(Credits: Far Out / Greenwich Entertainment)
Glenn Frey didn’t set out to make the most cerebral music in the world with Eagles.
He was certainly talented with a guitar in his hand, but a lot of his best songs were about everyday life rather than trying to preach from a pulpit or get someone on the straight and narrow. He was more than happy to take life as it comes, but when it comes to the greater questions of the universe, he felt that a few of his contemporaries had a far greater wisdom behind their music than most people realised.
Because when you think about it, anyone can be a songwriter if they want to. It’s not that hard for the wannabes in Los Angeles circa 1971 to strap on an acoustic guitar and start singing something semi-coherent into the microphone and walk away with a record contract. What makes them last is when they have something to say, and Frey always had a partner in crime when working with Don Henley.
While Henley was far from the most brow-beating artist in the world, the magic behind hima nd Frey’s partnership was how well they painted a picture of America. Everyone might have dreamed of living out the lifestyle of a rock star, but Hotel California wasn’t merely a decent album of classic songs. It was both Frey and Henley holding up a mirror to their audience and asking them if this was the life that they wanted to live.
Then again, it’s not like they didn’t have their fair share of indulgent moments. No one writes ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ without living those long nights themselves, and as much as they might claim to love the music, it doesn’t exactly hurt to have multiple albums becoming the biggest-selling records in the history of the music industry. But when the crowds stopped cheering and the last notes rang out, Frey knew there had to be another way to be satisfied than simply music.
The Beatles may have found their calling through writing love songs and even artists like Bono started using their music for good causes, but James Taylor was a better version of what Frey wanted his life to be. Despite being one of the most mellow songwriters to come out of the 1970s, Frey was convinced that everything that a musician could hope to strive for came from listening to what Taylor said.
Countless artists are in the business for the glory, but Frey learned from Taylor that it was better to take every day as it comes, saying, “James Taylor isn’t too far off when he said the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. And it’s about doing good things for other people. That’s what makes you feel the best.”
You weren’t going to find too many preachy songs like that in Taylor’s discography, but he really didn’t need to. From his days at Apple Records to his work with Carole King, every one of his songs paints a picture of a man who has done his fair share of living but is content to have survived one more day under the sun, whether that’s eulogising a friend on ‘Fire and Rain’ or celebrating the joy of love on ‘Your Smiling Face’.
And judging by how Frey felt on the last Eagles album, he seemed to take that credence to heart by the time he took his final bows. He had been lucky enough to see the heights that most people only hope to see, and while it did eventually come to a tragic end in 2016, it was more than enough for him to watch the world go by one day at a time.
Related Topics
