On the Inconvenience of Hating the Eagles

Or how I realized I don't exactly hate the Eagles

Welcome music lovers to a new edition of ‘Listening Sessions’!

Since the last time I was in touch, there has been a flurry of activity. To those who have recently subscribed through my essay on Grant Green and Sonny Clark, thank you for being here and supporting my work. Jazz is a big focus here as are a lot of other types of music, and I hope that no matter what I write about, you’ll find it interesting, informative and even fun.

Last week, I was thrilled when critic Tom Moon of the great Substack ‘EchoLocator’ cited my Green and Clark piece in a roundup of recent music writing.

Shouts.....

There has been a lot of thoughtful commentary on the state of music journalism and criticism and one thing that is clear is that it is thriving on Substack. To list all the music writers and critics doing good work here would take up the rest of this dispatch so instead, I hope you will take a look here to check out all the Substacks that I recommend, and subscribe and support as much great music writing as possible.

As well, it’s Valentine’s Day today and if you’re looking for a ballad album to set the mood, have I got an unexpected choice for you!

The Casual Intimacy of Mr. C, Perry Como

This edition’s essay is a bit more personal than usual and touches on the Eagles, a band I don’t really enjoy a lot but wanted to explore why as well as discuss the instances where I do enjoy their music. At ‘Listening Sessions,’ I feature music that I enjoy and that I think you do or will too while being honest about moments or songs that don’t hit the mark within essays that are largely positive and praiseful. I try to keep that framework here but am a bit more negative than I probably ever have been. The Eagles have legions of fans and if you are a fan of the Eagles, I hope you will find the below diplomatic and thoughtful and on the whole, more positive than negative.

Until next time, may good listening be with you all!

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I have no problem admitting that I have never seen The Big Lebowski. But I know enough to know of the Dude and how he abides, Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, the Coen Brothers. And I also know what happens when the Dude hops into a cab one night. As the sound of the Eagles’ ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ wafts through the cab driver’s sound system, the Dude sighs long and hard and then again and again and again. He asks, and desperately so, if the cabbie would consider changing the channel. Big mistake. The cabbie issues a warning: if the Dude doesn’t like his music, he can hit the road. The Dude thinks appealing to the cabbie’s good nature (he doesn’t seem to have any) and empathy (not much there, either) may work. He mentions he’s had a bad day and, oh yeah, he hates the Eagles. Fatal mistake. The cabbie nearly causes an accident swerving to the curb to deposit the Eagles-hating, cardigan-and-pajama-clad Dude back outside.

If it may have been seemed incongruous for the Dude, laid-back and pretty chill, to so deeply dislike the Eagles (surreal comedy depends on such a discord between what we are told and what we expect), it did pay off. The Coen Brothers had to tried to license the Rolling Stones’ ‘Dead Flowers’ for the movie. The group’s manager, Allen Klein, offered it up for $150,000. After Klein watched a rough cut of the movie—he also hated the Eagles—he licensed the song to them gratis.

As for Bridges, he clarified in 2012 for Rolling Stone that while he, like the Dude, loves Credence Clearwater Revival, “I don’t hate the Eagles like the Dude hates them.” The actor once offered that Don Henley seemed cool about the scene but Glenn Frey wasn’t so sanguine when running into Bridges and “made me squirm a bit.”

Years ago at where I work, there were a few co-workers who were, like me, music lovers and record collectors. A colleague of ours brought, in stages, the contents of her late partner’s vinyl collection. She would gather us and we would divvy up the contents. The process was harmonious. All the Beatles records went to one person as well as the Dylan. All the Van Morrison went my way. A co-worker claimed Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush for his son. LPs by Emmylou Harris, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt, Brook Benton and Buddy Holly were all mine as was Tom Waits’ debut, Closing Time. A copy of On the Border by the Eagles? That went unclaimed. Turns out we all hated the Eagles too. But, speaking for myself, how deep does the hate actually go?

Personal taste is a funny thing. It orients our outlook, acting as a shorthand when it comes to culture. When I was growing up—the eighties into the nineties—personal taste was integral to group identity. As it pertained to music, it would determine whether you were in or whether you were out. As a six-year-old in 1984—the height of Thriller, Lionel Richie and Madonna—bringing an Elvis Presley album for show and tell to extol the virtues of the King to my classmates, I was on the out. Way out. So much so that I barely ever talked about music for years and years, lest I give away my secret, as Tony Asher wrote to a Brian Wilson melody, “I just wasn’t made for these times.” While some reticence lingers—the fear of being judged is a stubborn constant—it seems far more romantic these days to be outside of the mainstream. The days of a musical monoculture are long gone (or is that, already gone) and probably permanently so. That, to my mind, is a good thing, relieving at least some of the pressure of conformity, of being able to freely admit a sense of disconnection in perusing the Billboard Hot 100 and wondering who are these people? It doesn’t make one a square, just someone out of time.

The Eagles’ time was the seventies—the second chapter of California as a musical mecca. The end of sunshine pop and psychedelic rock. The rise of the singer-songwriter and a new kind of studio precision. Out were the orchestral sounds of Brian Wilson and John Philips. In was a leaner and smoother sound. One day, it would be christened yacht rock. It was also the codification of country-rock. Or the professionalism of it, if you will. The electric excitement of such progenitors as Michael Nesmith, both as part of the Monkees and fronting the First National Band, the Everly Brothers, Gram Parsons with post-David Crosby the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Nashville Skyline-era Dylan and Rick Nelson come and gone.

Frey and J.D. Souther were both Detroiters who went west in the late sixties. The sister of the girl Frey was dating at the time introduced him to Souther. While both had been with bands that had released singles on small regional labels, their full-length statement of their collaboration, titled Longbranch/Pennywhistle, was their first major appearance on record. The album, released in 1969 on the indie label Amos, featured Frey and Souther, both guitarists, vocalists and songwriters, augmented by studio players like Larry Knechtel, James Burton, Jim Gordon and Joe Osborn as well as alchemists like Doug Kershaw and Ry Cooder. It is a breezy, bright affair, aligned more with where Parsons was going than where Nesmith was bound, for example.

Frey’s partnership with Souther was the germ of the idea that sparked the Eagles. Frey would meet Henley in 1970 and soon the two with Randy Meisner and ex-Burrito Brother Bernie Leadon would back a singer who became arguably the defining female singer of the seventies: Linda Ronstadt.

Ronstadt’s run of albums from her official debut, Hand Sown … Home Grown, in 1969 to Get Closer in 1982 form a collection that is both persuasive and comprehensive in the breadth of her ability to interpret—powerfully and personally—songs. Her third album, released in 1971 and titled simply Linda Ronstadt, is overshadowed by Heart Like a Wheel or Simple Dreams, but remains illustrative of not only why she became as big as she did but also of a scene that confirmed the seventies as, among other things, the decade of the singer-songwriter.

The album opens with ‘Rock Me on the Water,’ written by Jackson Browne—one of the most important singer-songwriters of the seventies. It’s one of countless recordings that serve as a pocket introduction to the wonders of Ronstadt. There’s her phrasing, laser-focused on the beat like walking on grass wearing cleats. Her voice has an edge that neither leans into prettiness nor depends on technique. The musicians with her were her equal. Among them were Frey on guitar and Henley on drums. Frey appears on four and Henley on five of the 10 tracks that comprise Linda Ronstadt. Leaden plays guitar on three though none with Frey and Henley. Meisner plays guitar or sings background vocals on three also—one with Leadon and two with Frey and Henley. ‘Rock Me on the Water’ features Frey and Henley.

A cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘I Still Miss Someone’ leans heavily into bluegrass. The sound is about as sorrowful as the lovelorn protagonist’s outlook. Ronstadt never betrays the melancholy of Cash’s lyrics. Gil Guibeau and John Martin hang tight on background vocals creating the impression of Ronstadt performing the song as if at a family wake. It’s followed on the album by ‘In My Reply,’ written by Livingston Taylor (James’ brother), which slowly builds momentum and is carried by Ronstadt’s vocal—it burrows into the brain. Leadon plays guitar on both.

The heart of Linda Ronstadt lies in side two with three of its tracks recorded at the Troubadour. Ronstadt is backed by Frey, Henley and Meisner as well as John Boylan (her manager at the time and the person responsible for connecting her with the future members of the Eagles) on guitar, Sneaky Pete Kleinow on steel guitar, Guilbeau on fiddle and Mike Bowden on bass.

‘I Fall to Pieces,’ one of Patsy Cline’s signature songs, is laid back with Ronstadt stretching her phrasing of the song’s title as long as humanly possible. ‘Birds,’ a Neil Young song, introduces the harmonies of Frey, Henley and Meisner. Here, they are rough-hewn. They back Ronstadt with their hearts and not their heads. Her final “it’s over” is simply devastating. And then there’s the heat of the Fontella Bass stomper ‘Rescue Me.’

The aggression of the groove, anchored by Henley’s drums, is balanced by the layering of the song’s inescapable riff with Kleinow’s steel guitar on top. It’s a tasty, urbane touch. The coda has Ronstadt pleading for a lifeline with Frey, Henley and Meisner answering. Her final “oh baby!”—her control is tested to the limit—leads to the band chugging through the groove. It’s a breathless performance.

Later in 1971, Frey, Henley, Meisner and Leadon would officially come together as the Eagles. Signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records, their debut contained three of the songs on which their legacy began to be built: ‘Take it Easy,’ ‘Witchy Woman’ and the tune that tormented the Dude, ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’

Out the same month (June 1972) as their first album was an essay by critic Robert Christgau in Newsday that points to their essential dichotomy. While acknowledging that “these guys can execute. Not only do they all sing and compose, which is nothing new—they’re good at it,” he sees this musicality serving a cold, calculating, corporate mistress. He writes, “the music, the lyrics, and the distribution machine are all sure and synthetic. Brilliant stuff—but false.”

But it’s another thought that Christgau wrestles with that hints at why explaining why the Eagles provoke such strong negative reaction is something worth exploring and understanding. “Do I hate music that has given me pleasure all weekend, made by four human beings I’ve never met?” he asks. “Yeah, I think so.”

Hearing Linda Ronstadt—my favourite of her albums—and admitting that part of what stimulates my enjoyment of it is the energy of the music and that part of it came from musicians whose work as a collective I am admittedly cooler about is intriguing to me. ‘Rescue Me’ is edgy, an adjective that couldn’t be applied to the music of the Eagles.

Back to the stacks of records of the partner of my former colleague and Tom Waits’ Closing Time in particular. It starts with ‘Ol’ 55,’ a song of coarse yearning. Waits’ voice is light years from the gravelly, confrontational growl that it would soon become. The song moves because Waits sells it.

Back to another album in the stash—the unclaimed On the Border by the Eagles. By then, Dan Felder had joined. On it is their cover of ‘Ol’ 55.’ They give the old jalopy a fresh wax job. It has nowhere near the pull of Waits’ version. It sounds like a rich man trying to pass himself as a man of the people—a gambit that never works. Waits himself called their version “antiseptic.”

He also said once, “I don’t like the Eagles.” He added, “they’re about as exciting as watching paint dry.” And then if he wasn’t already clear, “their albums are good for keeping the dust off your turntable and that’s about all.”

There are other bands I don’t like. I’m pretty cool to Led Zeppelin. I’ve never bought into the band’s mystique. Progressive rock, save for early Pink Floyd, also leaves me untouched. Lighthouse, Canada’s answer to Chicago, strikes me as almost beyond bland. I suppose that word would be the adjective I would also attach to the Eagles.

Take ‘The Best of My Love,’ written by Henley, Frey and his old bandmate from Longbranch/Pennywhistle, J.D. Souther. It is undeniably a beautiful composition with a memorable hook. A couplet like “we try to talk it over / but the words come out too rough” hits hard. The country singer Tanya Tucker covered in 1977 at the end of her Billy Sherrill Nashville sound era and gets to the emotion of it. Three years earlier, the Eagles had their first number-one hit with it. It moves with the momentum of sludge. The harmonies are no longer as rough as they were with Ronstadt. They are pitch perfect. They lose the plot of the song, one I pretty much know by heart even though I don’t own even one album by the Eagles.

Radio is at least partly to blame here. A lot of the music I don’t like—see the list above—is because of radio. On the surface, that’s absolutely not surprising. Back when I was growing up, radio was still a way for people to discover music. But, most the music that I dislike because of radio has not been borne of an instant loathing. It’s the repetition that slowly but surely turned my heart into stone. Psychedelic Sunday, a long-standing program on Toronto’s Q107 from 1985 to 2018, is a primary culprit. All that Yes and Jethro Tull and Zeppelin and Lighthouse wore me down. The Eagles too. The Band as well. Just the first hit of Garth Hudson’s organ raising the rafters of Big Pink at the start of ‘Chest Fever’ would cause me to squirm like the Dude in the cab. Not that again!

And yet, within perhaps 15 seconds after placing the needle down on the first side of Music From Big Pink and mesmerized by the cloudy sound of Robbie Robertson’s guitar, a mournful brass choir and Richard Manuel’s voice singing the immortal first line of ‘Tears of Rage’: “we carried you in our arms / on Independence Day,” the thought of continuing to hate the Band was akin to hating puppies and kittens.

That epiphany only came by listening to an album and that only came by finding a copy of their debut, deciding to plunk down the cash for it and make it a part of my record collection. That impulse has never asserted itself when it has come to the Eagles.

I always thought I might take a flier on their first album. I do like ‘Take It Easy,’ though that may be because I like Jackson Browne, who write it, and I also do like the musical milieu around which Browne and the Eagles were central. The music was credited to one artist but was a product of an army of musicians, almost always listed on an album’s back cover or inner sleeve.

It’s here again where a reflexive dislike of the Eagles becomes not so simple. In 2013, it was Don Henley who inducted Randy Newman into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and thirty-six years prior to that, it was Frey and Souther (by that point, an integral part of the Eagles even though he was never officially a member of the group) who sang backup on Newman’s sole hit, ‘Short People.’ Their counter to his ravings, “short people are just the same as you and I” has that glossy, nothing-left-to-chance harmony that made the Eagles, well, the Eagles but by employing it here ironically as a fatuous scold is a brilliant touch.

That same year, they appeared on Joni Mitchell’s Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter on one of the double album’s most accessible songs, ‘Off Night Backstreet.’ Around Mitchell’s unorthodox guitar voicings, Jaco Pastorius’ unmistakable bass and John Guerin’s imperturbable time keeping, Frey and Souther layer the word “backstreet” just twice on the song and yet it has an impact. That’s not to say that the song would not work if they hadn’t appeared. I suspect it would have but the collision of two musical visions—Mitchell’s becoming less and less commercial and the Eagles never swerving away from the masses—is exhilarating.

And what about the Eagles songs that I actually do like? I already vouched for ‘Take It Easy’ but ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ may be my favourite. The chorus, in which Frey is joined by Henley, Meisner and Leadon, is hooky, involving pop craft and it resolves quite nicely into the song’s main guitar riff played by Leadon. And yes, I do also like ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling,’ especially Leadon’s extended solo in the middle.

Being categorical in what one likes and what one dislikes in music has its appeal. It sets one apart from the crowd and can be a contrarian call to arms to stand up and not be counted. But, it can also be closed minded, walling off one’s musical taste to be unchallenged. Far more interesting is to permit the detours where your taste may not intuitively lead. To say “I don’t like so-and-so but I do still like…” has its own contrarian lure. It’s where curiosity and the unexpected always abide.

If you’re not yet a subscriber of ‘Listening Sessions,’ I hope you'll click the button below to subscribe and get each edition delivered straight to your inbox. I publish a long-form essay on music three times a month, every 10 days or so.