Sad Cafe

A recent interview with JD got me thinking of this song. I've seen it dismissed as being too lke "The Last Resort" but I disagree as it's far more personal and for me, that makes it better.

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A&B: You wrote important pages on the Eagles discography. Is there a song that you love more than others?
J.D. Souther: Yes. “The Sad Café” seems more poignant, of course, with Glenn Frey sadly gone, but there are more reasons than that for my affection there.
I had never played that song on stage until about three years ago and the emotional impact it had on the audience and on me was surprising. Some nights the verse after the first bridge takes me by surprise and I have to sing past the lump in my throat because tears are threatening. It’s more emotional for me now than ever before. Frey, Henley, Souther, and Walsh reflecting on the loss of our own innocence following the death of a friend back then, in the days when we thought we would all live forever. I can see the film in my head.

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link

A reminder of the lyrics (thanks to Soda):

The Sad Cafe
written: D. Henley, G. Frey, J. Walsh, and J.D. Souther
lead vocal: D. Henley

Out in the shining night
The rain was softly falling
The tracks that ran down the boulevard
Had all been washed away

Out of the silver light
The past came softly calling
And I remember the times we spent
Inside the sad cafe

Oh, it seemed like a holy place
Protected by amazing grace
And we would sing right out loud
The things we could not say
We thought we could change this world
With words like love and freedom
We were part of the lonely crowd
Inside the sad cafe

Oh, expecting to fly
We would meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by

Some of their dreams came true
Some just passed away
And some of them stayed behind
Inside the sad cafe

The clouds rolled in and hid that shore
Now that glory train, it don’t stop here no more
Now I look at the years gone by
And wonder at the powers that be
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some
And lets the rest go free

Maybe the time has drawn the faces I recall
But things in this life change very slowly
If they ever change at all
There’s no use in asking why
It just turned out that way
So meet me at midnight, baby
Inside the sad cafe
Why don’t you meet me at midnight, baby
Inside the sad cafe

As for who was the friend who died, the answer is in the liner notes: "
This song is respectfully dedicated to the memory of John Barrick."


A few years ago, after seeing the doc, I asked who was the seventh person on the infamous Joshua Tree expedition and the Borderers came through and even found a couple of pictures from the doc. This was John Barrick.


As part of the promotion for The Long Run album, Don and Glenn did an interview with Jim Ladd and Glenn elaborated on the liner note. He explained that John Barrick had been their first road manager and that he'd previously worked for The Byrds. He used to work at The Troubadour and would tell Glenn about his days with The Byrds as well as giving Glenn good advice (and free beer!)

Thanks for the info about John Barrick, UtW. I didn't know any of that. I never thought of "Sad Cafe" being too much like "The Last Resort" but I suppose the basic melodies are somewhat similar and they are both slow, melancholy songs about regret and loss. Interesting.

That's a great post UtW. :thumbsup:

The Sad Cafe is an overlooked gem in the Eagles cannon as it's a ballad and it's sung mainly by Henley. They already had plenty of brilliant, Henley sung, ballads under their belt, when it was released in 1979.

IMO it's fantastic lyrically but musically, it retreads old ground. I was delighted to see JD adopt the song. His, more jazzy, version of The Sad Cafe is wonderful.

I'd love to hear Joe perform The Sad Cafe. Post Eagles, his backing singers have gone up a notch or two. :-)

I think it would have been more interesting if Glenn had sung the song. He should have had one more vocal on that album to make up fror Teenage Jail. It wasn't really his type of lyric but if they had shown more flexibility they may not have broken up so acrimoniously. I have always said & will continue to say that letting Henley sing the majority of the songs on the last two albums was a mistake.

I disagree that it is lyrically similar to The Last Resort as it is about a specific time and place whereas TLR covers the entire history of California.

It's the problem of creating a classic album: later songs may be excellent songs but still look 'not as good' by comparison.

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Originally Posted by Freypower

I think it would have been more interesting if Glenn had sung the song. He should have had one more vocal on that album to make up fror Teenage Jail. It wasn't really his type of lyric but if they had shown more flexibility they may not have broken up so acrimoniously. I have always said & will continue to say that letting Henley sing the majority of the songs on the last two albums was a mistake.

I disagree that it is lyrically similar to The Last Resort as it is about a specific time and place whereas TLR covers the entire history of California.

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I agree that Glenn should have gotten more lead vocals, but I don't think this song should have been one of them. Henley's haunting, intentionally understated vocal is evocative and a big part of what makes TSC a great song, IMHO.

I don't find The Sad Cafe and The Last Resort similar at all, lyrically or musically. Also, The Last Resort is about manifest destiny - part of American history that is not limited to California, although there are some references to California.

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Originally Posted by maryc2130

I agree that Glenn should have gotten more lead vocals, but I don't think this song should have been one of them. Henley's haunting, intentionally understated vocal is evocative and a big part of what makes TSC a great song, IMHO.

I don't find The Sad Cafe and The Last Resort similar at all, lyrically or musically. Also, The Last Resort is about manifest destiny - part of American history that is not limited to California, although there are some references to California.

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Yes, it's more suited to Don's style, it is obviously mainly his lyric. My comment wasn't so much about this particular song rather that I wish Glenn had had an equivalent to NKIT on this album. But I suppose we did get HT which at least wasn't a ballad. Sorry to go off track - just an observation.

I adore both this and The Last Resort, they are my favoruite songs from their respective albums and easily in my top five Eagles songs.

I also agree that the two are different however. The Last Resort is a scathing, almost nihilistic, disassembly of the American dream but so absolutely beautiful and cuttingly true at the same time (I've said this many times but the last verse to it is my favourite set of lyrics ever); whereas I think The Sad Cafe is more a concession from the harsh realisation that the SoCal country rock hippie carry on was ultimately pointless; becoming even more poignant for me when you realise that for fourteen years this was the last statement the Eagles ever made. I also believe the instrumentation on TSC (especially Felder's solo and Sanborn's sax) is superior to that of TLR.

Thanks for the info in the opening post too, I knew it was in tribute to someone, I just didn't know who they were.

As much as I enjoy Sanborn's sax, adding horns, to the band's sound, wasn't a direction I altogether approved of. Felder says he played a sax solo on guitar for his One Of These Nights solo. Seemed to work fine for me.

I wonder how close the Eagles came to having sax on the studio version of The Long Run too. The album version sounds a bit short and sparse after hearing the sax laden, live version from the same era. Maybe it would have been longer if the the album was, as first intended, released as a double album.

Considering the Eagles were still moving in a "rock" direction when The Long Run was being recorded, I consider The Sad Cafe to be the most likely track to be dropped, from the final album, to make room for another Glenn Frey vocal.

If only they weren't limited by the constraints of Vinyl :rolleyes:

I'm not a huge fan of the horns and all Eagles era either (see also the awful percussion on the LROOE album) but I think as an exception TSC worked pretty well.

As for what would be cut, I can't help but think it would have been one from the trio of Teenage Jail, TGDWNF or The Disco Strangler, probably the former: I can imagine certainly Henley, Frey and Souther were all feeling very starkly what they wrote, whereas the other three I listed are pretty bang average, unremarkable filler. I believe Henley in the past has said of one of them that it was the epitome of how fed up they were at the time. The Long Run would be substantially weaker for TSC's exclusion. For me it doesn't have much going for it to start with!

The comparison between The Last Resort and The Sad Cafe that I was remembering was musical rather than lyrical. Personally, I prefer Sad Cafe in both respects. I like the more personal lyrics and I'm not a fan of Henley "epics".

I like the sax, too. On that subject, Phil Kenzie said that the sax solo was pieced together in the studio and that the Sanborne had to learn how to play it as a solo before he went on tour with the band.

I love both songs and feel they are both vastly underrated, however, I never thought of them as being similar.

As far as Glenn singing lead on The Sad Cafe, I think it definitely would have worked. I would never say it would have been better than Don's version, but I believe it could have been equally as good, albeit in a different way. As evocative as Don's vocals are on the song, Glenn's voice has a vulnerable quality to it that would have also been extremely effective. JMHO. I feel the same way about several other songs in the Eagles' catalog, but The Last Resort is not one of them - to me, that one is vintage Henley.

I've been listening to JD singing the song and it works, so I'm sure a Glenn-sung version would have worked, too.

While there are some lyrics which have a Henley ring to them ("fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free"), when the credits have four names, I don't think it can be assumed to be primarily a Henley song. My guess is that JD had significant input. Joe is more surprising.

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Originally Posted by thelastresort

I'm not a huge fan of the horns and all Eagles era either (see also the awful percussion on the LROOE album) but I think as an exception TSC worked pretty well.

As for what would be cut, I can't help but think it would have been one from the trio of Teenage Jail, TGDWNF or The Disco Strangler, probably the former: I can imagine certainly Henley, Frey and Souther were all feeling very starkly what they wrote, whereas the other three I listed are pretty bang average, unremarkable filler. I believe Henley in the past has said of one of them that it was the epitome of how fed up they were at the time. The Long Run would be substantially weaker for TSC's exclusion. For me it doesn't have much going for it to start with!

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I think TGDWNF sounds like they lost a bet, and had to put it on the album. I have never liked that song, but all 3 of those are pretty weak, especially coming off the monster that was Hotel California.
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And I think Sad Café would be a perfect way to salute Glenn at the end of the Classic East and West Shows!!!