Here’s a cool interview with J.D. from last month. The poor guy apparently had a broken hand at the time. He describes some of the songwriting process with Glenn and Don H.
https://thecreativeindependent.com/p...something-new/Writing songs in that group was not exactly a love circle. A bad idea was met with stony silence. For a pretty good idea, somebody might go, “All right”. For a very good idea, Frey might say, “I think we could use that”. And even with an excellent idea, Don just mostly made faces and offered corrections. He’s such a literate guy and he’s so precise about language. But Glen, we used to call him Greg-a-rious because he was so outgoing about everything, and so demonstrative. But if it was a really good idea, then he’d do this peace sign with both hands. But when we all wrote together there would be hours of this difficult back and forth. Someone would put forth a line, and the other two guys, silence, or maybe “Hmm,” which basically meant, you’re an asshole, don’t bring that up again.
Right or wrong, what’s done is done
It’s only moments that you borrow...
Thanks for the link, Delilah. What a cool interview! Besides the part about writing that you quoted, I also liked what he had to say about most of his songs being made famous by others.
People would occasionally say to me, "Doesn't it piss you off that the Eagles have these big hits off your songs?" I would usually start saying, "Would you like to see the checks?"
Thanks Delilah! Interesting read! As Soda said, "brutal"! After so many onslaughts on your ideas, it would seem difficult not to take their comments personally. Tough crowd! No wonder their total output of songs was relatively small. You could handle only so much of that, I would think!
"Be part of something good--
Leave something good behind."
Well, I that the same thing about how brutal their process was.
Thanks for posting the interview Delilah. It was a great read.
BTW, the nosy part of me wonders how he broke his hand and where he is moving to-lol.
And that's how they treated the songwriters they LIKED!
That was a fantastic and insightful interview. I really enjoyed it.
As far as the Eagles songwriting process being brutal, I'm not surprised - it definitely wasn't for the thin-skinned. However, he goes on to say the following in the interview ...
So, although he may not have always enjoyed the process, he acknowledges the importance it played in terms of his success.While looking at these things, I am reminded that there is great value in revision. It’s a hard lesson for me to learn because I hate going back and reworking things over and over again, but the fact is that the most successful songs I ever wrote, the ones that were the biggest hits and the most financially successful, were pretty much all songs that we chewed on for months—taking lines out, putting them back, improving this, changing that. I think it’s like making a quilt or something. You just don’t cover all the territory until you’ve put in the time.
"People don't run out of dreams: People just run out of time ..."
Glenn Frey 11/06/1948 - 01/18/2016
I had just got an alert in my email that JD will be in my state this Sunday.
i wish I can go. I don’t have any money at this moment. If I knew he was going to be here, I would had saved.
Brothers for life. RIP Glenn
I'm not sure I believe in fate, but I know that crossing paths with Glenn Lewis Frey in 1970 changed my life forever, and it eventually had an impact on the lives of millions of other people all over the planet. It will be very strange going forward in a world without him in it. But, I will be grateful, every day, that he was in my life. Rest in peace, my brother. You did what you set out to do, and then some." -Don Henley