They Will Not Go Quietly: The Official ILM Track-By-Track DON 'n' GLENN Listening Thread

"Dirty Laundry": Obviously this has been played to death on radio, but with good reason! A+ Groove, enough ideas to sustain the running time (imagine if there'd been a club mix!), two cool guitar solos (Walsh and/or Steve Lukather, iirc). The downside: This is the grand reappearance of Cranky Don, and if you're one for subtext, the 'inspiration' behind this one is truly gagworthy. But this time the hectoring smugness has some economy, and...that groove, man. It's kind of crazy that there wasn't a proper music video done for this.

Related:

80s Toronto News Guys (Clemenza might know 'em) have fun w/"Dirty Laundry": http://youtu.be/YHimia_Fxzs
The Donster serenades his close personal friends Bill & Hillary in 1993: http://youtu.be/7NmYpJ2R9Ps

Always dug "Dirty Laundry." I had no idea Henley had been in the Eagles until years after first hearing this; it sounds positively anti-Eagles.

at least he sounds rarin' to go and hip to MTV-esque New wave a la Rod Stewart's "Young Turks."

Whereas Glenn was still stuck on "Hot Legs"

GLENN: You would be too!
DON: Well, yeah.

when I reviewed the 2003 Eagles show and they took their solo turns (Schmitt wasn't allowed "Boys Night Out" though) "Dirty Laundry" was pretty ferocious, thanks to loud drumming not by Henley and Walsh's solo. Frey choosing the dinkiest keyboard preset almost ruined it though.

No Glenn for this post-Monstered day?

was at the picture show

"All Those Lies"

http://www.moosedenied.com/images/2008-11/gf.jpg

http://youtu.be/gxCwfEyqivM

Third single and Frey's only solo composition.

Man, Glenn days are tumbleweed time in Freytown.

"All Those Lies": Ah, nice groove, Glenn at home with a sleazy (read: honest) lyric. The shift to chorus doesn't quite fit in for me. A little bridge would have been nice. Did Hawkins & Hood play on the whole album? Explains all the soulboy posturing and why the rhythms are more pleasing than general Eaglefare.

My favorite Glenn song so far.

been off line for most of the weekend but will catch up tomorrow: these are both good songs!

"Talking to the Moon"

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3kcWvkN2hLM/Uf5qIpJj8iI/AAAAAAAAAKk/DSCuNoQ5AOY/s1600/moon+boy.jpeg

http://youtu.be/O2gfBzlBkM8

"Talking To The Moon": Once again very-Newman-esque. Quite pleasant. Seems like it would lend itself well to a Country cover by George Strait or somebody. This also feels like the first Don track so far that could have been an Eagles song, and a good one at that.

Garth Hudson on synth. Oh Garth what have ye wrought

TS: "The Moon Struck One" vs. "Talking To The Moon"

"Tllking to the Moon" sounds generic to me; it didn't surprise me that J.D. Syphilis co-wrote it.

After you said Newman-esque I imagined (pretty easily) a Randy Newman solo-piano cover of "Dirty Laundry."

how bout a Colin Newman cover of "I Can't Stand Still"

"She Can't Let Go"

http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/orangetexturesidejmsepia.jpg

http://youtu.be/YYSbILFx7ng

I keep waiting for the "New Kid in Town" chorus to cut in

ok, need to catch up:

"Dirty Laundry": Better than pretty much anything the Eagles ever recorded, despite the echt-Henley lyric full of contempt, "sociopolitical criticism" and casual sexism. Walsh's solos and Porcaro's drums help, plus the mix full of ringing phones, Yello-style distorted vocals and other noises that suggests Don (well, probably Kortchmar) was actually having fun in the studio.

"All Those Lies": Glenn always could do sleaze well, no question---mix in some paranoia and a comfortable groove and you've got the best track on the album. Still goes on a bit too long.

"Talking to the Moon": agree this feels like a Eagles holdover (or a songwriting exercise where Don tried to write a Zevon ballad), & also has a of the End of Innocence to come. Garth Hudson adds ice-skating-routine incidental synths.

"She Can't Let Go": Lee's right: this is Glenn, at a loss, trying to rewrite "New Kid in Town" but forgetting to write a refrain this time.

"She Can't Let Go": This is like Glenn saying, "Hey Guys! Remember Me? I Was In THE EAGLES!" Again. Total re-visitation of the "New Kid In Town" wheelhouse. I like "NKIT", so maybe that's why I find this tolerable. That, and it clocks in at only 3:11! Less Waste!

Chris Isaak could do a great cover of that one.

Yeah, or The Mavericks/Raul Malo.

Still-Relevant to Election Day Donster Jam Coming?

"Johnny Can't Read"

http://www.my80splaylist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Don_Henley_Johnny_Cant_Read.jpg

http://youtu.be/VYEm76840Yo

I need to find Don's classic snot-nosed explanation.

DON: My mother was a teacher and she used to come home all the time and say she couldn’t understand how they passed these kids from one grade to another when they didn’t have the basic reading or learning skills. It was appalling then, and they still do it. Randy Newman always thought it was a brave song because I blamed the kid. In our liberal society, it was always fasihonable to blame the teachers, the schools, the parents, anybody but Johnny himself. I just thought that it was time to blame Johnny for his own failure. Plus, where I grew up football was God. Still is. If you were in the band you were a sissy, looked down upon. You know, it’s good-to-be-stupid anti-intellectualism.

I hope Walsh was looking at that single when he wrote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNAuGs-JM98

Give a Texan Eagle a sped-up organ riff and he turns into Harold Ford, Jr.

YT comments:

doobeedoo58
5 months ago

What a prophet Don Henley turned out to be!

Laberinto Azul
4 months ago

I agree. C. Gustav Jung quote: We are focus in economics and politics but we have not studding enough the psyche, when we have an out break of this type we wont be able to fix it. 

doobeedoo58
4 months ago

stop trying to be political and listen to the song you lezbo

was this after the Todd Rundgren "Bang on the Drum All Day" thing? Similar grating sorta-new-wave backing

Yeah, the whole thing strikes me as an extremely misguided Elvis Costello pastiche.

Thanks for the tutorial and, no, you're not the first to bring this to my attention-—and you're not the first to completely misinterpret the lyric and miss the metaphor. Believe me, I've listened to enough New Wave in my time to know how those songs are made and what the proper nomenclature is. It's a sociopolitical statement.

I'm reading the paperback afterword to Marc Eliot's Eagles book. Apparently Eliot went out of his way to solicit Henley's cooperation, such that Henley eventually agreed to meet for interviews in 1996; he even loosened up enough to get the occasional drink with Eliot after sessions. Then he turned on him when he saw the contract. The afterword ends with this bit in 2002:

"Marc Eliot is not only a bad writer, but an evil person. He is as sick person who has an axe to grind." What can I say? I wear criticism from Don Henley as a badge of honor. As for bad, sick, evil? One of us was arrested in 1980 for being caught with an underaged girl who had overdosed on cocaine and Quaaludes, brought before a judge, and offered probation. The judge strongly recommended that the offender do community service, which he refused. Hint: It wasn't me.

if you leave out the hint there, who knows

I remember hearing Henley on...what was the national classic-rock call-in show? Rockline?...in the 80s and getting super stern when someone mentioned and underaged girl and even underaged me was like, Woah, what'd he do.

mentioned and /
mentioned an

"Johnny Can't Read": Basically this is Don Henley saying, "Yes, I'm familiar with the works of Elvis Costello." Such a clean break from the Eagles (bar "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks"). I have a friend with a local freeform music radio show. Some years back, he had an episode land on Texas Independence Day. At the time, he'd used to do a 30 minute 80s block at the start of his second hour. We got 30 minutes of Texan New Wave kicked off by a Joe "King" Carrasco track followed by "Johnny Can't Read" and they segued perfectly. Straight up New Wave Frat Rock. Due to the song's relatively low chart placing, this never appears on Henley comps, and rarely gets played on the radio. In To The Limit, Henley reckoned it's failure in many markets (particularly Texas) was that he criticized football in the lyrics.

The Video: Man, Henley has like three seconds of charisma in this thing. He should have worn a costume like in the 45 sleeve. Note the upside down Texas flag on the wall. Nice use of a Nash Metropolitan in the video the students are looking at. Another entry in that sub-genre of 80s videos that integrate the album art into the set ("Vacation", "Mexican Radio", "Twilight Zone" etc...)

WTF? from the related videos list: http://youtu.be/EQ9ZdgCC4OU

apparently this got play on early MTV

This track also looks forward to Henley/Kootch bringing in genuine New Wavers (Martha Davis, Patty Smyth, various GoGos) on sessions.

DON: It was an exciting time to be making music in Los Angeles. The punk scene had given way to a slicker, more professional New Wave movement that I for one could get behind. You'd turn on MTV--then still a very exclusive service--and get exposed to The Motels...Scandal...The GoGos, and think to yourself, "I like the sound of this". A few phonecalls later, and they are guesting on my sessions.

GLENN: I used to conduct my own sessions listening to those records up in Coldwater Canyon. I used to call it Beauty And The Beat...My Meat!

DON: Well, yeah.

HAPPY ELECTION DAY

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

I like to think of Henley running into Billy Joel in the studio hallway while one is recording "Johnny Can't Read" and the other is doing "Pressure."

The last verse of "Johnny Can't Read" could be an outtake from "We Didn't Start the Fire"

Sitcoms, t.&a.
Johnny's mind is blown away
Cop shows, horror flicks
Johnny's brain is full of Vicks
Rock show, video
Boob tube, rubik's cube
King Cool, Sunday school
Ten Frames, gobble games
WOCKA WOCKA WOCKA

(Full disclosure: I owned the 45 of "Johnny Can't Read." I can't remember if I knew it was that guy from the Eagles or not.)

Last Don & Glenn exchange actually made me "blerugh" out loud. Funny because it's true, etc.

Henley was trying for a Costello song but ended up with a Nick Lowe one instead.

"Don't Give Up"

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~markowit/interviews/gf/musician/bed.jpg

http://youtu.be/0eUPFQBNDEs

What the hell is this – Tommy Tutone rhythms and riffs vs vehement Boz Scaggs backup singers?

"Don"t Give Up": Wow, this one really doesn't fit in with the rest of the album. His biggest New Wave concession ever? And by "New Wave" I mean the one that included early Loverboy, that definition that's arena rock with synths and quirky rhythms. I put this one in the "Keeper" file for this set, as it's on the more listenable side and at least kind of interesting on a mostly meh album.