Eagles Lyrics - Favorite One-Liners (or Two)

[Brooke]

I give it until the end of June before we've quoted every Eagles line.

I had to laugh at this! And you're probably right! There's just too many!

A few more I love:

Oh well, it's been a good day in hell
And tomorrow I'll be glory bound

Contradiction? lol

From Get Over It-The more I think about it, Old Billy was right
Let's kill all the lawyers -- kill 'em tonight

From Waiting in the Weeds-And he's the darling of the chic
The flavor of the week is melting
Down your pretty summer dress
Baby, what a mess you're making

Kills me!

[Jonny Come Lately]

I give it until the end of June before we've quoted every Eagles line.

I might just be able to help with this...

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There are lyrics, and then there are lyrics. The likes of Eagles songs such as Hotel California, The Last Resort and Desperado have lyrics which are alright, I guess, but there are some examples of songs in the last 50-60 years which I have heard and have truly changed my world and my way of thinking, so powerful are these words.

The first one that springs to my mind is the brilliant 'Listen, I am a physician, and I can handle your condition like a magician' from Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb demo. Sadly these lyrics were not used in the final version, a most regrettable error of judgement on the band's part. The rhyming scheme is fantastic and the mildly comical turn of phrase, doesn't take away from the mood of the song in the slightest, rather it simply adds to the darkness of the song and the lead character's struggle to remain sane.

Similarly, while listening to my Dire Straits albums again I was struck by how clearly superior Walk Of Life is as a piece of writing compared to anything else they've ever done. The lyrics about the songs being played by the busker and in particular its chorus about the Walk Of Life are so vastly superior to the barely believable scenarios, impossible to recognise in normal life, featured in songs such as Sultans Of Swing, Tunnel Of Love and Money For Nothing. I only wish Mark Knopfler had written more choruses like 'You do the walk, you do the walk of life' than comparative tosh like 'And Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene, he's got a daytime job, he's doing alright'.

Another absolute gem can be found in the lyrics of Champagne Supernova by Oasis. 'Slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball' is not, as is widely believed, a throwaway line, instead it is providing a radical reinterpretation of modern physics, putting forward the concept that an object can be moving both rapidly and slowly simultaneously, blowing conventional thinking by Einstein, Schrodinger and others out of the water. The stuff about a champagne supernova was made up as a way of spreading these mind blowing scientific ideas to the masses, which was extremely effective.

However, none of these can match the finest example of songwriting of all time, Neil Young's T-Bone, with its refrains of 'Got mashed potatoes' and 'Ain't got no T-bone'. These words go far beyond what would be expected from rock lyrics and are in the same league as the greatest philosophical tracts. Yes, the lyrics are somewhat repetitive, but when you've hit upon something this profound, it's important to get your message home to your listeners. True enlightenment can be found from Neil's experience of having mashed potatoes and not having T-bone and I am convinced that the answer to life, the universe and everything may yet be found from this song's lyrics.

Fortunately, the Eagles do have some lyrics which match up to these extremely high standards. I will start by highlighting the lyrics from Journey Of The Sorcerer and I Dreamed There Was No War, both of which are pieces of poetry which would stand up without any musical accompaniment. It's just a shame the vocals are so hard to make out. Next I will mention the chorus of Chug All Night, specifically the 'I do believe we can chug all night, I do believe we can hug all night' section, which is much, much better at describing a young man's lust for a woman than the pretentious double entendres used in forgotten throwaways like Take It Easy or Life In The Fast Line, as well as ingeniously rhyming chug with hug.

One other such example is 'Play On El Chingadero' from Visions. Any song which makes use of foreign words is clearly worthy of great praise and even though I do not know what these words mean I am 100% certain that they are extremely deep and meaningful. So too the superb 'You got down and did the gator, and half an hour later you were barfing all over your girlfriend's shoes' from the seminal The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks. Although these lyrics are widely praised, I think special mention must go to the fact that the Eagles avoided such awful terms as vomiting or throwing up and instead opted for the vastly superior and much more mature word barfing.

Lastly, let's not forget the wonderous 'Look at me baby look at me I'm beautiful I'm beautiful I'm somebody' from perhaps the greatest Eagles song of them all, The Disco Strangler. While these lyrics would admittedly not be the same without Felder's superb and not at all repetitive guitar riff and the superb vocal melody, I think these lyrics are absolutely wonderful at capturing the feeling of the time when it was written as well providing a totally balanced consideration of the disco scene, you can still sympathise with the woman in the song for all her failings as she is portrayed as such a highly multi-dimensional character.

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Anyway, back to the real world... (and I do know what El Chingadero means!)

Thanks for mentioning those GDIH and Get Over It lyrics Brooke -I'd forgotten to mention the Old Billy was right lyric, I love that one too, it's a funny and clever way of referencing that Shakespeare line, and the chorus of GDIH is one of their best. Just another reason why I think it stands as one of the biggest lost classics in the Eagles canon.

I like pretty much all of the literature references actually, I think it is good for bands to read widely, those songwriters that do tend to write better songs (Mark Knopfler being another standout example, for instance Sailing To Philadelphia was inspired by a book he'd read beforehand about Mason and Dixon) whereas those who don't not only have less potential material but also tend to have a weaker vocabulary and therefore their lyrics tend to feature more clichés or obvious 'moon/spoon/June' type rhymes.

[Freypower]

I don't know if we now need a thread for lyrics we don't like or find pretentious. I don't want to veer away from the Eagles but I have to say that while I understand the criticism of Champagne Supernova I love the song so much that those lines don't bother me.

[AlreadyGone95]

"Worst Eagles lyrics" what a thread that would be!

Lyrics affect people differently. Everybody has different types of lyrics that they like, be they witty or straightforward. To me, the Eagles have written some of the best songs lyrically as shown by my previous posts in this thread. They can be witty,humorous and serious in one song! They most definitely have their bad moments, but they can be overlooked, imo.

[Jonny Come Lately]

I don't really find any of those lyrics pretentious (although I admit the Eagles lyrics I cited are probably not amongst their finer moments IMO), my piece was intended to be satirical and I thought it was quite funny to turn perceptions on their head by praising unpopular lyrics to high heaven while dismissing some of my favourites (give me the clever double entendres of LITFL over 'I do believe we hug all night' any day!). It isn't meant to be serious in the slightest, I mean I praised the lyrics to the instrumentals and described The Disco Strangler as perhaps their greatest song of all - what the heck?

I guess I just share the guys' sick senses of humour...

I don't really mind the Champagne Supernova lyrics although the line I cited does make me laugh a bit (which, it should be said, is infinitely better than making me wince).

[thelastresort]

When I read it originally it never struck me you were being sarky until I got to the JOTS / IDTWNW lyrics comment.

Well played good sir

[AlreadyGone95]

I thought that your post was meant to be sarcastic and funny, Jonny. Chug All Night better than TIE?

I do think that a thread of the worst Eagles lyrics would be fun.

[Freypower]

I don't really find any of those lyrics pretentious (although I admit the Eagles lyrics I cited are probably not amongst their finer moments IMO), my piece was intended to be satirical and I thought it was quite funny to turn perceptions on their head by praising unpopular lyrics to high heaven while dismissing some of my favourites (give me the clever double entendres of LITFL over 'I do believe we hug all night' any day!). It isn't meant to be serious in the slightest, I mean I praised the lyrics to the instrumentals and described The Disco Strangler as perhaps their greatest song of all - what the heck?

I guess I just share the guys' sick senses of humour...

I don't really mind the Champagne Supernova lyrics although the line I cited does make me laugh a bit (which, it should be said, is infinitely better than making me wince).

I thought it was a brilliant post but I was somewhat bemused by the examples of non-Eagles lyrics. I could have commented in more detail, especially about Walk Of Life, but I didn't want to get away from the Eagles. That's why I thought a new thread about bad non-Eagles lyrics would be a good idea. I'm not so sure about bad Eagles lyrics though.

[thelastresort]

I'll add my voice too for a non-Eagles version...

(I'll let whoever had the initial idea start it)

[Freypower]

I would start it but I don't know how much interest it would generate. I would also like to start a thread for favourite non-Eagles lyrics but am reluctant to do so for the same reason. It seems at the moment I wish to write much more about other artists than the Eagles themselves mainly because I find I don't have much left to say about the Eagles. It's a dilemma. I don't like threads in which only a couple of people participate.

*Lyin' Eyes has just started playing.