Excursion #6 • The Eagles 🦅
Welcome Back
This, our 6th adventure in the Pop Time Machine, will have us landing in the year 1972.
Leaving right now for....
——————————————————————————
Excursion 6
Summer of 1972
Finding Love in a Graceless Age?
Imagine you’ve somehow traveled back in time with me today in this PopTimeMachine from the Fall of 2020 to the Summer of 1972. Try if you can to immerse yourself in the experience of what you see happening in the world around you. I am a teenager, trying to take in all that is changing in the world. Trying to find myself. And I don’t even know I’m lost. Until now!
It is a sports year, with the Summer Olympics about to get underway in Munich, Germany. We don’t know it yet but in a few weeks the XX Olympiad in Munich will become the scene of the first modern terrorist attack. 11 Israeli athletes and coaches will be murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the 2nd week of events. At home, the Miami Dolphins achieve the only perfect NFL season ever. Undefeated.
It is a political year, with presidential politics in the news. Former Governor George C. Wallace (of Alabama segregation fame) is once again competing for the Democrat Party nomination. But he has been shot by a would be assassin, survives, and will now be in a wheelchair for the duration of his life. Nixon goes on to win by a 49 of 50 state landslide.
It is wartime. The war in Vietnam rages. My older brother has been stationed in Da Nang, and I write him letters to stay in touch. But I worry about him. I have just had to travel to L.A. for a military physical exam which I pass. Now it is perhaps my turn. In the mandatory draft lottery I learn that I am assigned lottery #3, when bigger numbers are what one hopes for, maybe up in the hundreds. I am #3!
The US and USSR sign the SALT treaty; the Watergate break-in happens on June 17 (we would later learn what that means); Werner von Braun, who engineered the moon landing effort launched by President Kennedy, retires from NASA because the agency doesn’t want to continue forward with the space program. And Marlon Brando becomes “The Godfather.”
It is early Summer, 1972. 3 dramatic things have just happened to me back to back - not good things: (1) A roommate recently just accidentally spilled a red punch beverage on the table beside and on my entire set of finished blueprints that I needed to turn in the next day (I was well into an architecture program and the blueprints were everything - this wasn’t the computer era where you just print another copy). The blueprints are ruined; (2) I had borrowed and wrecked my good friend’s amazing new sports car, a Triumph GT6+ (so long friendship!); and (3) my girlfriend of 6 months had just chosen in late April to take her own life. I was pretty messed up at the beginning of the Summer. And now this draft lottery thing! Sometimes I just felt really lonely. In the words of a later to come Don Henley song, it felt like trying to “...find Love in a graceless age.”
Any good news in this story? Yes! My Dad in June takes me down and helps me buy a brand new 1972 orange Volkswagen bug. A “super beetle!” Until now my transportation was a small Honda 125! For those who don’t know, that is not a car! It is a sort of wannabe motorcycle! HaHa! But I loved it. At least when I was 14! Now, not so much.
My ‘72 orange VW covered with snow (Incidentally my VW was named “The Duke”)
So I get to drive a whole car now (if a VW counts as a whole car). And I put a state of the art sound system in it! You knew this had to have a music connection somewhere! So it might as well be a Lamborghini to me! I was happy as a lark! (BTW, Are larks really happy, and how do we know if they are? Well, I’m not sure !).
That brings us finally to The Eagles. The album “Eagles “Their Greatest Hits” became the “Go To” cassette tape in my orange VW during the next few years driving the California landscape of High Desert, the L.A. area and San Diego.
Technically, the above album (tape) came a couple of years later. But the Eagles sound was a recurring backdrop, a sort of life soundtrack for me in those times, with various cassette tapes and radio airplay. The Eagles and pop culture were one and the same in my 1970s. They crossed over from early 70s pop through the Singer-Songwriter era to the early 70s Country Rock groundswell, on past normal 70s pop, routing around disco, coming full circle with the next smashing blow of the Hotel California album at the end of 1976, going into 1977. It just kept coming.
As the Beatles kept coming back year after year in the 1960s with prolific songwriting of hit after hit, so the Eagles did a similar thing in the 1970s. They dominated the landscape. And apparently I wasn’t the only one that felt that way, seeing’s how the band has sold more than 200 million records!
Oh there was a lot more going on at the time of course: from Grateful Deadheads, to Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Bowie, Yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night, Elton John, America, Harry Chaplin, CSN&Y, Cat Stevens. Time will fail us if we note all of the other many amazing pop stars/artists at the time, which of course included all four former Beatles who had albums and records filling up the charts. There was a lot happening!
But The Eagles... they made some kind of mark on my psyche. At odd times, like the song Desperado during lonely times of 1973 or 74, Lyin’ Eyes or Best of my Love during lighter times, Hotel California or New Kid in Town during times of transition and moving on to new places and faces in 1977 and 78. Looking back, it seems like they always showed up from season to season.
And even “right now” in this challenging Summer of 1972, this new band shows up on the radio, and they have me - with Take it Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling. Solid songs, with staying power. It’s not like they solved any of my problems. They didn’t. But as is the power of music for those who have discovered it’s power, it can take you to a different place. And these songs did that for me. The Eagles.
The song lyrics aren’t complicated.
TAKE IT EASY:
Well, I'm running down the road
Trying to loosen my load
Got a world of trouble on my mind
Take it easy, take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy
But when you’re in a place in life in which it all seems to be falling apart (as I was that Summer) sometimes the simpler messages are the more profound ones. And the plain words of encouragement are the ones that connect with the confusion and discord. At least for me, sometimes one just needs to lighten up. To ‘loosen my load’ and find a safe place of rest and sanctuary. To slow down and ‘take it easy.’
—————
Or the lyrics of...
PEACEFUL EASY FEELING
Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling.
And I know you won't let me down
Cause I'm already standing on the ground.
Sometimes that one trusted person or friend, who won’t let you down; that reliable, faithful person is the only thing keeping you on the ground, helping you once again get grounded, when you’ve lost your way.
And I found out a long time ago
What a woman can do to your soul.
Oh, but she can't take you anyway,
You don't already know how to go.
The peaceful sense of being “grounded,” of regaining one’s equilibrium, standing, steady, gives a person perspective. And if honest, we’re forced to own the issues that take us to times of trouble and soul searching. Trying to assess blame seems to often be our default, but in the words above, “...she can't take you anyway You don't already know how to go.”
—————
The following simple statistics are a Big deal:
The best selling album of all time is The Eagles collection, “Their Greatest Hits.” As if that wasn’t enough for overachieving, the Eagles album “Hotel California” is the 3rd best selling album of all time. Michael Jackson’s Thriller LP was the best selling album of all time for nearly 4 decades, that is until 2 years ago, 2018. At that time, it was surpassed by this 1970s Greatest Hits album. The Eagles’ songs are so solid and compelling, that the record just keeps on selling, with each new generation.
So the top 3 albums ever:
Eagles • “Their Greatest Hits”
Michael Jackson • “Thriller”
Eagles • “Hotel California”
The Eagles are an American band from L.A. Most of them were previously the backing band for Linda Ronstadt, who wanted a good harmony band, and these guys were the masters of perfect harmony. They have earned five number one singles, six number one albums, six Grammy Awards, and five American Music Awards. They’ve had a total of 18 Top 40 hits on the pop charts, as well as many other hits that climbed the adult contemporary chart. The Eagles are easily the most successful musical act of the 1970s. As mentioned before, they’ve sold more than 200 million records. They were ranked number 75 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
——————————————————————————
Conclusion:
So, for me, this group played a significant part in the “soundtrack” of my young life. There were other “recovery” sources for me in the challenging times of 1972. I had good friends. I also attended a student conference in Dallas (with 100,000 others) called Explo ‘72. That event was a sort of “launching pad” for me in finding my bearings as a spiritual person. It gave me tools to know how to cultivate and grow a personal relationship with God (I can say more about that with anyone that shares an interest in spiritual things - just email me).
But pop music has always played a major role in my life, my joy, even my mental health. And the Summer of 1972 has been no exception. The music can be healing. It was for me. And the Eagles in particular were a big deal for me. And for many others as well.
So if you appreciate good music, and you’re maybe not so familiar with these guys, please check out below the many links I’ve included to make it convenient for you to enjoy them and to see what I mean.
I know you’ll love the Eagles. 🦅
Well, our little venture to the simpler times of 1972 has come to an end. We must make our way back to the here and now. As we said before, reality is the leading cause of stress!
——————————————————————————
NEXT TIME...
If you come back and check out our next excursion, we will be traveling back to the mid-1960s, to observe the development of a musical genre of pop that came to be called “baroque pop.”
What is it, and who is it? Next time we’ll see....
That’s next time... See you then.
Before you go, check out a few videos below. And I’ve put together 2 playlists you might like:
——————————————————————————
• Here is my Playlist of The Eagles on Spotify:
• This 2nd Playlist is my Best of 1972:
(In case you want to continue to time travel after today to a great season of music - 1972)
——————————————————————————
A Video is worth a thousand words:
Enjoy a few Eagles’ videos. Below is a great selection of performances to choose from of their many great songs:
Here is: Peaceful Easy Feeling • 2005 (This live video footage is from an Eagles concert in Melbourne , Australia)
Take it Easy: From 1972
The Heart of the Matter: Don Henley • Live. Profound Question in the lyrics: “How can love survive in such a graceless age...?”
Tequila Sunrise: From 2005 in Melbourne (performed by the late great Glenn Frey)
Lyin’ Eyes: From a 1972 Concert
Hotel California: • Performed at the 1998 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Desperado: From the Eagles Farewell Tour
Until next time....
——————————————————————————
