Working two jobs with a long commute, there will likely be days that I go to work before Z gets up (today, for example) and days that I get home after he’s gone to bed. This wasn’t part of the plan. But it’s for a finite period of time and hopefully allows me to have more time with the boy, in the long run.

I can’t abide anymore Eagles, so rather than their long run, how about Emmylou’s (courtesy of Steve Earle) ”Goodbye”.

-The Dude

While I tend to be pretty much in lock step with The Dude’s philosophy, I’ve got to part ways with him on The Eagles. Thinking about Stevie Miller the other day set me off on a sonic amble down memory lane. Miller ’s band and The Eagles were the music of the first year of my first jab at college. I want to hasten to add that this is not because I was in college in the 1970’s. In fact, in the late 1980’s The Eagles were neither at the zenith of their popularity nor at the cutting edge of rock music. In comparison to the cloying Top 40 pop that was favored on my small town radio station, however, The Eagles represented freedom – sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

Which is pretty much what I was looking for when I left home for the first time. I was 17 when I turned up, clueless and friendless, at a private school in upstate South Carolina. I found the drugs and rock ‘n’ roll pretty quickly, especially considering that it was a Christian school. As for the first part of the equation, well The Eagles penned the script for my first “real” relationship at that school. They understood the initial attraction:

“One of these nights
One of these crazy old nights
We’re gonna find out, Pretty mama
What turns on your lights…”

Through the good times:

“‘Cause I gotta peaceful easy feeling
and I know you won’t let me down…”

And the bad:

“Let me tell your brother, she’s been sleeping
In the devil’s bed.”

In hindsight it is not surprising that a relationship with emotional depths that could be easily summed up by a seventies country-rock band was doomed. Appropriately, The Eagles wrote the ending:

“You see it your way
And I see it mine
But we both see it slippin’ away.”

They understood my need for anger:

“You never thought you’d be alone this far
Down the line
And I know what’s been on your mind
You’re afraid it’s all been wasted time…”

And ultimately, my acceptance:

“Oh, Gonna try and love again
gonna try and love again”

My love affair with The Eagles ended shortly after that Freshman fling. My musical tastes have changed a bit since then, as have my romantic. In fact, I take a fair bit of pride in saying that my relationship with Dr. O’C transcends the skills of your average So Cal rock band to define. Though, that being said, there’s a Steve Earle song that has a lot to do with our courting. And that New Order track…

I was listening to the new Portishead album with a new friend at my new job and we were both astounded by how good it is, in spite of the fact that the Bristol trio is getting on a bit. It seems that rock bands, as they age, can go one of two ways. The lucky ones mature musically and release progressively richer and more challenging albums. Portishead is aging in this way, as is Nick Cave, Jeff Tweedy, Radiohead, and so on. The other road is that bands and musicians get bloated, megalomaniacal, and rest on their musical laurels. They produce carbon copies of their hits and don’t challenge themselves to get better. And they sell out. The best example of this latter class is The Rolling Stones. You know how else fits in this class? The Eagles.

The Eagles laid dormant, excepting mediocre solo albums from some of the members, for about two decades until they reunited for a live tour in support of, well, nothing. They released a new record in 2007, but gave Wal-Mart exclusive rights to sell the record. I knew at that point that The Eagles were the worst kind of that latter class of aging rock icons. I’ve never heard the latest record, so can’t judge it musically, and I never will because there’s no worse way of selling out that selling out to Wal-Mart. In fact, they sold out to the people that they describe in their own song:

“Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught ‘em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,people bought ‘em…”

I guess the Eagles wrote their own soundtrack as well.That being said, I still want to jump, Beau & Luke Duke style, into the nearest pick-up every time I hear the opening chords of “Take It Easy”.