Celebration of "The End of the Innocence"
The End of the Innocence was released on June 20, 1989. Can you believe it's 20 years old? Soon it will be old enough to drink. ;)
The album has some really brilliant songs on it: my personal favorite Heart of the Matter as well as the magificent title track and Last Worthless Evening. It deservedly received a lot of critical acclaim and showed Henley's growth in many ways.
Happy birthday, End of the Innocence!
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
My absolute favorite of Don's. Heart Of The Matter is my favorite of course but you also can't go wrong with End Of The Innocence (love Bruce Hornsby), New York Minute, If Dirt Were Dollars, I Will Not Go Quietly (love Axl Rose on here), Last Worthless Evening, I mean there really isn't a bad song on here!!!
I've worn out 2 albums and 2 cd's of this one!
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
Ok, so I have to rotate Strange Weather and End of the Innocence for the week! I can hardly keep up! :lol:
My favorites are Heart of the Matter, title track, Last Worthless Evening and New York Minute. Really, what's not to like?
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
A great album!
It´s my favorite solo album from Don, especially I like If Dirt Were Dollars, Last Worthless Evening, I Will Not Go Quietly, Shangri - La, Little Tin God
and of course Heart Of The Matter!
I think at the moment I hear every day at least one song from the album.
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
One of my all time favorite cds. The title track says it all.
My favorite songs being TEOTI, HBDYWI, IWNGQ, LWE, LTG, GWYG and HOTM.
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
I think this is Don's finest work. I don't wish to attempt a track by track analysis because I have just done that for Strange Weather. I will say a couple of things. The title track and HOTM are utterly timeless and acquire more and more depth. I would say the same about Gimme What You Got. Little Tin God and If Dirt Were Dollars, which have three of my favourite, most acerbic and 'Henleyesque' lyrics. LWE is just plain sexy and beautifully sung. IWNGQ rocks. NYM and HBDYWI are pretty good. The only substandard song in my opinion is Shangri-La.
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
Wow 20 years!!! There isn't a song on this album that I don't like. I love them all but (for me) it was seeing/hearing HOTM performed on HFO that completely took my breath away. Everything about that song is just beautiful. It was this song that got me completely hooked on Don and made me say "YES!!! This man has got it!! He's got the best voice i've ever heard!!"
I agree that LWE is just plain sexy. The video adds even more to that. I love the story that Don tells about this song during his solo concerts. I Will Not Go Quietly is an awesome rocker, especially live. I wish Don wouldn've done a video for this song. I think it would've been really cool to see Don and Axle in a video together.
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peekaboo
I wish Don wouldn've done a video for this song. I think it would've been really cool to see Don and Axle in a video together.
:faint: That would of been one of the most awesome things on MTV at the time!!! LOVE Axl!!!
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
Well, I somehow missed this event on the “Today In Eagles History” calendar, so I’m sorry for my delayed response here. :cry: I am going to try to go through this album song by song to give my thoughts, although I’ll probably won’t be as detailed as Soda and Freypower were in the Strange Weather thread. I think this album is a near masterpiece and is Don at his finest. The album is very appropriately named given the social and political themes that Don confronts. If you’ve never heard it, I would definitely encourage you to give it a listen. It is by far my favorite of Don’s solo albums and is very good from start to finish. I do think there are a couple of songs on the album that are just average, but most of the tracks are exceptional pieces of work. I rank this one near the top of my all-time favorite Eagles solo albums. I had to brush up on some of the lyrics and do some “refreshing” of my memory to write this, but I think the album deserves some extra attention. So, I’m going to categorize how well I like each song and my order of preference.
I absolutely love this song
The Heart of the Matter – I don’t know what I can say new about this song. It is just incredibly gorgeous. Don’s heartfelt, regretful lyrics and vocals are simply superb and he delivers each line so beautifully and eloquently. Of course, I think it’s about forgiveness (pun intended). It’s hard not to be moved by the lines that pretty much sum up the song’s main theme for me:
“You better put it all behind you, baby
'cause life goes on
You keep carrying that anger
it'll eat you up inside, baby”
I just can’t think of any flaws – everything about the song is near perfection, IMHO.
The End of the Innocence – This song is just absolutely brilliant and is virtually tied with HOTM as my favorite on the album. Don’s vocals, Bruce Hornsby’s piano, the melody, and the lyrics – all are incredible. This is one you where can analyze the lyrics to death, but the song is primarily a commentary on the Reagan administration. I’ll just say that the way Don paints imagery with words is amazing and almost every line can be left open for multiple interpretations – it just doesn’t get much better, IMO.
The Last Worthless Evening – <VERY HUGE SIGH> It’s just hard to find a hotter, sexier song. I wonder if there is any woman on the planet that doesn’t melt when she hears that uber sexy voice promise that this will be her last worthless evening??? ‘Nough said!
How Bad Do You Want It? – Okay, what can you say about a song with an opening line of “you're leavin' tongue marks on the carpet”? :wink: This song is vintage Don. I think this is about as honest of a commentary as you can get about the attitudes of love from a young, party-loving, hormone-raging male stud i.e. “you found an excuse to walk away, but you didn’t find no reason”. Great music as well - the sax rocks!
I Will Not Go Quietly – About the only thing to say here is that this song is full of attitude and just rocks with Axl Rose singing backup. Now what kind of images are conjured up when Don sings ...
Well, c’mon over here baby
You ‘bout to gimme a heart attack
I wanna wrap my lovin’ arms
Around the small of your back
Yeah, and Im gonna pull you, pull you, pull you
Pull you right up close to me
:shock: :idea: :makeout:
New York Minute – Another excellent song that Don delivers with such passion. Once again, he manages to paint such images with his lyrics that it’s almost like you are part of the song. A great message here that can best be summed up with the lines “If you find somebody to love in this world, you better hang on tooth and nail”.
I like this song a whole lot
If Dirt Were Dollars – I am not a big fan of Don’s delivery when he ‘talks’ a song – I’d much rather hear his gorgeous voice “sing”. But I do love the melody, music, and, of course, clever lyrics in this song. I’m amazed at Don’s ability to deliver such a scathing tongue-lashing about the televangelists that rose to prominence in the 80’s, and turn it into a humorous and entertaining song.
Little Tin God – This is another very clever, catchy commentary about the Reagan (Jingo the cowboy) years and televangelists (the shaky modern saviors) that were involved in sex scandals in the 80’s. To me, the main theme of the song is best conveyed in the line “If you stop and listen long enough, you will hear your own small voice”. Or to put it another way, look inside yourself for guidance and answers rather than worshipping flawed, pompous leaders (or fake gods). To me, Don very effectively delivers an upbeat message while managing to take a few jabs at the afore-mentioned “leaders”.
I like this song
Gimme What You Got – Again, Don is “talking” this song too much for my liking. To me, this song is very similar to If Dirt Were Dollars in style, but I am not as fond of the chorus as much and it’s not as melodic. But, the music is great. More clever social commentary about our materialistic society.
Shangri-La – By far, this is the weakest track on the album, IMO. It’s not horrible, but the lyrics, melody, and music are average and repetitious. Of course, the vocals save it for me.
Re: The End of the Innocence turns 20
Great job, Dreamer!
BTW, I have a story to go with my purchase of End of the Innocence.
It came out right at the time my family moved to Saudi Arabia when I was in my early teens (my father was chosen to head the Mobil petrochemical refineries in the western region of the country). At the time, no rock music was allowed to be sold in the country - rock music was considered a Western instrument of Satan to lure Muslims away from the One True Faith (I don't know if that has changed now; this was 20 years ago. Wow, hard to believe it's been that long).
Anyway, the only way you could get rock music was through the "black market." Sellers made copies of albums on blank tapes. They put the tape in a big plastic-covered heat-resistant case, then photocopied the album cover, folded it, and slid it up under the plastic. Also included was a (very poorly done) transcription of the lyrics. It was really hilariously bad production and of course completely illegitimate, but like I said it was the only way anyone in Saudi could get their hands on rock music. The good news is the tapes were only 10 riyals (then about $3).
I bought The End of the Innocence from a black market seller in Jeddah because I had heard the title track on the radio several times before we'd left America, and I loved it. I knew it by heart. It spoke to me, in a way. Honestly, I hated living in Saudi. I was out of place, resented by the locals as an American intruder, and completely miserable. I couldn't go to town without a male escort, whom I had to be careful to walk behind and not touch in any way (I couldn't even hold my father's hand). I had to wear a black abaya over my clothes in public while the men could wear whatever they wanted. I had Saudi Arabian kids throwing stones at me for doing nothing more than passing them in the street (well, more like pebbles, but it was the principle of the thing).
The song "End of the Innocence" reminded me of my home back in Texas. Despite the fact that it contained a critique of American policy, it made me think of the U.S. wistfully. I related to the lyrics in a way Henley never intended: America and its "spacious skies" was to me the idealized aspect of the song, and Saudi was the tainted, "threatening" counterpart. I didn't give a crap about whether or not Reagan's policies had been successful, or whether a Republican or Democrat was in office. All I knew was that living in America - even with all its flaws - was a thousand times better than living in Saudi Arabia, and I desperately wanted to go back there.
We lived in Yanbu, a small town on the Red Sea which had no black market sellers... which didn't have much of anything, actually. We went to Jeddah about once a month. On our first trip to Jeddah, I was so excited to be able to get some new rock music that I couldn't wait to hand over my money to the first black market music seller I saw. I immediately bought The End of the Innocence. However, after a few listens, I wound up throwing it away because I felt guilty about owning it and that it was wrong to listen to it (I'm sure it sounds silly to you guys, but I was trying to do the right thing). I re-bought it as a CD years later... an officially released CD . Over a decade after I'd thrown away that black market copy, Mr. Henley finally got his royalties from me. ;) By that time, I no longer thought about Saudi when I heard it. Indeed, this is the first time in a long time that I've thought about its connection to my time in Saudi. I would rather just enjoy the title track as a brilliant piece of music, enjoy the album on its own merits, and not saddle it with "baggage."
But the whole experience does give me a story to tell at any rate, and I felt like sharing. lol
Edited to add: I think the above comes off a bit melodramatic. I didn't spend every minute of every day crying about being there, lol. My reaction to Saudi culture was immature. Now that I'm older and better appreciate the importance of money, I also understand why we went there and why my parents stayed there after my sister and I went back to Texas. I just didn't "get it" then.