Speaker 1: Well, it looks like it's time for a brand new
episode of the Shirley you Can't Be Serious Podcast. And
that's such a fine sight to see. D Graves, you
might have the moon in your eyes, and Jason Colvin
your smile may be a thin disguise, but why don't
you come to your senses? It seems to me some
fine matchups have been laid upon your table. So don't
let the sound of your own podcast drive you crazy.
To everybody else out there, whether you're sleeping in the
desert tonight or standing on a corner checking out all
the flatbed forwards, just take it easy, because the Surely
you Can't Be Serious Podcast is about to take it
to the limit one more time.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, welcome back to the only podcast fueled
by Jolt Cola and cool Ranch Doritos. Cool ch actually
are ideal, But I was starting to death. I was shaky,
and I was like, do you have chips? And I
just I just sat there and read stuff about the
Eagles and just got crumbs all over my Hyes, how's
it going to everybody?
Speaker 3: Good to see you again.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Surely you Can't Be Serious Podcast.
We are here today to talk about arguably one of
the best albums of all time.
Speaker 3: Well, it is a compilation album. It's a compilation album,
which is kind of cheating a little but but you're
you're absolutely right, Like pound for pound, there are like
ten perfect songs on this album.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. And there are ten songs on this album, right,
and so yeah, So the interesting thing is is that
this album was a record company decision and not a
band decision.
Speaker 3: Okay, before you go any further, let's just say this
out front. Yeah, this is the greatest selling album of all.
Speaker 2: Time according to most accepted statistics. Yes, that is correct,
Glenn Fry said.
Speaker 3: I watched him say that it's sold a million copies
a month for eighteen months in a row.
Speaker 2: A week, is that right, a week week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot of albums.
Speaker 2: That's a whole lot of freaking This is the first
album to ever receive a platinum certain certification. It has
since gone thirty eight times platinum. Like, I don't know
how many of that is, but that's a dad gum lot.
He got passed for a time as the best selling
album of the twentieth century by Thriller.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: Yes, but then regained its title in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: All right, now I just want to do a quick recap.
We have covered Thriller. Yes, we are now covering Eagles
Greatest Hits Volume one. Yes, we've covered acdc's Back in Black.
We've checked off some big.
Speaker 2: Sellers, some very big sellers. Yes, And I was, you know,
talking about bands that are the biggest selling bands of
all time. Eagles are number six on bands now a
solo artist. There are several more, you know, get Michael
Jackson and Taylor Swift, all these other folks, right, but
band wise, there are only five bands that have sold
more albums than the Eagles. Would you like to guess?
Speaker 3: Well, you pose this question to me today. Yeah, And
right off the bat, I got three out of the
five you did, And then I was like, and then
the last two when you gave them to me, I
was like, oh, yeah, that's easy.
Speaker 2: So right, obviously number one.
Speaker 3: The Beatles Beatles believe.
Speaker 2: Number two is Queen. We've got led Zeppelin in there,
Pink Floyd, and then just ahead.
Speaker 3: Of them is a CDC.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, And so you might be asking yourself
the question, what album could we possibly match this album up?
Against So you're going to have to tune in to
our next episode where we will be talking about Jimmy
Buffett's songs You Know by Heart, which is another huge
compilation greatest Hits album, if you will, And we have
a special little golden nugget that Jason told me today
of how that album and Jimmy Buffett are connected to
this band.
Speaker 3: But you have to wait until the end of.
Speaker 2: Our podcast today to find out what that little trivia
nugget is, or you know, you could just fast forward when.
Speaker 3: You listen to this here. Right when I found that nugget,
I was like, yes, what, Actually, I've got another nugget
that's gonna blow your freaking socks.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm excited.
Speaker 3: Okay, So just an overview of this. This album was
produced and released right before Hotel California, which is their
greatest selling album album of all time. Right, Okay, the
record company is like, hey, Hotel California's taken a little
bit long to make you guys are kind of going
slow for us. We want to keep the momentum going,
so let's pump out a greatest Hits album. Well, guess
who is not happy about that at all? Everybody in
the band, particularly Don Henley. Yeah, Don Henley, we've kind
of established in our in our study, he's always kind
of unhappy.
Speaker 2: Yes, you said that. David Geffen describes him as a malcontent, Yes,
which I think leads to some really great song lyrics.
But listening to the guy's complain about the studio's decision
to make this greatest hits album, and I'm sitting here thinking,
they just gave you the greatest selling album of all time.
How could you possibly be still upset about that?
Speaker 3: That's right? Yeah, you know, Glenn Fryes said, when Don
Henley wasn't happy, nobody in the band was happy. And
then he said, oh, by the way, Don Henley was
never happening. So just a little tibit on this Asylum
is the record company owned by David Geffen, Started by David,
started by David Geffen, which I.
Speaker 2: Read his history today too. It's an interesting history as well.
But he was he was in the mail room at
William Morris Agency, right, okay, and he's trying to become
an agent. He has he like, dropped out of college.
He's got no college still to this day, has no
college degree. But to be an agent. You had to
have a college degree. And he's so he's working to
become an agent at the William Morse Agency and then
he tells them, yes, I I got my degree from UCLA. Well,
they of course send something to UCLA saying, can you
confirm that this that David Geffen is a graduate. Well,
UCLA sent a piece of mail that said he's never
attended here, he is not a graduate of this college. Well,
he worked in the mail room, so he not only
got that piece of mail, he edited it to where
it was like, yes, he attended here, and yes he
got his degree here. Wow. And so that's how he
very first became an agent. Of course he gets discovered
later on, but at that point the bells already rung, right,
and so yeah, he hit up Armet whatever his name
is from Atlantic Records about working for him, and he's like,
you know, you should just start your own label, and
so he started Asylum Records, which is basically it was
the Southern California sound. He was the one that had
James Taylor and Carol King and Linda Ronstadt and Crosby
Stills and Nash and so Brown. Yeah, Jackson Brown was
his first artist, which of course we're going to talk
about here in just a second. But David Giffen is
a huge factor in the story of the Eagles, both
good and bad.
Speaker 3: Just as a teaser, I saw Don Henley talking about,
you know, they fired David Geff and basically they walked
off from asylum as a group, the Eagles did, and
Geffen sued them, and they're well, they suit each other
and it was just kind of a bad.
Speaker 2: You know, there's been multiple lawsuits.
Speaker 3: Well, and then then he went to Don Henley and said, hey,
your solo career, why don't you come on back? And
Don Heiley's like, okay, bad feelings suits money.
Speaker 2: I heard this quote about people who remarry somebody they divorced.
It's like, it's like drinking milk that's sour and you
put it back in the fridge and you try to
drink it again the next day.
Speaker 3: It's still gonna be sour.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty interesting. Though Henley clearly has harsh feelings. Yeah,
mal content, right right, Okay, the greatest selling album of
all time? Are we ready to dive into this? Let's go,
let's freaking go, let's do it. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,
you're getting little excited. I think we should take it easy.
Speaker 2: Number one song out of the box.
Speaker 4: Take it easy, what do you say?
Speaker 3: I mean, I can sing every word of this song.
We've known as our whole lives basically, so you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm putting the band back together and I'm listening
to this album. I'm like, guys, we've got to do
this song because not only is it simple, it's a
crowd pleaser. Everybody will sing along to you. I mean,
you will never go anywhere with this song and people
not be excited and ready to sing the whole song
with you.
Speaker 3: I heard Glinn Fry talking about this. He thinks the
reason why this song is so appealing is because we're
coming out of the sixties where everything's kind of angry
and upset, and he's like, hey, let's just take it easy.
Speaker 2: Relax people, smoke a dube, chill, have some baoti. So
the song is co written by Jackson Brown, which we
said is on the Asylum Records label with him right, Well,
he actually was. He had been playing similar to them.
They would see each other's shows, and he started talking
to Glenn Fry one day before they're ever even the
Eagles right, sure, and he's like, where are you staying?
And Glenn tells him, He's like, you should go to
Echo Park. The apartments there are great and they're really cheap,
and that's where I live. And so Glenn fry and
his partner Jad Souther, who is a co writer on
many of the Eagles songs right there, many many songs,
they say okay, and they get a place at Echo
Park and Jackson Brown starts coming over and he's like, hey,
you guys got like this kind of extra hidden room
in the basement here. You know, it's not just like
a storage facility or something, you know, right, And he's like,
can I move down there? And so, like the plays
is only one hundred and twenty five bucks a month anyway,
And so now Jackson Brown is getting not free but
really discounted living space below Glenn fry and JD Souther.
But Glenn Frye said that Jackson Brown was the guy
that he learned how to write music from, because not
that Jackson Brown came and taught him, but he said,
you know, we're musicians. We slept late Jackson Brown every morning,
nine o'clock in the morning. I would hear his teapot
go off right, and then he would sit and I
could hear him, you know, through his ceiling and our floor.
I could hear him play the piano, sing the song.
He would do verse one, and then he would do
it again, and he would do it again about twenty
times until he finally got it molded just the way
that he wanted, and they'd be quiet for a while.
Here the teapot go off again, starts on verse two,
does it twenty times until he feels good about it again,
you know, and then he's doing both verses together twenty times.
And Glenn Fry is like, so this is how you
write music. You just have to freaking gut it out,
little elbow grease.
Speaker 3: I love it. That's a great story, yeaight. So Glenn
Fry learned from Jackson Brown. They also helped each other
on this song. So Jackson Brown had this song started.
He had the I'm standing on a corner and Winslow
Arizona part, and he's like the kid on Sesame Street.
The guy keeps banging his head on the piano. I've
never finished this right, yes, And Glenn Fry came up
with there's a girl my Lord in a flatbed forward,
slowing down to take a look at me.
Speaker 5: I'm standing on a corner and wins the Arizona. Such
a fine side to see. It's a girl, my.
Speaker 6: Lord in a plast bed board going down to take
a look at me.
Speaker 4: Come on, bab.
Speaker 3: Don't say he's the one who came up with that part. Brilliant.
So they piece it together. So Glenn Fry kept bugging
him like, are you gonna finish that song? Yeah? Are
you gonna finish it? It's kind of like your buddy
at the pizza place when you're growing up, are you
gonna fish? Can I have that? So he finally says,
can I finish it for Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Jackson Brown says all right, fine. After turning him
down a couple of times, he said, fine, you take
a crack at it, and he said when he brought
it back, he's like, oh my gosh. Not only did
he finish it, but he said he arranged it far
better than he ever could have.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: By the way, you could hear the Jackson Browns version
on his nineteen seventy three album True. This is the
first single for the Eagles debut album. Debut single, it
reaches number twelve on the Hot one.
Speaker 2: Yes, you got the list.
Speaker 3: I of course I wrote down the list.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know the list? I want to
know the list, all right.
Speaker 3: So there's some songs on here that I know, there's
some just don't remember.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy two, these are the eleven songs that
people thought at the time were better than take It Easy.
Speaker 3: And take it Easy an all time classic. Yeah, a
staple for the Eagles.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 3: By the way, neither you or I was born at
this moment.
Speaker 2: Correct, okay, all right?
Speaker 3: Number eleven late we're.
Speaker 2: Cooking, though in July I may have you probably were
cooking at that point.
Speaker 3: So number eleven, Laila. We talked about it during our
Goodfellow's episode. That's right, Derek and the Dominos.
Speaker 2: Right. I don't want to give too much away, but
this is a good opportunity to mention our Patreon page
because it does come up there. But guys, if you
want to hear some of our one hit Wonder episodes,
some novelty songs, some amazing episodes that we do just
for o Patreon family, go to patreon dot com slash
Surely Podcast and you can sign up for free and
be a part of all of our discussions and all
of this other fun stuff that we do. And for
little five bucks a month, you get access to all
of those episodes, even the prior episodes that we've done,
and they're some of our best stuff. Yes, okay, plug done.
Go back to our top eleven songs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Number ten Schools Out by Alice Cooper.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a pretty big one, right yeah.
Speaker 3: Number nine Rocketman by Elton John Jeez.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got some pretty big hitters, right, you
got to you? Yeah, I don't know that Schools Out
any gonna, I'm gonna say is better than take it Easy,
but it's definitely a big one, okay.
Speaker 3: And then you literally have a whole bunch of crap.
What do we got? I mean, you've got? How do
you do? Where's the love? Daddy? Don't you walk so fast?
If lovin You is wrong? I don't want to be right?
Which remembered that one one's funny? Yeah, Brandy, you're a
fine girl.
Speaker 2: That's a big one.
Speaker 3: Alone again naturally, too late to turn back now. And
then the number one song that week, lean on Me, Oh,
Bill Withers, Oh that's good when You're not strong. Yeah,
that's a good one, your friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So on this song, as we said, it's the lead single, Yeah,
Bernie Leaden is doing the banjo, and you and I
were talking about it and it's like, oh, yeah, there
is a banjo on this song.
Speaker 2: So here's what's interesting. We've got this Greatest Hits album
and ten songs, and only three of them have Don
Felter on them. None of them have Joe Walsh, none
of them have Timothy B.
Speaker 3: Schmidt.
Speaker 2: These are essentially the vast majority of these songs are
just the four original members of the Eagles. And yeah,
I mean when I was introduced to the Eagles, they
had already been broken up for a while, you know,
like it was just what had happened. So I knew
them their whole history, and I'm thinking, okay, yeah, this
is a southern rock band. But then when we started
covering songs in my band in high school, this was
one that obviously came up. And so I start listening
to it with how do I play this ear? And
I'm like, they're banjo playing now. And as it turned out,
my dad happened to own a banjo, and so I
taught myself how to fingerpick a banjo for our performance
at the high school gym.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was in the middle of the gym floor
with a banjo picking away. It was too fun. It
was really fun.
Speaker 3: Okay, have you ever been to Winslow, Arizona.
Speaker 2: I might have driven through there. I did drive to
Las Vegas, and I feel like it might have been
on the way. I know that Needles is on the
way because of the never been to Spain song by
Hoyd accident. Yeah, headed for Las Vegas, only made it
out to Needles.
Speaker 3: I was driving.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, there's Needles. We must be close.
Speaker 3: So I've stopped. We pulled over in Winslow, Arizona.
Speaker 2: Did you go to the corner?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, Okay, So there's a big sign
there that says standing on a corner on Winslow, Arizona.
There's a little store there. It's kind of cool. And
then there's a little there's there is a parked a
flatbed ford right there, right there, right there, flatbed Ford.
Speaker 2: Well, they've got a statue there too, like it's called
the standing on a Corner park. I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the homeless guy came up to me and asked
for me for money. Okay, I said, hey, dude, take
it easy. Oh my gosh, all right, I've got something
for you on this though. Okay, there's basically a three
act structure to the Eagles career. Okay, okay, to me,
you've got Act one is Glenn Fry, Don Henley, Bernie Leaden,
Randy Meisner. Yep, Okay, maybe Felder kind of bridges that gap.
Speaker 2: A little bit a little bit.
Speaker 3: Act two is Hotel California Long Run, which that's Joe
Walsh and Timothy be Schpett.
Speaker 2: Yes, exit, Bernie Leaden exit, Randy Meisner.
Speaker 3: Randy Meisner leaves after Hotel California, right, yeah, and then
you've got hell freezes over.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well you've got the breakup. And then yeah,
you've got a breakup. Yeah, the years off.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I remember in the late eighties when I was
really getting into these guys for the first time, I
was just like, I'm just bummed out. I will never
get to see my one of my favorite bands in concert,
including Eagles and also led Zeppelin. And then of course
the Eagles got back together and I did see them
in concert in nineteen ninety four. I believe I saw
them in concert ninety four. Whe'd you see I saw
them in Little Rock, Arkansas? Where'd you see them?
Speaker 3: Dallas, Texas?
Speaker 2: Well? I bet that that was I bet those shows
are pretty close together.
Speaker 3: I guarantee they were right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they were flawless. They were absolutely flawless. Great.
I saw the Rolling Stones play that same year, and
the Stones had a big show, like they had these
giant balloons of these you know, like circus characters and
all this stuff. But they were they didn't sound like
an album. The Eagles sounded like their album. They were
flawless musicians, flawless.
Speaker 3: So I got just a couple of stories for you
real quick. So number one, I saw the Eagles on
July third, nineteen ninety four in Texas Stadium.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you were nice and cold?
Speaker 3: Good lord, Oh my gosh, I still haven't stopped sweating
in that concert. It was so hot, and of course
that was the they had the hole in the roof
so it's not air conditioned.
Speaker 9: Oh.
Speaker 3: The guy sitting right next to me, like hip to hip,
I told you this story had a shirt off. He
was sweating all over me. He was high as a kite,
acting rambunctious and out of control. He tried to get
it on with his girlfriend in the seat next to me,
just to.
Speaker 2: Get it on, get it on. He was you don't
mean make it out.
Speaker 3: You mean I mean porkner in the seat next to me.
And I literally was like sitting there. I was like,
this is not gonna happen. This might happen, and I
really she was like no, no, no, maybe, and I
was like, oh my gosh. Thankfully she thought better of
it the last second. But were you really thankful?
Speaker 2: I just she said, no, give him the side one
and twenty degrees. All they're gonna do is create a
lot of friction, warm everything more.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 3: The funny thing is Kathy and I got tickets, but
we had to take singles, so she was down a
few rows and like five seats over. We had to
wave each other constantly. But I was going to tell
you this song basically is the reason why they got
back together in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely true. So Travis Tritt did a version
of the song. I remember when that album came out,
a bunch of country artists did their version of Eagle songs,
but this was the only one Travis Tritz was the
only one where he got all of the original band
members back together to sing on the song. And that
really is what inspired them to call it good Again.
Speaker 3: Right, So I thought this was really funny. So they
come to Travis Tritt and they say, hey, we want
you to participate in this album. It's called Common Thread
Country Artists covering the Eagle songs. He said he was
late to the party and so he's like, They're like,
what do you want to do? And he's like, how
about Desperado. They're like, no, somebody who's already doing it.
He's like, well how about this one. No, somebody's already
doing well, how about this one? And so his attorney
was the one who's like it, take it easy, man,
do that one. He's like, yeah, take it easy, that's
a good one. So Irving Azoff's office calls him and says, hey,
we want you to be the first single. And he's
like wow. He's really flattered, like yeah, he's the lead, right,
And they said what do you want to do for
the video and he's like, wow, I mean crap, I'd
love to have the Eagles join me in the video.
What do you think? He said? Dead silence on the
other end, like nobody's saying anything. And after a few
minutes he's like, that's kind of uncomfortable, and they're like,
why don't you call Glenn. So he's like, that's kind
of weird. You know.
Speaker 2: Irving is telling Travis Tritt to call called Glynn, right, okay.
Speaker 3: And what he didn't know is that they tried to
ramp this up in nineteen ninety Okay, okay. Felder was in,
Meisner was in, Henley was in. Glenn Fry was like, nope,
screw you guys not doing it.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: So Travis Tritt calls Glenn Fry and says, hey, I
want you to come be in the video with you know,
and so Glen Glenn's like, well, since it's not really
the Eagles, I'll do it if don doesn't.
Speaker 2: I assume he did not mean Feld.
Speaker 3: He definitely did not mean Felder. He meant Henley. Yeah.
So Travis Tritt's like, oh okay, So he calls Henley,
but he doesn't tell Henley that he's taught to Fry.
Oh okay. Henley's like, I'll do it if Glenn does it,
uh huh. And that's how it's slowly. Then they all
get together. They're at this bar in LA. They're having fun.
They're playing pool and guess what just so happens to
be set up guitars, drums amps. Travis Trittz said he
grabbed a guitar.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: He started to play Rocky Mountain Way, oh wow, and
Joe Walsh jumps in and then next thing you know,
he's like looking around. He's like the Eagles are playing
for the first time in fourteen years.
Speaker 2: The most made of tears. Oh my gosh, could you
could you imagine? Could you imagine? Wow?
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. Take it Easy, Take.
Speaker 2: It easy man, Okay, Hey, we got to keep going.
There's ten there's nine more fantastic songs that we got
to cover. So all right, so we're done with Take
It Easy. We are on too, Track number two with
Chay with Jay Wollman. Witchy Woman.
Speaker 3: Another song featured on Seinfeld. This was the one that
Elaine likes.
Speaker 2: She's trying to get to Yeah. Yes. So there's an
episode of Seinfeld where Elaine is dating a guy who
cries when he hears the song Desperado and I Have
I will occasionally tear up on Desperado, but it's for
an entirely different reason. It's a story from my own
personal life, which I will share with you guys when
we get to Desperado. Oh excellent. And if I was
picking between this moment that I'm talking about with Desperado
and playing guitar with Frank Cannon, as you've got to
give up one of the moments in your life, I
would get rid of the Frank Cannon moment. That's how
important this.
Speaker 3: Okay, excellent, Yeah, ready to hear that story. Yeah. So
this song was written by Bernie Leaden and Don Henley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Bernie came up with the guitar riff on
this one, which it's it's got kind of that like
the Indians, you know, coming into fight the Cowboys does
sound like an Indian. Yeah, it sounds like that, but
then with a rock edge to it. Sure, So Bernie's
playing that little lick and and Don likes it, and
they're kind of playing with it together. He said. Next
day Don comes in, He's got all the lyrics.
Speaker 6: Don shell Man not shed some fire, crazy laugh.
Speaker 3: I heard Don Felder talking about how when you would
write songs for Don Henley, what you wanted to do
is create a musical bed for him to lay the
lyrics on, right, and that's what he did best, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's interesting. Witchy Woman is based on several things,
but one of the key things that it's based on
is Zelda Fitzgerald.
Speaker 3: You know that this is She is the wife of f.
Scott Fitzgerald.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so if you don't know who that is,
you need to read more required reading and high school
The Great Gatsby. She is who Daisy was based upon.
And Don Henley was reading her biography that night. He
also happened to be suffering from some sort of fever,
and so he would kind of go in and out
of this fever, and whenever he felt like not so horrible,
he would write down these lyrics inspired by her life.
And she was known as the first flapper of the twenties.
She was there was all kinds of craziness that she
got into, all gims. It drove herself to madness with
a silver spoon. This is probably a reference to the
spoon they would use to take absinthe back in the twenties,
which is something you took with your liquor to give
yourself hallucinations and she literally like she had electroshock therapy
for ten years and tragically, like was in the hospital,
confined to a bed in a locked room with this therapy,
and the hospital catches on fire, and that's how she
meets her demise.
Speaker 3: It's pretty rough, strapped to a bed, hospital catches on fire. Yeah, wow,
I do have an interesting story. So one of the
most famous white witches from this era Stevie Nicks. Okay, okay, Yeah,
and of course Don Henley and Stevie Nicks were an
item for on and off for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I told.
Speaker 3: You I had a great story about Stevie Nicks. Okay,
So she and Don Henley had kind of a rocky
even though they were both singers in a major seventies band.
Of course, Stevie Nicks saying with Fleetwood Mac Don Henley
sang with the Eagles. They they did a lot of
you know, nosecandy together. Well, she became pregnant by him
and ultimately decided to abort the baby. Okay, he was
upset by that, not because I think he wanted a child,
but because he knew she wanted a child. Okay. Well,
she named the baby Sarah. Okay, she wrote a song
called Sarah. It's on the Tusk album and it's about
their baby.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So wow, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also, of course in nineteen eighty one, on her album,
she has a major hit called Leather and Lace. It's
a duet with Don Henley and it causes liquijoy to
pop out of my eyeballs every time I listen to it. Right,
but I told you she wrote that song. She wrote
it for Waylon Jennings, I think, and his wife. And
the song's leather and Lace. Right, So the guy is
supposed to be leather, the girl's supposed to be lace,
and it's this back and forth to it. Well, he
and his girlfriend broke up, and so she's left holding
this song. So she's like, what am I going to
do with this? Well, the only person that can really
sing this with me is Don and so she played
it for him and the first time and he's like
that sucks. Start again? What? And she's like what. He's like,
this has to be perfect. It's not perfect. Go back
to the drawing board. And so but she gives him
credit because when we know Don Hilly perfection right fielder
called Iguano because he had like he made fun of
me because he had like bat like hearings, so he
could hear these, like all these sounds, right, And so
back to the drawing board, back to the drawing board,
back to the drawing board, until Leather and Lace is
perfect and it is a beautiful song. Yeah, second single
for the Eagles. This reached number nine on the charts.
They don't have it, but the number one song that week.
I can see clearly now by Johnny Nash. A lot
of good songs in the seventies. Yeah, next song on
the album lion Ies.
Speaker 2: So how are you able to just create Jim after
Jim after Jim like this? So this one comes from
they would see these beautiful women in the bars that
they were going to in southern California at the time. Yes,
you know, they're watching some very attractive woman talk to
an old, fat dude and Glenn Les leans over to
Dawn and says, she can't even hide those lion eyes a.
Speaker 3: Rich old man where she won't have to worry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the other part was that they would they
being the band, they're the kind of model of the lover.
But he said there would be this whole group of
ladies that would be there from eight until midnight, and
then they had to leave because they were kept women,
and so they'd come to have their little moments of
pleasure but eventually have to go back to the man
with the purse.
Speaker 3: You know. I called you today and I said, this
is a perfect song among perfect.
Speaker 2: Songs I was gonna say, and I said, the whole
album is full of perfect songs.
Speaker 5: You can So.
Speaker 3: This song was featured on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack. I
talked to my buddy Jay Reid, and he said, you
guys have got to cover the Urban Cowboy soundtrack absolutely,
and I was like, yeah, okay, and He's like, look
at the Hall of Fame members on that soundtrack.
Speaker 2: It's an incredible album. Yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3: But I'd love to cover it at some point. By
the way, also on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, All Night
Long by Joe Walsh. Oh. This reached number two on
the charts in nineteen seventy five, only beat out by
Island Girl by Elton John.
Speaker 2: Okay, Elton John's really causing them some trouble. By the way,
they hit it big in the Troubadour like they hit
it big. They played in the Troubadour with Linda Ronstad
all of these other characters. But they said they saw
Elton John's American debut in the Troupidour as well.
Speaker 3: One more thing, Yeah, Glenn Fry would sometimes dedicate this
song to his wife Plaintiff. We talked about this plaintiff.
Speaker 2: Uh huh and uh.
Speaker 3: That's his ex wife, Genie Bags, who also appears in
the Smugglers Blues video.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Go back to our Remidy Vice soundtrack episode. Okay, then
Fry Smugglers Blues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great one.
Speaker 3: Next song on the album already gone.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is the second song that Don Felder
appears on on this album. First one was Lion Eyes
that we just talked about. The next one that he's
going to be on is not until we get to
one of these nights. Interesting that they brought Felder on
right because they were a four man band for a
long time. You know, there were this kind of competition
of genres.
Speaker 3: I guess you know.
Speaker 2: Glenn obviously kind of pushed more for the rock side
of things. Bernie Leaden was definitely more on the country
side of things. But he also said that him leaving
the band for that reason is an oversimplification. He was
like I played a Fender strat, like I'm not I
love rock and roll music. That's not what it was.
Speaker 3: It was a whole big.
Speaker 2: Mess of things, including it poured beer over That was
the end of it all. Yes, yeah, yeah, And I
mean we we talked about that. These guys. I mean,
you've got basically four alphas. And then Randy Meisner that's true,
who's not, you know, he's just he just wants everybody
to get along, That's right. He wants everybody to take
it easy. And I wonder can.
Speaker 3: We just get a peaceful, easy feeling.
Speaker 2: I have to wonder if Bernie Leaden, because I guess
Glenn was going off about things that were wrong and
things need to improve and all this other stuff. And
it's at that point that Bernie Leedon takes his beer
and dumps it over the top of glenn head and says,
I don't know if it was why don't you chill
out or why don't you take it easy? But and
I do think.
Speaker 3: It's interesting kind of the dynamics of the band when
they started out. You're a four piece, you know, you're
backing band for Linda Ronstadt. Right, you're all kind of
ground level guys, and it takes you a little bit
to figure out that you've got Don Henley, maybe the
greatest voice of the seventies. You've got a Hall of
Fame writing combo of Fryan Henley. It took a minute
for these guys to sort out who was doing what right.
Speaker 2: But once they figured it out, my gosh, you just
mentioned it. We should kind of elaborate on that. So
Linda Ronstadt was one of the ones that would play
like every opportunity, would be playing at the Troubadoor. She
was well received, she was having some more success, and
she was going to go tour, and so like her
songwriting partner, manager John Bolin, was like, let's get some
of these guys that play here that are good and
bring them in and have them be kind of your
backing band for your tour, and so he enlists Glynn
Frye yep, and Linda Ronstadt is like, I saw this
band called Shiloh. I think that the drummer is really
good and also a really good singer. He would be great.
His name's Don Henley, Don Henley, Don freaking Henley. So
they get Bernie Leaden and they get Randy Meisner. All
of them together are the backing band for Linda Ronstadt
and it goes really well. And so they're like, you
know what, we want to make you the permanent band
with Linda Ronstadt. And while they're on the road, Glenn
and Don have you know who didn't really know each
other that well, like they're on the same album label,
but that was it, but they were rooming together. And
after rooming together for so many weeks, when they get
this offer, he's like, well, what do you think? And
Don says, I'd really rather just be in a band
with you, yeah, and Glenn is like, I'd really rather
just be in a band with you too, And so
they have to go to John Ballin and Linda Ronstadt
and go, listen, guys, you know, I know that you
gave us two hundred and fifty dollars a week when
we couldn't even afford beer at the Troubadour, but we
just feel like we need to go have our own band.
Not only did they take that well, but they continued
to help them, like we'll talk about Desperado here in
a minute, but oh my god, but Linda Ronstadt's version
of Desperado was probably a deal maker, whereas it had
not been successful before she got involved with it.
Speaker 3: To me, that's hard to believe, but is part of
history now right. Already Gone was written by Jack Tempson, Yeah,
and Rob Stranland. Yes. Jack Tempson also wrote Peaceful Easy Feeling,
which we'll talk about here in a minute. So when
Jack Tempson wrote this song, yeah, he wrote in about
twenty minutes. He was at a club, played it for
Glenn Fry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So a couple of years later, Glenn Fry goes to
Jack Tempson and said, remember that country song you played
for me that one night, Yeah, called Already Gone. I
think that would make a good rock song. So literally,
Glen Fry goes to the flea market, pulls it off
the bin and turns it into an all time classic.
Speaker 2: It's great. Yeah, I think that. Timpson said that what
inspired this song was that there was a bus stop
across the street from where he lived, and so he
and his roommates would just sit and watch girls at
the bus stop out of the window and just fall
in love with them until their bus came along and
took them away, and then they were already gone nice.
Speaker 3: Nice. I think this is also the kind of the
first feature of Don Felder in the line notes for
on the Border, You've got Don Henley, Glen Fry, Randy Meisner,
Bernie Leaden, and then it says late arrival Don Felder.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: But it's his guitar that stands out.
Speaker 2: That absolutely rock guitar. Absolutely next song on the album,
Let's do It.
Speaker 3: Heavy Hitter, Desperado.
Speaker 6: Desper Uh. Why don't you come to you know, Sands,
You've been out riding fans for so long now, Oh
you're a hard one.
Speaker 2: I know you got to read talk about liquid joy
coming out of your eyes.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, an all time great song.
Speaker 2: So this the the piano intro to this was inspired
by a Ray Charles song. I believe it was Georgia
on my mind. I could be wrong, but anyway that
it starts off with a strings and what they did
was kind of play the piano the melody of those
strings on the piano, right. But they did actually incorporate
strings into this song as well. Okay, so here you know,
I'm studying the history of the Eagles, the history of
the guys in the Eagles. I always look at past bands.
But one of the bands that I come up with
was Don Henley's band from the sixties, the late sixties. Right,
he's a young man, you know, twenty one in nineteen
sixty eight, just play in little shows, little club shows,
which is trying to make it, just trying to make
it with this band. Felicity is the name of the band. Okay,
And this kind of big musician comes through town and
he's like, Hey, you probably would really enjoy our band
if you would come watch us play. The musician is like, yeah,
I don't really do that, and he's like, I really
really think you would like to hear our music. Why
don't we have a show tomorrow night. Why don't you
just come. You're gonna be in town, just come. You
gonna want to watch a show anyway, just call And
so finally the musicians like, okay, fine, I'll go. He said.
I went and watch him play, and I immediately said
I want to record this band, and so he signed.
He gets Felicity. All the band members of Felicity, they
come and live at his house for four months while
they're recording their new album. They changed the changed the
name of the band from Felicity to Shiloh. Great country
band name, right, that's a great band name for absolutely sure.
The song that comes off of this album that reached
out and grabbed me that I cannot get enough of.
Nice short title. This song is called a simple little
down home rock and roll love song for Rosie.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 9: I've done that, and I listen to it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, dang, this is freaking fantastic. But I started
off my search when I heard about this song. I
started off on Spotify. It's not on Spotify, you. I
can't find it streaming anywhere there happens to be a
clip of it, or like the song is on YouTube,
so I found it there.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, I want to know what the.
Speaker 2: Rest of the songs on this album sound like. So
I'm enlisting you, Chris Webber, and anybody else who's willing
to jump on board help me find the Shiloh that's
the name of the band and the name of the
album album, so that I can hear the rest of
these songs. And I want you guys to just listen
to how awesome this song sounds. I love it and
everybody I send it today. I send it to deaf
Dave and He's like, I love it. I send it
to my dad and he's like that, that's a great song.
It's It's got fifteen thousand views on YouTube. That's like nothing.
It's nothing. It's this beautiful, awesome song with Don freaking
Henley singing, and nobody knows about it. So I want
the album and I want all of you to know
about this incredible, incredible song. It's like the Grandfather of
the Black Crows with Don Henley singing the song so
that Southern groovy love it.
Speaker 3: Who is the rock and roll man that they talked
into coming and watching them perform.
Speaker 2: I may not have heard of him. His name was
Kenny Rogers, a little band called the First Edition back then.
Kenny Roger, Kenny Rodgers, who did not go to listen
to other bands play, not only heard this band, he
took him and had them live with him and produced
their album.
Speaker 3: That's fantasticy freaking Roger, That's fantastic. Yeah, back to Desperado. Okay, Yeah,
this is the song where Don Henley and Glenn Fry
became a team. Yep, Okay, they're kind of their tradition
in the first album was you write a song, I
write a song would come together, we work it, you know,
kind of work it together whatever. Don Helly had been
working on this song since nineteen sixty eight. In fact,
the beginning of it was like Leo, Leo, why don't
you come to your senses? Yeah? Right, and Glen Fry
stepped in and said, hey, can I help you kind
of fill the gaps on this song? And that's when
the partnership was forged.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he. Glenn Fry said that basically it would
be Don would start off with some lyrics and he
would have some music, and then as they kind of
put it together, Don would start doing the music and
he would start filling in the gaps on the lyrics.
And that was just this beautiful little partnership. Okay, so
I said, I had a story. Yes, I'm telling it now.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So when I was in high school, I was a
member of a club called the Beta Club Okay, academic club.
But it was like national organization.
Speaker 3: Sort of social sad social, keep going.
Speaker 2: So they would have big state convention like an Arkansas
with big, huge, like a whole whole club went down
there and there were clubs from high schools all over Arkansas.
And then We went to a national convention in like
a couple of different places, Nashville I think was that year.
But part of this big convention that they have, they
had a talent competition, right, okay, and so this would
this would have been ninety three ninety four ish junior.
And so I find out that they've got this talent
competition and I've just been kind of beginning this band
with lead singer Jeremy Turner, and I'm like, hey, we
should do something. Another member of the club was a
guy who played piano very well, jeff Yancey, who has
since passed away, got ress his soul. But you know,
we're just three high school kids who can play some
music and sing a little bit, right. But one of
the rules of the competition is you cannot go over
three minutes, all right, And so we land on, Hey,
we're gonna do Desperado. Like I had said, we should
do an original song. And they're like, Eh, let's do it.
Let's do Desperado. So this nineties, we're in the mid
nineties doing a song from the mid seventies, right, yep.
And so the song is three and a half minutes long,
three minutes in twenty seven seconds, right, So we're like, well,
what how do we get it under three minutes? So
we got to figure out a way to remove just
enough of it. And if you listen, like the last
like fourteen seconds is really just the strings just kind
of playing out. So it wasn't super worried about that
part of things, right, But basically we what we pulled out.
Speaker 3: We were right at three minutes.
Speaker 2: It was like three oh one, but we're a little
panicked that that we're going to go over our time limit, right,
And so we get to the competition, and at this
time in history, this is the way things were. I
think we were number thirteen out of fourteen competitors.
Speaker 3: I think at least.
Speaker 2: Twelve of them saying I will always love it, and
I may not be exaggerating, like it was literally like
I mean, the only like kind of weird difference was
that there was, you know, one girl did the Dolly
Parton version instead of the Whitney Houston version. Like every
like seemed like every single there may have been a
baton towiler in there or something, but basically it was
an overwhelming title wave of I will always love youse, right,
And so then we get up second to the last,
once to go, and we're nervous as crap about this
for three minutes. And so we get up there. I'm
playing guitar, Jeff's on piano, Jeremy singing, and Jeff starts
that piano and my buddy Richie Blue is in the
audience and I can hear him go, and the crowd erupts,
like I mean, it's like a wave. Everybody starts cheering,
and we're in the piano at the beginning of the
song and like, I'm just I'm just kind of you know,
I'm gonna try to remember my chords, and just it
would just periodically swell of people just gasping and amazed.
And so we're getting near the end of the song.
We see the little dude with his little stopwatch like
walking up to the beginning to the front of the state,
like you couldn't hear the last thirty seconds of what
we played because the entire auditorium full of high school
students was standing up, screaming their guts out. And I
have been chasing that moment for the rest of my
life since then.
Speaker 3: I can see where that would outweigh the Frank Hannon
moment you know that's incredible, ash.
Speaker 2: I mean just it was amazing. We won.
Speaker 3: By the way, Sorry, I've got two quick ones for
you on this. I really want to share with you
the chart on where Desperado landed on the charts. Okay,
it wasn't released as a single. One was never released
as a single, Right there, what arguably their second most
signature song never released as a single, shocking. The whole
album was kind of a disappointment.
Speaker 2: It was and this, you know, this was the namesake
of the album's true and it just didn't do very well.
And then Linda Ronstadt sang it a little bit differently
and they started emulating the way that she sang it,
and that's the song that everybody loved.
Speaker 3: Let's listen to the Linda Ronstadt version of that.
Speaker 7: Song, Dessrod, why don't you come to your sensis You've.
Speaker 1: Been out run fansis for so long now?
Speaker 4: Oh your hard one.
Speaker 3: Beautiful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's kind of kill her voice, ah man. And
was hot as a freaking Firecarcter in the seventies. Yeah,
and apparently could drink tequila with the boys, just kind
of like Stevie Nicks. Yeah, that's all right, never mind,
Linda Ronstadt. That's a close call for me, honestly.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Jim ed Norman is the guy who was his
band Don Henley's bandmate from Shiloh. He would do the
arrangement for strings on this and another song we're going
to talk about. He in nineteen eighty four became the
president of Warner Brothers Nashville and was president for twenty
years till two thousand and four. Oh nice, and so yeah,
I'm like, oh, poor Shiloh, and nobody amounted to anything
except Don Henley. Wrong, yes, guy too. Yeah.
Speaker 3: This song has been covered by the Carpenters, Ringo Star,
Bonnie Rait and Kenny Rogers, interesting, among others.
Speaker 2: D and your band that at that time we were
called Maxwell's Loft.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Maxwell's Loft. There we go. Excellent. I saw a
clip from David Letterman July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four.
This is a few years after the Eagles had broken up.
Glenn Fry performed Desperado on Letterman. So it is a
same song, different Eagles singing it. It's kind of interesting
to hear that version of it. And he dedicated it
to his friend and former songwriting partner Don.
Speaker 2: Hanley, there you go, it's beautiful, got to all right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Stop on your tape player, kick it out, flip it
over for side two. Start off with one of these nights, one.
Speaker 8: Of these nights, one of these crazy, We're gonna find out,
gritty Mama. It turns on.
Speaker 2: It's another fantastic song. I mean, it's greatest hits right where.
You're not gonna go wrong with any of these. They're
all just absolute killers. Here's something that was not a killer.
Okay to this single released? Do you know this? No,
it's a song called Visions, the only song in which
Don Felder is the lead singer in any Eagles song
in any Eagles album.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's interesting. We need to save some songs
for our Eagles Part two, if we ever get around
to doing that. Sure, Felder had some hard feelings, particularly
between him and Glenn Fry. Yeah, but there's a song
on Hotel California that he felt like he brought to
the band and deserved to sing a song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh right, yeah, well I got you yeah yeah,
another song right, a different song, yeah, so A Victim.
Speaker 3: Of Love was one that he brought. But Henley wrote
the words Fry kind of arranged it, but he had
the kind of the hook. It felt like he should
have been the lead singer on that one, right, And
they were like, Okay, give it a try. He tried
twenty times and they're.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, Irving Asthmov takes him to lunch or dinner
or whatever, and it's like, listen, you know this is
just gonna be better if Don sings it. And there
is something to that because even Glenn, even Glenn Fry,
was like, I don't know if you'd kind of noticed
our catalog, but I sing less and less and that
was by design because we had Don Henley in the band,
so he should be singing all the songs, right. And
then Don Henley says, Don Felder demanding to sing one
of these nights is like me demanding to play the
lead guitar on Hotel California. It just doesn't make any sense, right,
But I got a point, yes, at a great point.
But then Don Felder then has to go, But yeah,
I get it. Every song is gonna be better if
Don Henley sings. It's right. But Don Henley doesn't sing
every song. Glenn sings and Joe Walsh sings and Randy
and then Timothy and like Bernie sings a little bit,
you know, yeah, And so at that point I can
see him going I don't really And I listened to
Visions just I was like, how bad can he really be? Well,
he's listed as lead singer, but it's kind of like
a Beach Boys lead singer where you've got harmonies throughout
the entire song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I don't know
how bad he was by himself.
Speaker 3: Interesting, by the way, Yes, I have a skull in
my garage, a cow's skull, okay, that was given to
me by a friend, and I painted it like the
cover of One.
Speaker 2: Of These Knights, okay, So that it's interesting that you
bring that up, because that skull that's on the cover
of One of These Nights is a piece of art
that is done by the same guy who did the
cover to the Greatest Hits album, right, got the tiny
little eagle skull on there. It's on some blue white
powder which was rumored to be a mount of cocaine
that they snorted after that after they did it, which
is probably not true. But the artist, the artist's name
who did both of these skulls is Elchingadera. Okay it's
a nickname obviously, yes, So I was like el chinga detta.
I was like, what is that? I'm like some search.
It's like, you know, like a widget, Like it's a
little like a watch, you might call it.
Speaker 3: Like that's what.
Speaker 2: And then another one is like, uh, it's kind of
dirty and not really a nice thing. It's like, you know,
a dab of dung or whatever. And so I was
just like, well, but what's the literal translation? So I
did the Spanish to English translation relation. I put in
el chingadeera and the English's whole. So the artist for
this album and for one of these nights has nicknamed
himself Sthole in Spanish. By the way, yeah.
Speaker 3: One of these nights. It's number one. August second, nineteen
seventy five. Okay, okay, here's your top five that week. Yeah,
I was cooking at that point, by the way, you
were cooking, and I was. I was toddling at that time. Yeah,
by the way, I just before I read this list off,
this was what my parents listened to in the car.
I was raised on the Eagles. Yeah. I went on
a ski trip in nineteen eighty nine and I had
a buddy who popped in a tape Greatest Hits Volume
one on one side, Greatest Hits Volume two on the
other side. And you know, when you're skiing, all you
do you just look out the window at Kansas and
you just listen to music. And it was like being
reacquainted with an old friend. Yeah. So here's your top
five August second, nineteen seventy five. Okay, Number five The Hustle.
You remember that one? Yes, Number four, Please mister Please
by Olivia Newton John remember that one? Number three Jive Talking,
Oh yeah, Beg's G's Yeah, number two I'm Not in
Love by ten CC and number one one of these nights. Okay.
Speaker 2: So, on the subject of the Beg's, they actually recorded
this in the same studio that the Beg's were recording in.
Do you know this the one in Miami? I can't
remember where it was, but probably yes, probably, but they
were they were trying to get away from this kind
of country sound that they have, and this is definitely
a different sound, right Yeah. Well, I mean they hung
out with the Beg's a little bit and if you listen,
you've got that four on the floor disco.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is the Eagles and Disco.
Speaker 2: It really is, and it's inspired inspired by hanging out
with the begs.
Speaker 3: By the way, I'd bet my paycheck that it's in
Miami because the jive talking bridge. Oh right, right right,
go back to our Saturday Night Fever episode.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: Next song on the album's Tequila Sunrise.
Speaker 1: It's another Dicky.
Speaker 2: I want to say this, like, this is a fantastic song.
It belongs with these other songs. But at the time
that they pulled it, I wouldn't have expected them to
pull it because it's not one of their greatest hits.
Speaker 3: It's not a greatest hits.
Speaker 2: It's really not. I mean, I love the song, but.
Speaker 3: Reach number sixty four on the Hot one.
Speaker 2: Hundred, that's not a greatest hit. I mean, when you've
got a band that's got the kind of catalog that
they had at that point, which, by the way, did
we mention that this is coming from four albums? Like
they write four albums in and they're like, all right,
time for a greatest hits album. I mean, that's pretty
quick turnaround. But when you got the catalog that they have,
you could do it right. I knew from my days
as a bartender what a tequila sunrise is, which is
tequila and orange juice and grenadine. It's a nice little
blend of the orange and the red so that it
looks like a sunrise. Right, makes sense. But that's not
what they're talking about when they call this song tequila sunrise. Okay,
this is the sunrise that you see after an night
of shooting straight to Kuila. So when he says, take
another shot of courage, that's the shot of tequila. You
have trouble talking to girls. Shot at tequila. Go to
a r Patreon and good friend of mine have been
playing music's together and we're both nervous about our own singing,
and so we take a shot of courage. At the
beginning of every band press, you.
Speaker 3: Know, discussing that their first album cover this one right here.
Speaker 2: This one, I'll show it to them. There you go, right.
Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting. They went out to Joshua
Tree National Park. They all took a hit of peyote. Yeah,
they spent the night in the desert to create this cover. Yeah,
that's that's what we got. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's terrible.
Speaker 2: It's terrible. Well, maybe it's because they were all stoned
out of their freaking mind, including the photographers.
Speaker 3: Well, but did you see you actually have to take
the album apart to see the full thing.
Speaker 2: So the whole idea with the album, it's brilliant, It
is absolutely brilliant. Is that you unfold it and becomes
a poster. Well, apparently David Geffen didn't get the memo
because he sealed it all shut and then so what
you have is you can't open it up at all.
Speaker 3: You can't open it up. So when you're looking.
Speaker 2: At it right side up on the front and the
backside it's this way. But then when you open it up,
it's all upside down and the inside is literally them
around a fire, So you've got them upside down, like
hanging off of the ceiling. And they got they got
the shot that they got that really they used on
the top of the album. When the peote kicks in,
sometimes you got poop. And so Glenn Fry's like, guys,
I got to go to the bathroom. He's like, I'll
see you, and then he starts walking off. He's like
he gets three hundred yards away, and they're like egle
eagle and there's literally an eagle flying over them, like
the perfect photo opportunity, and yeah, we don't. The eagle
that we have is a drawn picture. It is not
an actual eagle, So I think his bowels robbed them
of some magic on that photo.
Speaker 3: But it did give us the name of the band.
By the way, you know that they're not technically the Eagles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Eagles Eagles. Yeah, I noticed that as I
was going through. I'm like, I'm always calling them the Eagles,
but it's really just Eagles. But that doesn't sound right. Yeah,
I just thought I can't believe I haven't brought it
up for now. I've had a hard day man, and
I hate.
Speaker 3: The Big Lebowski. Go back and check out our episode
on that versus Raised in Arizona. Yeah. Have you seen
the movie with Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
I have not seen it. I know of it, but
I have not seen. Is it nothing great? Okay, not
for those not for that star power.
Speaker 2: Is it related to the song at all? Or is
it just a okay?
Speaker 3: Next song? Yes, next song on the album. Take it
to the Limits. Okay.
Speaker 2: We don't have Glenn Fry, we don't have Don Henley,
we have Randy Meisner.
Speaker 3: This is the first and only a side single to
be sung by Randy Miser.
Speaker 2: Oh only yes, Okay. So he came up with the
lyric of take It to the Limit, came up with
the chorus I think, yeah, and he had the chord
progression and then he said, that's just you know, and
this is just kind of where I get stuck, you know,
first verse, and I'm done. And so then I gave
it to Don and Glenn and they finished it up. Now,
his idea on take It to the Limit was every
day you try to do better than you did the
day before.
Speaker 3: Right, that was it?
Speaker 2: Not the same idea conveyed for Don and Glenn's version
of the lyrics. But he has this. I mean, it's
it's interesting that this is his only single with the Eagles,
and it's also probably the reason he.
Speaker 3: Left the band one hundred percent. So there's that one iconic,
super high falsetto note that he hits the end the
song and it's wonderful and it's fun. And as a fan,
I want to see people. I want to see him
perform that I pay my ticket.
Speaker 2: I want to see take it to Glenn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one more time? Right, right. Well, Randy Meiser struggled
at little bit with confidence, a little bit with stage fright,
and he would be like, guys, I'm not feeling too well.
I don't think I can do it tonight, right, And
Glenn Fry's like, no, dude, you have to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: People paid money to see you seeing take it to
the limit. You gotta and it's the encore song, right,
you gotta sing this? Yeah, Well, he would try to
whimp out a bunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One night, the night that you're about to talk about,
he had been out partying and drinking heavily with some ladies.
Speaker 3: That some girls that's blue and was like, I'm not
doing it and Glenn's like, no, you're doing it. He's like,
I'm not doing it. You're doing it. People are here
to see you do that. I'm not doing it. And
then Glenn Fry's like, well if you then and it's
it's on you.
Speaker 2: Why don't you just quit?
Speaker 3: Why don't you just quit? That's right?
Speaker 2: And that's I mean, and that's what happened. I mean,
it wasn't instantaneous, but it wasn't very long after that
that Randy is like, guys, I don't want to do
this anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, that's also that night it becomes physical. They get
in a fist fight.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, hyeah Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: The securities there and they try to step in and
Henley's like, you guys, stay out of this. This is
personal band business. And he let him duke it out.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I can't think that that had
to be any kind of a fight. I mean, I've
seen Randy Meisner and Glenn Fry grew up in Detroit
and has that Detroit attitude and he looks like a
guy that could throw a fist easy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think that this song was his greatest
success and probably his reason for exit. Yeah, but I
love the song. I love it. Yeah, It's an amazing song.
Speaker 2: What interestingly happens after his departure, he had been with
a band, and we didn't talk about the other bands,
but like Don Hilly was with Shiloh and a couple
of other things, right, and Glenn Fry was with a
band called the Subterraneans and the Mushrooms, and then he
had a duet with JD.
Speaker 3: Souther.
Speaker 2: But Randy Meisner was in a band called Poco.
Speaker 3: Poco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so at the point that Meisner leaves, they're
out there, you know, the high pitched voice that he
had and a bass player, and Irving Azof is like,
who were going to get to replace him? And Glenn
Fry says, well, why don't we just get the guy
that replaced him in Poco? And Irving asthmas like Poko
is a band that's doing nothing. They're about to fall apart,
and I think that guy hates his life and he's like, Irving,
if you'd been playing in a band for ten years
and you're still making two hundred and fifty bucks a week,
wouldn't you be about to be done with it as well? Yeah, well,
the guy that took Randy's place in Poco was a
guy named Timothy B.
Speaker 3: Schmidt. Unbelievable. Timothy B. Schmidt joins. Shortly after the release
of Hotel California. Yeah, all right, just a quick countdown
for you. This song reached number four on the Hot
one hundred. Here's your top five that week. This is
November fifteenth, nineteen seventy five. Number five dream Weaver by
Gary Wright. Thank you Wayne's World for bringing that back right.
Number four Take It to the Limit. Number three, Love Machine,
Number two all by myself Eric Carmon, Remember when we
talked about that. Yep and number one December nineteen sixty three,
Oh what tonight?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Okayice nice by the Way Orchestra and this
one again conducted by the old Shiloh band member Jim
ed Norman. It's beautiful, beautiful, love it beautiful.
Speaker 3: Next song on the album, Peaceful Easy Feeling.
Speaker 2: I love this song. It's great, man, I love it
so much. It is a song in which the title
literally makes you feel the way that it is you
are told to feel.
Speaker 3: It's funny how that works out right, as soon as
it starts playing, even before the words come in, I'm like,
I do have a peaceful easy feeling with.
Speaker 9: The billion stars, all.
Speaker 5: Because I got a piece for.
Speaker 3: Easy did not absolutely. This was the third and final
single off their first album.
Speaker 2: I heard Glenn.
Speaker 3: Frye talk about this. He said, when people listened to
the Eagles, they were doing stuff right. They were traveling,
they were going on vacation, they were on a date,
they were breaking up with a girlfriend, they were getting
a job, whatever. But people did life to the Eagles,
and I think that's true. This is a road trip song.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure you know. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: I've got a funny story about the creation of this song.
You ready for this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So this song was written by their friend Jack Tempchin,
which we talked about earlier. Okay, he wrote it in
nineteen sixty nine. Okay, one night after a gig. He
was a musician as well, He was waiting for a
waitress at a restaurant. She never showed, so he just
crashed out on the floor at this place, like just
just slept on the floor, yeap. And they're like, oh, okay,
we'll see in the morning. Well, the only thing he
had with him was his guitar. So he writes a
piece of it here, piece of it there. So part
of it was that late night on the floor at
this restaurant. So he moves to La meets JD. Souther,
Jackson Brown, and Glenn Fry, so they help him kind
of further develop it a little bit here and there. Well,
one day he is at the Dirwiner Snitzel in San Diego.
Speaker 2: The the dir I mean, I don't know if it's.
Speaker 3: The Direner stencil that it's a Dirina.
Speaker 2: Stencil, whole chain of them. Yeah, Okay, have you ever
been there. I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Good corn dogs, you know, just kind of a corn
dog place. Okay, Okay, okay. So he finishes, writes the
third verse in a booth at this dirrener Stinzel. And
in twoenty twelve, the Mayor of San Diego gives him award,
and they have a plaque at this ter Wienerschnitz where
it says the song peaceful Easy Feeling was completed at
this booth in this restaurant. Okay, and they gave him
the Golden Wiener Award.
Speaker 2: I thought, I I thought that went to Huey Lewis.
Go back and check out our hue Lewis and the
New Sports album for that inside story.
Speaker 3: According to Jack, that's right. According to Jack Tempchin, lots
of people have Grammys, but not a lot of people
have Golden Wieners. That's fantastic. Love it, I love it.
This song reached number twenty two in nineteen seventy three,
the number one song that week killing Me Softly by ROBERTA. Flack.
It's a good one. It's a good one, okay, yeap.
Last song on the album. The song is called the
best of My Love.
Speaker 2: So this is their first number one single March nineteen
seventy five, okay, and it's off the album on the border, it.
Speaker 3: Is off on the board, it's the third single. Okay.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of a critical album for them because
their previous albums they had done with the producer Glenn Johns.
And you know, when they're ready to record their first
album and they're like, okay, you know, first they had
them go practice and aspen until they got good enough
and wrote enough good songs, right. But then once it
was actually time to record the album, they're like, who
do you want to produce the album? And they saw
Glenn John's name over everything that they loved Zeppelin and
Stones and The Who and all of that, right, and
so they're like, we want Glenn John's and so he
he comes out, he listens to him and he's like, yeah,
I'm not eh, I don't know what you guys are.
You're like rock, You're like country? What is it? I
don't know what we're doing here? And he's walking out
of the studio. He's done, you know, like he's listened
to a bunch of their stuff and he's just like,
I can't I don't know what you guys are, I
don't You're not a rock band, you're not a rockman,
you're not a countryman.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you are and I can't do
it right.
Speaker 2: And as he's about to leave, somebody's like, hey, why
don't you guys sing that that ballady song that you
guys sing And so they they sing a song called
Silver Dagger, and it's just they're just singing a cappella. Right,
this is just Glenn and Randy and Bernie, and they
would they would open, they would open and take it
easy with this one, usually by singing this song, Okay,
you ready, so here it is that. So this is
what Glenn John hears as he's about to walk out
of the studio. My daddy was a handsome devil.
Speaker 8: He had it chain.
Speaker 6: From every lea in hearted day for every maid.
Speaker 4: He love it.
Speaker 3: Irresistible.
Speaker 2: And Glenn John's turned around and he said, I now
know what you guys are and he jumped in with
both feet and so he produced. They had they have
to go out to London to produce with him, which
I mean when they're gonna go record in the same
studio the Zeppelin and the Beatles recorded in, right, But
when they get there. Glenn John's has been fed up
with the behavior of rock musicians, specifically the Rolling Stones,
where he would just be like waiting around until Keith
came up with a song, like he was just not
going to do that anymore.
Speaker 3: So no drinking, no drugging.
Speaker 2: You know, he ran a tight ship and that didn't
sit well with Glenn. Fry Don Henley was like, it
made it better. We were better at our craft by
not being high. That's a good rule. But after three
albums of this kind of done, and so midway through
recording with him on the Border, they're like, you know what,
never mind, we don't want you anymore, and they go
they find Bill Simsic and he finishes the album. This
is one of the songs that Bill Simsck like, the
very first one he gets hold of. And on this album,
if you had one of the original LP vinyl albums,
yeh the you know what Dead Wax is no okay,
So remember the old album. As it got to the
end of the last song on the side, there would
be a little space where like the needle would slide off.
They call it the slide space or something like that. Yeah,
the slide off a lot of times there'd be like
some sort of number or something, you know, stamped in
there or whatever. Well, on the Greatest Hits album it
says something like Happy New Year, Glenn, love you Bill,
and I think that has to be Bill Simsck. It's
got to be right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But Bill Simsic of course then helps them. I mean
they they obviously didn't need Glenn John's anymore. They were
taking control and knew what they were doing. But that
was this song was kind of the beginning of the
new relationship with Bill Simson.
Speaker 3: That's cool, Yeah, that's cool. You know. The creation of
this song I think is interesting too. Glenn Fry was
playing with his guitar and he was trying to tune
it in a way that Joni Mitchell had shown him
earlier yep. And he was just kind of filling around
and that's when he kind of found this song. Then
he gave it to Don Henley, who they would go
to this restaurant called Dantana's all the Time, which is
close to the Troubadoor, and he was sitting in a
booth and he was writing the lyrics to this particular
music that Glenn gave him and finished the best of
my love there which one of these days you and
I need to go to Dantanna's Oh yeah and the
Sunset Girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 3: But in the liner notes for on the Border under
this song, there's a special note there that says thanks
Guido for all the tables, and that's in reference to
the maj Or d who would always help Don find
a space to work.
Speaker 2: Nice, pretty cool quo quido, you know.
Speaker 3: And the success of this song. This was the third single.
They were a little bit nervous about releasing such a
soft kind of ballady song. But there was a radio
station in Kalamazoo, Michigan who started to play this over
the single that they gave him, which was already gone,
and it started to catch fire. Yeah, And so they
released it as a single, and of course it goes
on major.
Speaker 2: They did just a limited release, like of a thousand
copies of it or whatever in Michigan because of that
radio station, and they were gone so quickly. That's what
made them decide, well, let's just go ahead and release.
Speaker 3: It fantastic full public.
Speaker 10: This is a beautiful song, love it, Get the best
of that, get the best.
Speaker 2: Of what an incredible album. I don't know how we're
going to compete with this album. Some people will say
we're not. That's okay, but I promised you a little
tid bet at the end of this that ties our
competitor in, right. Yeah, So Jimmy Buffett is who we
got coming up next episode. We're gonna look at the
songs you know by heart in the Battle Royal of
the two greatest Hits albums. Right, And if you don't know,
Jimmy Buffett had an incredible following of people who would
just literally go from place to place wherever he was playing.
And those people got the nickname the Parrotheads, and you
disclosed me today. I love it when we have these
moments because you were like, Hey, do you know who
gave Jimmy Buffett's fans the name Parrotheads? And I was like, no,
tell us the answer, sir.
Speaker 3: Well. After the breakup of the Eagles, Timothy B. Schmidt
went on to play in the Jimmy Buffett band, the
Coral Reefers The Coral Reefers, and as a member of
that band, of course Timothy B. Schmidt was a Eagle.
He gave Jimmy Buffett fans the name Bearheads.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 2: All right, More fantastic nuggets like that about Jimmy Buffett,
the Coral Reefers, and all of the amazing songs that
you know by heart coming up next episode. Join us then,
Thank you guys so much for tuning in. We hope
you enjoyed the show.
Speaker 3: See you next week. Thanks guys. Mister Barlow, Hey, hang on,
this is my Wiener song.
Speaker 2: You have a song for your Wiener.
Speaker 3: I have got a Wiener story for you on this one.
Speaker 2: I use my Wiener.
Speaker 8: That's great.
Speaker 3: That will be in the outtakes right there.