I love
this song. And my dad says, this is a great song.
Speaker 4: He didn't.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like a new discovery like you're
talking about as well. But he's like, let's see if
we can figure out how to play it. And I said,
I think we have this album. And I went and
looked at our albums and we had Eagles Live. Never
had listened to it before. I just remembered a Eagles.
I remembered seeing that. Right, it's like a trunk. It's
like a trunk with stickers on it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: He pulls it out, he starts playing, and he's like, Okay, well,
I think need to slow it down, and so the
record players you could slow them down, right. And so
this song starts in B minor, right, and had actually
the original song had started with Felder writing in an
E minor, but Don Henley's voice wouldn't fit in that,
and so they kept dropping it until it hits B minor.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: But for somebody who's not a prolific guitar player, my
dad was not a prolific guitar player, it's a whole
lot easier to play a minor, right, okay, And so
we slowed the record down a full note, right, you
go from B down to A, and he plays an
A minor. And I watched, I listened to my dad
figure out how to play all all of the chords
to this song, and I'm kind of blown away and
inspires me to do this later on. But that was
also when we began playing music together because once he
had figured it out, he figured out how to play
it on the piano, and I could play it on
the guitar because he had taught me how to do it.
And so this and for the next thirty something years,
every time we got together, we would play music together.
That was the thing that we shared and this song
was the inspiration for that.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's a great story. Yeah, that's a great story.
Speaker 2: Okay, we have to give a shout out to our
executive producers for this episode. We have two new Patreon members.
They just signed up like yesterday. One was yesterday, one
was yesterday, one was back in April, and DJ Padinski
joined in April. Hey, Dj, thanks man, appreciate you. And
then the other one. All I've got is CCC. I
don't know who CC is. We're going to cz we.
We just found out about you yesterday and so we'll
find out exactly who you are once you respond to
our email. But thank you guys very much. We appreciate
you supporting the podcast listener. If you are not a
Patreon member yet and you want to become one, we'll
make you an executive producer. It gives you access to
all of our one Hit Wonder and other novelty song episodes.
So we've got dozens of those episodes. You get a listen,
you can listen to all of the old ones and
then every new one that comes out, and this is
the great one that we just started this year. If
you are bothered by the fact that we have advertisements
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Speaker 5: Back to what we were talking about, how Felder, you
know the other guys would write musically a bed for
Hinley and Fry to write lyrics for yes.
Speaker 4: So that happened on this song.
Speaker 5: So felders, as you said, created seventeen eighteen nineteen songs,
and Lee goes Nope, crap crap, crap, crap, crap, except
for two Yeah. One turns into victim of love, which
we'll talk about here in a second. Yes and one
turns into Hotel California, Welcome.
Speaker 7: To that.
Speaker 1: Things.
Speaker 5: It came time to record and Hindley's like, Okay, let's
do this, and Felder starts playing it and Hindley's like, no, no, no, no, no,
you're not doing any of it right. He's like, oh really,
I thought I was, so start to play it again.
He's like no, no, no, no, no, like the demo and
he's like, guy's been like a year since I sent
that to you. He didn't remember, so he was just
kind of filling around. So Henley's like, you have to
figure out how you did it on the demo because
that's the way it's going on the record. So they
were in Miami recording at Criterion. He had to call
his housekeeper back in Malibu and tell her to put
the tape in, turn it way up, and he had
the telephone. He had to listen to himself playing this.
Speaker 2: To figure it out. Now, So you've you've pointed out
something interesting. They're recording in Miami. They're recording a Hotel
California in Miami. No, No, the did do some recording in California.
Speaker 4: They were back and forth.
Speaker 5: But do you know why, Well, it's because their producer,
Bill Simsk, had this weird fear of earthquakes.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's weird.
Speaker 2: He was in an earthquake as a young person and
was like, I am I'm going to do that again.
Speaker 5: He was like, I'm out, guys, I'm in Florida. So
Simsk insisted on recording in Miami, and he even said
it was good to get the guys out of La,
get him away from the crowd, get him away from
the partying.
Speaker 4: And I told you, I'm like, I mean, who's partying
in Miami. I'm no drugs in Miami.
Speaker 5: If going to Miami is the better option, La was
crazy in the sun.
Speaker 2: You could check out, but you can never leave.
Speaker 5: One more thing I wanted to mention, Yeah, back to
the You can stab it with your steely knives, but
you just can't kill the beast. That is a direct
reference to Steely Dan.
Speaker 2: You know this. Steely Okay, Yeah, now Steely Knives. Okay,
I got you.
Speaker 5: Right, Okay, So Steely Dan in Steely Dan. Walter Becker
is a member of Steely Dan. His girlfriend was a
big fan of the Eagles and to drive him crazy.
She used to crank the Eagles. Okay, so come on, man,
I've had a long night. And so in their song
Everything You Did, there's a line that says, turn up
the Eagles, the neighbors are listening.
Speaker 4: Isn't a shout out or is it a disc?
Speaker 2: It's the it's a you were you're making radio popcorn
discs by the Steely Dance Newts.
Speaker 5: So anyway, so to reciprocate, they have the Steely Knives.
Speaker 2: I got you, I Got you. I hate to leave
this one.
Speaker 5: This is truly one of the greatest songs of all time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can't I can't say that there's another
song on here that's better than this song. But this
song is so ubiquitous, it's so just like everybody knows
this song that I'm going to I'm going to say
there's another song on here. I want you to pick
the other song. If we've got to take Hotel California
off of the list, Oh, okay, what is going to
be your This is the best song on the album,
Spikael Football song.
Speaker 4: I like it, like it? Okay, do it all right?
Speaker 5: You? I've got one more Hotel California store that I
want to tell you has to do with Glenn Fry,
Don Henley, and Don Felder, but it happens in nineteen
ninety four, so I'm gonna save that one in case
we want to talk about it on a Health Freezes
Over episode.
Speaker 2: So you're being very subtle about this, But I said
to this, and you know you guys are listening. You
tell us where whether this is a good idea or not.
I said, we should probably not talk about the reunion
because I think we need a third episode. We've done
greatest hits. We're doing Hotel California. We need to do
Health Freezes Over. And then I said, we probably should
compare it to another great American band who released another
great American band from the seventies who released an album
in nineteen ninety four. How about Aerosmith Big Ones.
Speaker 4: It's a great one, man, Okay, it's a great one,
so let it be written. So let it be done.
Speaker 2: Next to see this time next year?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 5: Are we done with Hotel California.
Speaker 2: We could go on four years just on this song,
but we got to do the whole album in less
than an hour.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: Next song on the album is called New Kid in town.
Speaker 1: There's talk on the streets.
Speaker 6: It sounds so.
Speaker 4: Familiar Johnny cum Lately.
Speaker 2: Every freaking lyric on this album is poetry. They will
never forget you until somebody new comes along.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Like, So this goes to the heart of the song,
which is this. They're at the height of their fame.
I mean the greatest hits is out right. They know
what's happening, Like it's like ding ding ding ding ding ding,
and what's going to happen when a new kid comes along.
They know you can't last river. They thought this band
might last a couple of years.
Speaker 5: The Eagles only recorded together for nine years before they're right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's nearly twice as long as the Beatles, So
that's pretty impressive. It's insane, right crazy.
Speaker 5: So this was the first single, released December seventh, nineteen
seventy six. It did reach number one on February twenty sixth,
nineteen seventy seven. I Got I Gotta read these to
you real quick. This is the top five.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Top five February twenty sixth, nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4: That's right, okay, I.
Speaker 2: Like Dreaming by Kenny Nolan. I Got nothing No.
Speaker 5: Number four, Fly Like an Eagle Steve Miller.
Speaker 2: Band, heck of a song, love It, Okay, yep.
Speaker 5: Number three Blinded by the Light Manford.
Speaker 2: Man, Manford Man, Yeah, written by for springste three Springsteen. Yeah,
talk about a better cover than the original. That's right.
Speaker 5: Number two Evergreen by Barbar Streisand Okay, my mom liked
that saying okay, and then number one New in Town
love It. I just wanted to point something out that's
sort of obvious and sort of not obvious. This is
the only song on the album that Glenn Fry sings
lead on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and you know we're going to talk about the
song that was promised to Don Felder a little bit
later and get into why this is the only song
that Glenn Fry sings in this album.
Speaker 5: But yeah, you know, we can point out the obvious
and say, when you have Don Henley on your team,
he kind of needs to be center Mike.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But to relegate Glenn Fry, I mean he has the
same number of songs that Randy Meiser has on this
album and that Joe Walsh has on this album.
Speaker 2: One more than Don fel Yeah, we'll talk about that right.
Speaker 5: This one the Grammy for Best Vocal Arrangement for two
or more voices. We told a story on Our Eagle's
Greatest Hits Volume one episode that we did last summer.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now, Glen Fry got his start in Detroit and he
was hanging around with this guy called Bob Seeger.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 5: I have heard of him, and Bob Seger took an
interest in Glenn Fry, took him under his wing, wanted
him to join the band, but Bob Seeger's band, Glenn
Fry's mom told him he could not do that. You
know why got him smoking pot with Bob Singer and
she was like, nope, not my son.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 5: So anyway, he moves out to la and he meets
this guy named JD.
Speaker 4: Souther. JD.
Speaker 2: Souther wrote some of.
Speaker 5: The songs on Greatest Hits Volume one. He even has
the Golden Wiener Award we talked about for Peaceful Easy
Feeling because at the Der Wiener Schnitzel and San Diego
he wrote that song in that booth.
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, that's right. They awarded him the Golden Wiener.
Speaker 5: Go back and listen to that episode that was a
great fun But this song was originally written by JD. Souther,
but he couldn't finish it. JAD Souther was this great
starter but couldn't finish, so he brought it to Don
and Glenn. About a year later, they wrapped it up.
By the way, JAD Souther helped write Best of My
Love and Heartache Tonight as well. Yeah, one more thing
about this song. You know, Glen Fry had made friends
with this guy named Jeane Carr who played hockey for
the La Kings. This is before Wayne Gretzky Okay, So
the Kings were like nothing right, I mean, you had
the Lakers and then Kings. We play hockey in La Okay.
But he was this guy that they brought in. They
had big expectations for him and supposedly he was the
inspiration for new kid in Town.
Speaker 2: Supposedly according to him. Well he did say that, but
I mean he was friends with Glenn Froy.
Speaker 5: He was French with Glen Fry, and Glen Fry would
wear his jersey and concert.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. Maybe maybe I don't know.
Speaker 8: Homeless movements here we talking, but after.
Speaker 1: Luke it stoss Hart the.
Speaker 2: Man Okay, So one of the things I love about
this song is the different transitions that they use from
verse to chorus. Right, So, the first time, as you're
listening to and it goes into the chorus, it's nothing.
It's just like a I'm just a smooth The guitar
just keeps playing. It's strumming, no big deal. Second time
we get to the chorus, you hear Don Henley, even
though Glynn Fry is singing, yes, he goes does his
little Don Henley sprinkle of magic on there?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the next time we get to the chorus,
you've gett Now. I'm pretty sure on this one. I'm
pretty sure that Joe Walsh is actually playing the keyboards
on this one. If i'm I might be mistaken. But
if it's not Joe Walsh, it's got to be Don
Felder who does this awesome Darren Aaron Arrow moves into
this dark you know. And then the end, I love
the end. Everybody's talking. I don't want to hear it.
Everybody's talking. I don't want to hear it while, which
is to me is like a little kid going la
la la la. I'm not doing that beautiful. It's a brilliant,
amazing song. It is, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: Just okay.
Speaker 2: So I know that Joe Walsh had a significant substance
abuse issue. That's putting a mildly. I also know that
Don Felder, who was probably the more straight laced of
all of the guys in the band, starts off his
book with I walk on the stage for the Hotel
California tour, white powder still on my nostrils, and we
play I play that opening cord riff for Hotel California,
and I can see the crowd go wild because they
think we're going to close with it and we're opening
with it. So he's doing some cocaine. Yes, Were they
all doing cocaine at this time?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: In fact, Geezer Butler, who was in Black Sabbath, said
when they went to record in the same studio they
they had enough cocaine on the mixing board to have
a party.
Speaker 2: On the mixing board. On the mixing board, not even
in with the instruments, that's where you need it, Like,
what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: Just shake it all on to the table.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they must have had some pretty close friends.
There are drug dealers, I'm.
Speaker 5: Guessing absolutely, So Glenn Fry had this buddy of his
named the Count, the Count, And you know why they
called him the.
Speaker 2: Count because he counted the money, because he.
Speaker 5: Did a poor job of counting, so they all called
him the Count. And he and the Count were in
a car and they were going to a Eagles poker
game and the Count was driving like ninety miles an
hour on the freeway. This is back in the fifty
five miles per hour. You know, I can't drive fifty
five days, right right?
Speaker 4: And Glynn Fry is like, dude, what you're driving like
a maniac. They're loaded up too, right right? Oh yeah,
they're not sobers.
Speaker 2: The drug dealer is carrying right, he's fried and dirty.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: And Glyn Fry's like, dude, chill and this guy's like whatever, dude.
Speaker 9: There's Life in the fast Lane baby.
Speaker 2: That is flipping awesome.
Speaker 5: This song was the third single reached number eleven, did
not even crack.
Speaker 4: The top ten. That's nice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the opening riff. I told you the other day.
I called you and I said, what does Life in
the fast Lane by the Eagles and Sweet Child of
Mine by Guns and Roses have in common?
Speaker 4: Did I get it right?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 4: Did, Okay, I thought I did.
Speaker 2: I remembered specifically because we discussed the origin of Sweet
Child of Mine when we cover Guns and Roses Appetite
for Destruction. Yes, I remember that it came from a
dumb warm up rift and all of a sudden that
was like, oh wait, that's the same way that this
came up. Joe Walsh had a finger exercise that he
did to like it's difficult to do. This is a
hard freaking song to play. And he's over there practicing
warming up, and Glenn Fry says, wait, what was that?
Play that again? Yes, the.
Speaker 4: Great job.
Speaker 2: It's Glen Air guitar.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: You know when you envision it, Glenn Fry says, whoa
what was that? In my envisioning, I think of like
cocaine all over his face, Like, dude.
Speaker 1: What is that you just played?
Speaker 4: That is a song? Yeah? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: The term life in the fast Lane in the American
lexicon comes from this song.
Speaker 2: Really yes, no, yes, so lines on the mirror and
lines on their face as they're recording the song, Yes, for.
Speaker 5: Sure, life in the fast Linge Baby, I love call
the doctor.
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna crash. Doctor said he's coming, but
you gotta pay him cash. What doctor are we talking
about here? Will this be doctor?
Speaker 4: Feel good? Doctor?
Speaker 2: Feel good?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 5: You know there's some there's some people mentioned in this song.
Speaker 2: You know they were good and bad. You know he
was too tired to make it. She was too tired
to fight about it. You know.
Speaker 5: It's rumored that this song was inspired by Lindsey Buckingham
and Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 4: Hm, I can see that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, third and final single off of this album.
Speaker 2: Three singles, three singles.
Speaker 4: What I know? I've heard every song on this album
on the radio at least once.
Speaker 2: Is this the third best song on the album?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: I think there are It could be there. They're all fantastic. Yeah,
but I will say this, if you are an Eagle's
Greatest Hits Volume two, guy, and that's all you know
from Hotel California, you're in for a treat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: Next song on the album is called Wasted Time.
Speaker 1: Well, babe, their youth game.
Speaker 6: With your little hair down in your hand.
Speaker 5: We have a contender for greatest song outside of Hotel.
Speaker 4: California right here.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've moved from life in the fast Lane
to life in the slow Lane, like if you're listening
to that high Hat at the beginning that it's so slow,
but give me life in the slow lane because I
am spiking the football. This is outside of Hotel, California.
The best song on the album.
Speaker 4: I can't argue with that. It's be beautiful the.
Speaker 5: Strings with Henley's voice, and actually it goes from really
slow to sort of really full, like finish is really strong.
Speaker 2: The tempo does change a bit in the song, as
does the mood of the song. It's this concern when
you've reached the end of a relationship of you know,
was why did we do all this? Like why do
we go through all of this heartache? Why do we
spend all of this time together only for it to
be over? And then you have this kind of uplifting
end to the song where it's like, well, even if
it's over, maybe we learned something. Maybe we became somebody
better because of it. Right, maybe it wasn't all just
waste time.
Speaker 8: And the way in Math is Waytad's coming Gone.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's poetic. Yeah, in fact I called you and told you.
Speaker 5: Like the very last of the song, it changes and
I don't know how to describe it musically, you know.
Speaker 2: Better than I do.
Speaker 4: But it becomes optimistic about the future.
Speaker 2: Well, and I looked at the chord progression because I thought,
as I was listening to it, I'm like, melodically, it's
still the same melody. That the melody doesn't change, and
as he sings, maybe it wasn't all just wasted time.
As he sings that line, and it's like, oh, okay, maybe
this is maybe think there's hope, right, you have that hope.
But it's the same melody, same chord progression. But what
changes is what comes after. And the the first time,
it transitions right back into the verse. Second time it
transitions into a bridge, and the bridge goes from a
flat to C and it's kind of melancholy even with that.
But what they do the last time, after they're done
with the verse, he goes from still a flat to
see but there's a chord in the middle. He plays
a B flat in the middle, which is how you
get that dome dome, dome, dome that build that doom doom,
doom doom.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, there's hope.
Speaker 2: It's like the end of the movie, like, hey, I've
discovered this. Maybe there's still hope out there. It's that
little change, that subtle, little change to the chord progression
and building up to that sea that makes it hope.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: I heard Don Henley talking about how initially when he
recorded Desperado, they brought in the London Symphony yep. And
he was like, man, I gotta get this right. The
London Symphonies here. We're paying them a lot of money
and I've got to nail these notes. And he looked
around and he realized these guys are bored out.
Speaker 4: Of their minds.
Speaker 5: He said, he's stressed and like trying to not, you know,
save money and save time and get these people where
they need be. And he's he noticed that two guys
who are like trumpet players or whatever, they had.
Speaker 4: A chessboard between them and.
Speaker 5: They they went between things, they would move the chess
piece so and I can kind of see it on
this one now.
Speaker 4: I asked you if you knew who Laurie Redkin was.
I do not know.
Speaker 5: Okay, Laurie Redkin was Don Henley's girlfriend that he was
going through a breakup with. And listen to this girl,
so I was as I looked into her, I'm like,
this is a this is a top shelf woman. Okay,
this is the girl that when you breaking up with her,
you're like, please don't leave me.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So she has made jewelry for Elizabeth Taylor and Michelle
Obama that she actually wore in the inauguration. Okay, so
this is like not nobody, right. She designed homes for
Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, and Bernie Toppin who she also
dated and she managed Brad Pitt got him the part
in Thelma and Louise managed Robert Downey Junior during his
drugging days Wow, and Alexander Goodenoff during his diehard days.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: She also dated Richard gear and she inspired the lyrics.
Her mind is Tiffany twisted, and she got the Mercedes Benz.
Speaker 4: So she's a slacker. What the heck? What a resume,
I'm telling you, man.
Speaker 2: Wow, Like talk about somebody who could keep up with
Don Henley, I mean his need for perfection. Like there's
a go getter right there. My god, that's right.
Speaker 5: I've got another funny Don Henley dating story.
Speaker 4: Okay, you want to drop it right here? Yeah.
Speaker 5: So Don Henley was at a party in the Hollywood
Hills eighty eight eighty nine somewhere in there, okay, and
Michelle Pfeiffer is there, and Don Henley thinking I'm gonna
shoot my shot. I'm gonna take my shot with Michelle Pfiffer.
I'm Don freaking Henley. Yeah, that's Michelle Pfeiffer. And apparently
she had just gone through a breakup, so she was
a little down, she was a little discouraged. And Jack
Nicholson is also in the room, right, So Don Henley
goes up to Michelle Pfeiffer tries to kind of comfort
her in sort of a hey, do you want to
go out with me kind of way, and she totally
not interested.
Speaker 4: Get away from me, U creep like, like I get
out of here, eles man.
Speaker 5: So and she gets up and leaves, and he is
totally like embarrassed, humiliated at this party and he's sitting
there and Jack Nicholson goes nice, try Hanley, And that
story inspired the Don Henley song Last Worthless Evening.
Speaker 1: That's so.
Speaker 2: The guy who arranged the strings for this album is
a guy named Jim ed Norman. We talked about him
back when we did our Greatest Hits album. Yes, he
of course, also arranged the strings for the next song
that we're about to listen to right, and the next year,
nineteen seventy eight, he arranged the strings for Glenn Fry's
good friend Bob Seeker and We've got Tonight, another great
string arrangement.
Speaker 5: Love it, Yeah, all right, it's stop at your tape player,
kick it out, flip it over for side two, and
we start off side too with wasted Time reprise. I'm
an odd place for the reprise, don't.
Speaker 4: You think so?
Speaker 2: I know what the reasoning is behind this. Don Henley
talked about how this was a concept album and so
because it's a concept album, he wanted to not you know,
you don't want the division, and so he wanted to
tie side one inside two together. So that's why you
have the end of side one marrying up with the
beginning of side two in this reprise.
Speaker 4: Which is fan fre fantastic.
Speaker 2: I mean it's awesome. I mean it totally reminds me
stylistically of eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. Just this beautiful
little it's such a good and it demonstrates that this
song is like it's like Broadway musical worthy instrumentation arrangement
all of this stuff.
Speaker 5: These guys are no longer just country rock guys.
Speaker 2: No, Bernie's gone see you, Bernie, See Bernie, take your
banjo with you. Just kidding. I love all that stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do have one more story from Wasted Time.
So Black Sabbath would use the same studio as the
Eagles in Miami at Criterion when they would go to
la at a party whatever, right, and we talked about
how there was cocaine Oliver the mixer.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But when they were together.
Speaker 5: At the same time in Criterion, Black Sabbath was in
the studio next to the Eagles and they were working
really hard on Wasted Time, which of course is a
soft song, and Black Sabbath was playing so loud that
it interfered with the recording of Wasted Time.
Speaker 2: When you when you build a recording studio, you build
it so that you don't hear stuff between the walls.
Black Sabbath said, hold my beer.
Speaker 5: Okay, next song on the album. Next song on the
album is called Victim of Love.
Speaker 1: Kind of have you got?
Speaker 2: Around About nineteen sixty two, a young fifteen year old
Don Felder gets off the bus at the bus station
and is met by this guy with crazy curly hair
and a really cool car that says, hey, you don Yeah,
and he's like yeah. He's like, my name's Bernie. Bernie
leading shakes hands and he's like okay, and he's like,
I just came from your house. Your mom said that
you're getting dropped off by the bus over here. You
are ride home. And he's like yeah. Because kids didn't
know any better than not getting the car with strangers
back then, and they looked pretty close to the same age,
So I figured out, okay, all right, it's gonna be
all right. So what Bernie had done Bernie had just
moved to Gainesville, Florida. He went to the local guitar
store that was the best guitar store in sat town
and said, who's the best guitarist in town? And what
they told him was Don.
Speaker 5: Feld Don fingers Felder.
Speaker 2: Now what happened after that was that they formed a
band together, and then Bernie got tired of trying to
make it in Gainesville and said, we got to get
out of here. We got to either go to New
York or we gotta go to California. And Don Felder,
who had already had trouble with his love life. I'll
tell that story in a minute. Also with his parents,
I was like, sheeese man, I can't. I just can't.
I can't leave everything at this point, so Bernie leaves
and Don's left alone until eventually he comes out to California,
works as a session musician a little bit, and Bernie,
when Glenn Fry says, listen, we keep playing these country
songs and you're the country guitarist, but when you sing
these country songs, I'm the one that has to play
the lead guitar. That doesn't make any sense. We need
another guitarist. We need to have three guitars. And Bernie says, well,
I know a guy and brings Don Felder and the
band Throughout this story. The through line is great guitarist,
maybe not the best singer.
Speaker 5: So along with that, this is one of the songs
that Don Felder created the bed of musical pillows for
Don Henley to lay the lyrics song.
Speaker 2: When JD.
Speaker 5: Souther, Glenn Fry, and Don Henley got together to write
lyrics on Don Felder's musical idea, they talked about.
Speaker 2: How you know, what are we going to write about?
And JD.
Speaker 5: Souther made the comedy said, you know, breaking up with
somebody is sort of like being a victim of.
Speaker 4: A car crash.
Speaker 5: And they are like, I really like that term victim,
And so that's where they came up with victim of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 5: To Don Felder's song Now because Don Felder had brought
this song to the guys. He was under the impression
that he was going to sing lead vocal on this song.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: His idea was, I had been promised to finally get
to sing a song on one of these albums.
Speaker 4: Now keep him.
Speaker 2: He joined the band after they were already a success,
that's right. They had already had plenty of success with
just the with the four original guys, Randy, Bernie, Don
and Glenn. And so he comes in and he's think
he thinks he's just gonna play as assessin musician. So
Glenn calls him and says, hey, man, do you want
to join the band? And I mean, duh, of course,
but he wants to sing and he's fine as a
backup harmony singer. But they keep saying, no, we got
a couple of guys who can sing pretty good, you know,
And and they're not and even the third guy is
a better singer than you, like, I mean, Randy's a
really good singer.
Speaker 5: I mean Don, Glenn, Randy, and Joe can sing.
Speaker 4: Joe has a weird voice, but yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, Glynn was like, well, our
harmonies won't quite be quite as good.
Speaker 4: But the man, are we gonna rock?
Speaker 2: That's it. That's so yeah. So he gets the idea
that he's gonna be singing a song on this album,
which Joe had one, Randy had one, Randy had one,
Glenn had one, Glenn had one, Don had the rest.
Speaker 4: But there's a reason. It's Don freaking Henley.
Speaker 2: And this goes back to what you were saying about
Glenn only having one song on this album. Even Glenn realized, hey,
I don't need to sing the songs because we have
Don Henley. We have Don Henley, that's right.
Speaker 5: So Felder was intent on singing Victim of Love yep,
and and did and did and tried and.
Speaker 2: Took a dozen dimes.
Speaker 5: It took a lot of shots at it. And then
when he had his.
Speaker 2: Back turned well, Irving Azof is like, it was my
job to take to take him to lunch or dinner
and go this is not really gonna work out. And literally,
while he was being broken up with in a way,
you know, while he was having his heart broken, they're
gonna go ahead it. They're they're in the studio with
Don singing the lead to the song, and you know what,
they made the right choice.
Speaker 5: They made the right choice. But isn't the right to
always let Don sing? We talked about in private eyes
with Hall of Oates, like Daryl Hall should sing every song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5: Here's my take on this. Yeah, So in one hand,
I'm like, I could listen to Don Henley sing the
phone Book and I just think his voice is just
so amazing.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so on one hand, I do see that
argument that Don should sing everything. And if you want
to give Glenn Glenn should Glenn's a great singer.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is is that Glenn started singing, Like
Glenn's been singing with him since the beginning, and so
has Randy and Joe has had a successful career where
he sang that's it. Like they all have a track
record of success. Randy's first song that he sang is
their first number one.
Speaker 5: Hit, Take It to the Limit is one of the
greatest Eagles songs. Absolutely, and that's a Randy Meisner song
through and through. Yeah, we'll talk about that here in
just a second. Shure, Okay, But I just think taking
him out to lunch and recording the vocals while he's
you know, distracted, is not cool at all. And these
guys are far from cool, and a lot of respects
not about being cool to them.
Speaker 4: I know, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: And so I understand why Felder's upset.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but even he was like, I understand because we
had Henley right, my voice was not going to stand
up to that kind of screaty.
Speaker 2: But he but his his thought was, nobody's voice does
like you're saying, nobody's voice, and that's fair. But I
don't know, like depending on the type of music, like
Pretty Maids All in a Row wouldn't sound right if
Don Henley was singing it, you needed that weird sounding
voice to sing it. I will tell you this.
Speaker 5: When I heard Glenn fry went on David Letterman and
Glenn Fryes sang Desperado.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, keep in mind Glen fry.
Speaker 5: Great singer, successful solo artist, number one hits even or close.
Speaker 4: Heat is on I think number two whatever.
Speaker 5: It when seeing listen to somebody else sing Desperado, it
doesn't quite work as.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, so it doesn't sound like the Eagles.
It's not what's best for the Eagles, was was the
answer he got to his complaint.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And I still think they're right.
Speaker 4: They're right, of course they're right. Yeah, just not very cool.
Speaker 2: If you if you have Don Velder singing this song,
you now have a flawed album. And this this album
is a flawless album. So it would be the scratch
on the brand new Mercedes bins.
Speaker 5: That's fair, And it doesn't make Greatest Hits Volume two.
This song was the b side by the way to
New Kid in Town.
Speaker 2: Oh, which, of course that makes sense that they would
get lots of radio play.
Speaker 5: Back then, they expected both songs to get radio play.
It wasn't like it's a trash song, right. I love
this song. I know every word to this song. It
may be my least favorite song on the album, though,
oh wow, but I still think it's great.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. That's how good this album is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 5: The worst song on the album makes still greatest hits.
Speaker 2: Absolutely ugliest Playboy play me, Yeah, great, right whatever.
Speaker 5: Right, by the way, I just want to throw this
out there because we we have mentioned this, but July thirty,
first night, Senator Alan Cranston is having a benefit concert
that Glenn is intent on the Eagles supporting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Don he's a big environmental guy. That's Don
obviously is We will get to that in just a minute,
Don Henley. Don Henley is a big environmental guy, and
so yeah.
Speaker 4: And Felder is like, whatever, what are we doing? Who's
this guy?
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't want to be doing stuff that
wasn't making the money. They were doing this for charity,
and he was like, I don't understand. I don't see
the point. He's like, it never was political. Still not political. Yeah,
and but this is the moment, like this is the
pen and this is the nail in the coffee, this
is the straw that broke it. But Alan Cranston is
saying thank you, greeting everybody, right, you know, he's thanking
the band one by one, says to Don Felder, thank you,
and Don Felder's like, you're welcome, and then he turns
and is continuing his thank yous, and Don Felder goes,
I guess yeah, and Glenn Fried just the fuse gets
slit and it just gets hot and hotter, and they're
playing the benefit concert that night, hotter and hot. He's like,
I walked and I was just going for a walk,
and I just kept getting madder and madder.
Speaker 4: And then we're on.
Speaker 2: Stage and I just kept looking at him like I'm
as soon as this concert is over, like he was.
Speaker 4: He was salivating to beat his ass.
Speaker 5: Three more songs to like kick your ass, pal, and
he was and Felder's like, bring it, let's go, dude,
let's get it on. And I think part of that
frustration may come from a.
Speaker 4: Victim of love.
Speaker 5: Oh of course, I mean it's years of disagreements, but yeah,
there's hard feelings.
Speaker 4: Here for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love that Like that Bill Simsic was
recording the banter that was going on between them on
the stage. The last is their last concert, right, And
I mean I didn't know it, but that way it was,
that's right. They didn't know that this was it the
Travis Trippan right until well.
Speaker 4: We'll get there, okay.
Speaker 2: But but one of the guys is like, yeah, he
was like I'm gonna I'm gonna kick your ass and
then it cuts him and he's not what he says.
He says, I'm.
Speaker 4: Going to kill you. I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 5: And then when that it finally does end, and like,
let's get it on.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's see this fight. He makes a bake,
he makes a break for it.
Speaker 5: He smashes his guitar for what and jumps in the
limo and speeds off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why why smash the guitar? What does that mean?
I mean, are you gonna are you gonna hit.
Speaker 4: Him with it? You're gonna hit it with it?
Speaker 2: Don't smash it first, smash it over him, and then
he high tails it into a limo, and and and
with his tail between his legs.
Speaker 5: And Glenn Fry's parting shot was just like you to
smash your cheap guitar, Felders like whatever that brand name.
Speaker 4: Is, Takamini.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you because you said that Glenn had struck
a deal Takamini, which I mean, I own a Tacamini
twelve string and I love it. They're great guitar, but
they're not expensive guitars. They're cheap guitars comparatively speaking, something
like a Martin or something like that.
Speaker 5: And so and Felder says, I don't I don't play
a Martin because of your stupid record deal. So it's
a lot of back and forth, and that was the
end of the Eagles at that moment for a while,
for a while.
Speaker 2: Next song on the album.
Speaker 5: Next song on the album is called Pretty Maids All
in a Row.
Speaker 2: It's been a lot, so you tell me that the
next song is going to be a Joe Walsh song.
I'm shocked as crap that it starts off with this
slow piano riff. It's beautiful, it's wonderful, but it's just
like I'm expecting. I'm expecting guitar guitar riff. I'm expecting
in this batfast Lane or Rocky Mountain High, something like that.
But you get this slow, beautiful piano introduction and then Joe.
He doesn't sound like the rest of the guys, but
he's perfect on this song. This is perfect for him. Somehow.
It reminds, you know what it does. It reminds me
of a Randy Newman song. Like I never thought Randy
Newman was that great of a singer, but he just
the character that he has in his voice makes his
songs great, which, by the way, I didn't realize this.
The Eagles freaking sang on Little People.
Speaker 4: Did you know this?
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, Randy Newman's the little People they were. They
were helping him out with it. They're playing, playing, me,
playing and singing in the background. I had no idea
until like an hour ago that was the case.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But anyway, sidebar there this song.
Speaker 4: I can remember.
Speaker 2: I've listened to this album, you know, in preparation, I've
listened to this album many times, but in preparation, I've
listened to it three or four times, Yes, all the
way through it. Yeah, gets to this song every single time.
I just kind of stop and I just soak in
the beauty of the music of this song.
Speaker 4: It's one. It is so good. It is so ridiculously good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And it goes back to what we were saying. It's
not enough to say there are no skippers on this album, right,
Every song could be a hit. Yes, And they released
three out of whatever ten or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean this was a song that they
kept on playing when Hell froze over fourteen years later,
I heard him play this yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: By the way, in twenty twenty, Bob Dylan said this
could be one of the best songs ever written. It's
great and it's it's not even good enough to be
released as a single.
Speaker 2: Well, three out of all of the songs on this album,
we're singles, like they're all potentially chart toppers.
Speaker 5: Yes, tell me the Joe Walsh Jimmy Page story.
Speaker 2: Oh so this would have been I can't remember if
it's sixty seven, sixty nine?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 2: Okay, So sixty nine was the year that Zeppelin released
its first album. Okay, right, yep. You ask any guitar
player who knows who led Zeppelin is what did Jimmy
Page play? And he played a bunch of stuff, but
you saw him ninety percent of the time he is
playing a gibson less Paul, which I mean, big deal.
Speaker 4: That's what a whole bunch of people play. But Jimmy
Page is just known for this gibson less Paul.
Speaker 2: That's right. Turns out he bought it from Joe Walsh
for like.
Speaker 4: Twelve twelve hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: But it's twelve hundred and sixty nine dollars, so you know,
I don't know what that is. Now, Hold on a chick,
it's close to eleven thousand dollars, So it wasn't I mean,
the James Gang had had their hits and Zeppelins obviously
on the road to becoming big, so it was not nothing.
Speaker 5: Joe Walsh sold Jimmy Page his iconic guitar.
Speaker 4: It's crazy that nineteen fifty nine list, Paul Yep. All right,
I got a couple of Joe Walsh storys for you
and I love. Okay.
Speaker 5: So does the name Patrick Laberteaux ring a bell with
you at all?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 5: You've seen him. He's a working actor. He was in
the TV show Jag, he was in the movie Summer School,
and he was on Little House in.
Speaker 4: The p when he was a little kid.
Speaker 5: Okay, And being that he was a child actor, super
famous for being on a Little House on the prairie.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: But transitioning from a child actor to an adult actor
is sometimes hard, sure, and so he had some down years.
And while he was trying to stay alive in La,
he was delivering food to pay the bills. And when
he showed up at this house, he rang the doorbell
and the lady invited him in. He said, she had
the biggest sex hair you've ever seen, and just like barely.
Speaker 2: Had any clothes on. Come on in, you know whatever.
Speaker 4: So he goes in and.
Speaker 5: He's handing her the pizzas or whatever, and she looks
at him and she.
Speaker 4: Goes, hey, you were on Little House on the Prairie.
And he's like, oh god, somebody recognized me, you know, yeah,
delivering pizza, delivering pizzas. And she recognized me from a
Little House.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I love Little House. I used to
watch it all the time.
Speaker 4: What in the world are you delivering pizza for?
Speaker 5: And he's just embarrassed and humiliated, and she's going on
and on about this yeah, and she calls up to
her boyfriend.
Speaker 4: She's like, get down here.
Speaker 2: You're not even gonna believe it.
Speaker 4: The guy from the Little House in the Prairie delivered
our pizza.
Speaker 5: And so the boyfriend comes down the stairs and is like,
what are you railing about.
Speaker 4: She's like, this dude was in.
Speaker 1: Little Ouls on the Prairie.
Speaker 2: Now he's delivered pizzas. Can you believe it?
Speaker 5: And Patrick Laborata looks up and he says, that's Joe Walsh.
And Joe Walsh looks at him and goes, you're in
a little house in the prairie and he's like, yeah,
he goes I used to be in the Eagles, takes
the pizza, goes in and eats, and he talked about
how that really let him off the hook.
Speaker 4: Oh it felt great. That's wonderful.
Speaker 2: I just can't I can't not talk about how awesome
Joe Walsh is. Like he's obviously this party animals. He's
funny and quirky. I mean, you see him wearing a
bug mask made out of tinfoil and some of the
old interviews and then and convulsing and dying on Don
Felder's lap. He's just such a crazy dude. But he
has this wonderful part at the beginning of the History
of the Eagles documentary where he's like talking about this
philosopher and he kind of rambles it a bit, but basically,
it's like, as things are happening to you in your life,
you know, it's just like you think they're chaotic and unrelated,
and this happens, and that happens. These things happen, and
you're just thinking, oh, it's just chaos and madness in
my life. And then you reach a certain age and
you look back and you think, wow, it's like the
perfectly crafted novel, and I was like, man, Joe Walsh
is a smart dude. He just hides his intelligence behind
all that crazy wacky behavior that he does.
Speaker 5: I got Joe Walsh's story that involves our buddy, our
co friend, Jay Hudson, Okay, who we play poker with
over at Matt Mercer's house.
Speaker 4: Hey, j what's that Jay?
Speaker 5: Jay was working at a company, and Jay's like the
company account He's like the CFO. He's a big wig
at the company. And he had on his iTunes on shuffle.
He went to the bathroom or whatever, and he came back.
His assistant was in their office waiting on him, and
as his iTunes are shuffling through the songs. As he
walks in, he realizes that Joe Walsh's song I Like
Big Tits is playing trying to call him.
Speaker 1: Here comes that's a.
Speaker 5: At like eighty decimals. Well, his assistant is in there
asking what to do about this project. So, uh, Joe
Walsh is an American treasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I didn't realize it until you sent me
this thing. But if you watch David Letterman on any
regular basis, which I did as a young man at
some point he develops this catchphrase, like, and he's doing
his opening monologue at the beginning, if things are awkward
and and the joke doesn't go well, or he just
doesn't like the joke or whatever, he's he's just kind
of aust his tie, like Rodney Dangerfielding's like, you got
any gum? Yeah, you got any gum? I had no
idea that this came from the Joe wall story behind
his album Got Any Gum. That's exactly right, So tell
that story.
Speaker 5: So Joe Walsh was talking about how he was working
on this album. They didn't have a name for it,
but he was walking to the studio and he sees
a homeless guy coming and he's like, oh crap, I
don't want to get bogged down with this. And so
as the guy's approaching, he's already reaching in his pocket
for change to just kind of throw at him and
go away and leave me alone. And he reaches in
his pocket and as he approaches this homeless guy, he
pulls out his hand. He's got change in his pocket,
and the homeless guy goes, Oh, I don't need any money,
I just want to see if you had any gump.
Speaker 4: He got any gump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, that's great, all right.
Speaker 5: Next song on the album, this song is called try
and Love Again.
Speaker 2: So this song is fantastic.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's I love it wonderful and I would probably put
it at the bottom of the list of those songs
on this album if I had to rank them all,
it's on the bottom.
Speaker 4: I'd listen to it every day.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
Speaker 4: It's crazy, right.
Speaker 2: It's not Take It to the Limit, but it is.
It's still a.
Speaker 4: Great, great and it's so bittersweet.
Speaker 2: It's this moment where you realize your relationship is coming
to an end and you're you're thinking about when.
Speaker 4: It was good.
Speaker 2: You were remembering when it was good. And maybe that's
a love relationship between a man and a woman, or
maybe it's between a bass player and his band.
Speaker 5: So this is Randy's last album with the Eagles, and
one of the problems that he had was every night
it was expected. One of their encore songs was take
It to the Limit. Yeah, and take It to the
Limit has a lot of high notes, and if you
are out partying and not taking care of yourself, it
can be hard to hit those notes.
Speaker 2: All of vodka and a couple of lovely ladies and
a lot of blow.
Speaker 5: So they're backstage one night and he tells the guys
like they've performed the concert. He's backstage, they're waiting to encore,
and he's like, guys, I can't do it tonight, and
Glenn Fry's like, dude, there's fifty thousand screaming people out
there who are expecting you.
Speaker 2: It's more than it. And Glenn Fry is right, it's
more than that at least. I mean, you think, how
many times did you watch the Eagles, like once, me too,
one time. Yeah, So for that one moment in my life,
It's true, I wanted to hear certain songs and for
people in the seventies who were coming to an Eagles concert,
for a lot of them, I mean there were probably
people that saw many shows, but for a lot of them,
this would be the only show that they ever got
to see.
Speaker 4: It's true, a song that.
Speaker 2: Has stood the test of time doesn't matter if it's
a year or two later. Right, they came, and they
all they want is to hear that song. And to
deny them that because you decided to party too hard
the night before is bull crap.
Speaker 4: It is bull crap.
Speaker 2: It's bull crap. It's you're not doing your job.
Speaker 5: That's true, that's true. I don't necessarily think that Glenn
Fry is a pep you up kind of guy, Like
he's like, if you do your job.
Speaker 2: I think he led with I think he lied with
come on, these these people have spent a lot of
money to hear you play that song. And he was
just like, and Randy was just like, I just don't
want to sing it. You know, he's not the alpha,
he's the one guy who was not an outpha in
this group. He was being want to sing it. And
after he's trying to stand his ground for the one
time you know that he's going to do it, and
Glenn Fry, after trying to reason with him, just says,
well you then, yeah, why don't you quit? And and
like bows up and gets ready to yeah, And and
the cops come over and Don Henley, of all people, stay.
Speaker 4: Out of this. This is personal band business, and it's private.
Speaker 2: It's really private.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And they freaking got it on fisticuffs and that's
the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so that's the last that Randy Meiser's ever in
the band. So in I think it was like twenty sixteen. Okay,
twenty sixteen, Randy's kids were trying to become like executors
of his estate, and they were trying to get around
his wife. They didn't like his wife. Felt like her
name is Lana. She was manipulating him because after he's passed. No, no, no,
this is right before he passed, okay, and he they said,
he's a severe alcoholic and she's manipulating him and she's
gonna take him for all his worth, and we want
to take control of his estate.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they didn't win that.
Speaker 5: A year later, she's moving a gun in their house,
like transporting it like from here to there, and bumps
into something and it goes off and it kills her.
Whoa Randy Meisner's wife accidentally shoots herself in the head,
and the police come and they've got to like determine
did he kill her?
Speaker 4: Oh, so he's he's still alive too.
Speaker 2: This is before he passed.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: And they actually found like they looked at like security
footage and they have him like on camera in another
part of the house, and we're able to verify that
this was not his fault. But they still they had
to they like put him in the psych Unit and
like he was on suicide Watch, and so it wasn't
all flowers and roses for Randy Beiser after this.
Speaker 2: It's tragic.
Speaker 5: So just a little side note. They pulled him out
of the band Poco. Yeah, when he was in the
band Poco, they asked him and joined the Eagles. He
joins the Eagles.
Speaker 4: His replacement in Poco was Timothy B. Schmidt Corre.
Speaker 5: When he leaves the Eagles in nineteen seventy six whatever
it is, seventy seven, he is replaced by Timothy B.
Speaker 2: Smidt Well obviously, like it's the perfect choice and the
way that this goes, and I realized we're getting a
little past the album we're covering. But Glenn Frye is
like listen, he replaced him in Poco. He can sing
the songs that he sang in Poco. He can play
the bass lines that he played in Poco. He's the
perfect replacement. And Irving as Off is like listen, I
saw him like a week ago and he was drunk
out of his mind and gacking, you know, and and
I just don't know, you really think he's the right fit.
And Glenn fry said listen, Irving. If you've been playing
music for eleven years and you're still making two hundred
and fifty dollars a week, wouldn't you be drunk out
of your gourd and gacking too.
Speaker 4: It's fair.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So Timothy Schmidt joins the Eagles just in time
for them to break up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was with them for just under three years,
I think, yeah.
Speaker 5: But he has since rejoined and he plays with them.
So this day they're playing the Sphere and we looked
at tickets. Yeah, a thousand bucks. I didn't even look.
I just figured they were about a thousand, all right.
Last song on the album, This song is the epic
Don Henley masterpiece, the Last Respect.
Speaker 7: She came from broods One in Road, where the old
world shadows hanging heavy.
Speaker 1: She packed her.
Speaker 10: Hopes and dreams like a refugee, just as her father
came across the sea.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna shout out our longtime listener and my
good friend Areln Bullard on this one. Every time I hear,
every time I hear this song and it hits the line.
It put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus
people bought them. I can remember him saying that line
to me, and that's funny stuff right there. This is
such a well crafted song and Don Heiley was never
satisfied with it. It's a bit abstract but still creates
such concrete images that you don't know what to do
with it. But this goes back to the thing I
said when we started talking about this whole album.
Speaker 4: This is really that thin.
Speaker 2: Line that we are jumping over between the American dream
and the American nightmare, where we take something beautiful and
we turn it into something ugly or we just destroy it.
Speaker 1: Out right, good place. They watched the easy song second.
Speaker 5: So Dunn Hiley became very involved in environmental groups and
started the Walden Woods Project. He's on the Throw Institute.
That's what he cares about the environment. This was his
epic we need to take care of what we have
been given. And if you'll notice, in the song, talks
about how came across the sea, Providence, Malibu and then
he mentions Lahina.
Speaker 2: Which is in Hawaii.
Speaker 4: So you can just see throughout the.
Speaker 2: Song You're moving west yep. Perfect song to end the album.
Speaker 4: Two yeah, so beautiful. What else can we say? This
is a perfect album?
Speaker 2: Indeed, Okay, So there's one more album that comes out
after this one.
Speaker 4: It's called The Long Run.
Speaker 2: The band was in such a state after they recorded
this album that they called it the Long One. Everything
comes to a stop in July nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: And then I can remember as a kid just thinking,
I'll never get to see the bands that I love
the most in concert because I love led Zeppelin the most,
I loved When You're Skinned the most, and I loved
the Eagles the most, and I'll never get to see
him in a concert until until the nineties.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: So join us next season, and we're going to talk
about how Freeze is over. We'll talk about the new
versions of songs, and we'll talk about the new songs,
many of which are great songs.
Speaker 5: After we've gone through all these songs, how in the
world is there another album that can somehow stack up
against this.
Speaker 2: It beat it in nineteen seventy seven. We just got
to see if it's going to beat it again.
Speaker 5: Rumors has been called the greatest rock and roll album
of all time.
Speaker 4: We will figure that out. Yes, So yeah, guys, join us.
Speaker 2: Then don't forget to hit that subscribe button, hit that
follow button and join us on Patreon. I love you guys,
and we will see you next week. This is freaking sorry.
What was said said fricking I was trying to not
say yeah right like battle start collected freaking
Speaker 4: Okay,