Eagles songwriting

[Delilah]

Randy Meisner - one of Randy's Poco bandmates has said that Randy didn't write when he was in Poco. Whether he just wasn't writing or lacked the confidence to present his ideas, I've no idea.

I heard a radio interview Jim Messina gave a year or so ago where he describes how challenging it was to work with Richie Furay in Buffalo Springfield b/c Richie couldn't read music (Jim was their engineer/producer). Randy couldn't read music either, so perhaps that did hamper his confidence in his songwriting, given he had to work with Jim in Poco. Plus Jim and Richie were probably less open to input from other band members than Glenn was. Just my theory.

I would like to add that Randy co-wrote 3/9 songs from his third solo album (s/t 1982), which is a switch from "One More Song" where he co-wrote 6/9. On his last solo release, "Love Me or Leave Me Alone", he wrote or co-wrote 12/17 songs, inc. TITTL. I don't know who wrote the title track, though.

[WS82Classics]

There's probably a fair amount of Felder lyrics in "Too Many Hands," as it is unlike anything Meisner had written before or since.

I've not listened to either of his albums in full, but have listened to sound samples of his most recent album. He's very tone deaf, and a couple of the songs("Girls in Black" and "Sensuality") are just weird. His stand-alone Eagles contribution, "Visions," is an OK song, but I'd vote it off first in a 'Song Survivor' contest because I'm not usually enamored of extremely subjective lyrics. Probably the best song he ever did, though.


ETA: Someone mentioned Randy's 2004 "Love Me or Leave Me Alone" album(which I'd forgotten he'd done), and I went to listen to the two Eagles covers. That version of "Take it Easy" sounds like if you crossed Travis Tritt's version with a Donald Duck vocal take.

[NightMistBlue]

That was better than I expected. The sound is quite Beatle-like and not that different from the groups that were having hits in the UK in the mid-60s. The song's fine for what it is, too.

I love it, it's so shimmery and beautiful. Ooh, that's the Randman on the sky-high "all you have to do is hold my HAND" harmony.

[Delilah]

There's probably a fair amount of Felder lyrics in "Too Many Hands," as it is unlike anything Meisner had written before or since.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, those lyrics sound like Randy to me: burning, resting, turning around, those are Randy-like. Plus I'm not aware of Felder being environmentally conscious.

ETA: Someone mentioned Randy's 2004 "Love Me or Leave Me Alone" album(which I'd forgotten he'd done), and I went to listen to the two Eagles covers. That version of "Take it Easy" sounds like if you crossed Travis Tritt's version with a Donald Duck vocal take.

OK buddy you crossed the line Haha, jk. That version sounds a lot like the one he performed for the World Class Rockers in early 2000. So his voice changed some.

[UndertheWire]

I don't have a hard time believing that Glenn was more encouraging when it came to songwriting. He seems to have just wanted good songs whoever they came from.

One thing it's worth mentioning is that when the Eagles started, they had a publishing company called "Kicking Bear" and they shared publishing equally, whoever wrote the songs (and with half going to David Geffen). If you look at the liner notes for the first three albums, it shows up. I believe this continued at least to "One of These Nights" and "Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975". "Take It Easy", "Train Leaves Here This Morning" and "James Dean" are not with Kicking Bear, probably because they were written earlier and with non-Eagles writers. On those first four albums, the credits for the Kicking Bear songs are spread across the original four members fairly evenly (roughly the equivalent of 5, 6, 7 and 8 songs respectively for Randy, Bernie, Don H and Glenn), so sharing publishing doesn't seem such a bad deal.

I know Don Felder's jibe at Glenn, "change a word to gain a third" has been spread about, but there seems little basis for it.

[Jonny Come Lately]

There's probably a fair amount of Felder lyrics in "Too Many Hands," as it is unlike anything Meisner had written before or since.

I think Randy's said that his contribution to TMH was the lyrics, with Don F writing the music - IIRC there's a video of Randy being interviewed in (I think) the late 1980s where he says this.

Just checked, here's the video, Randy starts talking at 18:56:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzt_BDRnCLE

I've long thought that Too Many Hands as a song has quite a quirky and unique feel (which I personally really like), and I think it's partly because it's an unusual combination of writers who had never co-written a song previously and to my knowledge never worked together again. The closest thing to a truly unique Eagles songwriting partnership (ignoring contributions from non-members) other than this I've come across from the 1970s albums is Earlybird, which is a Meisner/Leadon co-write, although both are also credited for Saturday Night. By contrast, while Visions is unique in being co-written by the two Dons, all of Felder's other Eagles songs bar TMH are also credited to Don and Glenn, so Felder co-writing with Henley is not all that unusual, it's just that that was the only case where Glenn wasn't involved.

[NightMistBlue]

I heard a radio interview Jim Messina gave a year or so ago where he describes how challenging it was to work with Richie Furay in Buffalo Springfield b/c Richie couldn't read music (Jim was their engineer/producer). Randy couldn't read music either, so perhaps that did hamper his confidence in his songwriting, given he had to work with Jim in Poco. Plus Jim and Richie were probably less open to input from other band members than Glenn was. Just my theory.

That's a bit odd that Messina would cite that, because (it seems to me) MOST rock/pop musicians don't read music. Not even the really brilliant ones, who seem like they would know - Lindsey Buckingham, for example. And it's not like Poco had lush orchestrations or horn charts a la Chicago: their songs were pretty straightforward. A songwriter would only need to supply a lead sheet with chords written in a very basic way, like C / / / for each measure.

It may have been a confidence thing with Randy. He was the lead singer in his first band, but he didn't put himself forward as a singer for his next two bands. I wish he'd write his memoirs; otherwise we'll never know.

[Delilah]

NightMistBlue, I'll try to find that radio interview and post the link on the Poco thread, so as not derail this one. I do remember Jim saying something about sheets or charts.

I'd love it if Randy would write his memoirs.

[Freypower]

Now for Don Felder.

His Eagles songs:
Visions (co-written with Don Henley)
Too Many Hands (co-written with Randy Meisner)
Hotel California (co-written with Don Henley and Glenn Frey)
Victim of Love (co-written with Don Henley and Glenn Frey)
The Disco Strangler (co-written with Henley-Frey)
Those Shoes (co-written with Henley Frey)

I don't think there's much doubt that Don F came up with the main musical ideas for all these songs but his contribution to the lyrics is more questionable.

I would guess that "Visions" has Felder lyrics with a polish from Henley. It's unlike anything else I've heard from Henley and is more like a few songs from Felder's Airborne album. Lyrically, I think it's the worst Eagle track. I hate those "Girl, you drive me wild" kind of songs.

In his book, Felder writes about the ideas being thrown around for Victim of Love, so it seems he played a part in the lyric-writing sessions with Frey, Henley and Souther.

When I listened to Airborne, I was surprised because the lyrics were not as bad as I had expected. However, some of them are creepy and sexist and just yuk. I'm going to guess that Don was just giving his audiences what he thought they wanted rather than writing from his heart. There's a nice song written for his wife about how they're going to grow old together. Overall, I've heard successful groups with worse lyrics but they're not up to "Eagles standard".

I haven't listened to much of the new album.

I like most of Airborne, particularly from a musical standpoint, but about Road To Forever the least said the better. It's an album which even Felder's most steadfast defenders rarely discuss. Soda suggested doing a Survivor for it & there were only five votes (including me) so it never happened. I tried to like it but every time I listen to any song from it I dislike it more.

[thelastresort]

I don't want to derail this thread, but I always find it odd how much Felder attests that he had so many great ideas for songs and laid down all these demo tapes and how Glenn and Don H had such a stranglehold on what made the cut, then only releases two solo albums in 35 years...