Teatro Triste del Clown

Live:

When one discusses The Eagles and their enormous success in the 1970’s, one is really talking about two different bands. The first major iteration of the band was a little more country focused and lasted from 1972 to 1975, until the departure of original member Bernie Leadon. He was replaced by guitarist Joe Walsh, which kicked off a more rock oriented period from 1976 until their first break-up in 1980.

All of the anecdotes I’ve read about the band seem to suggest that everyone in the original line-up of the band was a little responsible for the eventual implosion, though most story suggest that almost everyone in the band butted heads with Glenn Frey at some point - sometimes literally.

Anyhow, The Eagles released two classic compilation albums, one representing each period. Due to a quirk in the way they named the albums, the second - Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol 2 - is actually represented first in my library.

Now, I confess, for most of the 80’s and 90’s, I hated the Eagles on principle. They were the face of the watered down top 40 California rock that punk was reacting to.

However, about ten years ago, I directed a show that used karaoke as pre-show music. In order to help the audience recognize that it was all right for them to sing, we made sure somebody was singing a song when they came in every night. The show ran about 50 performances at the time and I was the singer about half of those nights. I found that the song that best matched my vocal range - and that I had the most fun singing - was “Take It Easy.”

After a month of singing it, I started wondering why I’d ever disliked The Eagles. I picked up their first greatest hits compilation (one of the biggest selling records of all time) and discovered that I rather liked their music. Go figure. Maybe it’s age.

Anyhow, “Hotel California”, with its opaque lyric and unforgettable chord progression by guitarist Don Felder, “Hotel California” is one of the most recognizable songs in the American rock catalog.

As a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we used to have all sorts of ideas about what the song was actually about but, alas, as an adult, I can recognize that its mostly just a look at - to borrow the title of another one of their songs - life in the fast lane. Also, I’ve been disappointed that its the “warm smell of colitas” rising up in the air instead of “warm smell of coitus” for decades now.

Oh - and the best cover version of this song is by The Gypsy Kings.

This entry was posted by Joey Michaels on on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 9:08 am and is filed under iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.