Celebration of Airborne

[whitcap]

Don Felder's only solo album, Airborne, was released 28 years ago this week! I love this album! Felder's an excellent guitar player and I like his singing voice too.

Like we've done with other albums, I've ranked the songs from favorite to least favorite:

1. Haywire
2. Bad Girls
3. Winners
4. Never Surrender
5. Still Alive
6. Who Tonight
7. Asphalt Jungle
8. Night Owl

[sodascouts]

Here's mine - with comments on fave and least fave

1. Still Alive (sweet sentiment)
2. Haywire
3. Asphalt Jungle
4. Bad Girls
5. Night Owl
6. Who Tonight
7. Never Surrender
8. Winners (it bothers me how much this sounds like "Gloria" - and the "you're a winner/spinner" chorus - yikes)

[whitcap]

The chorus of Winners irks me a bit too. I initially had it ranked last but the more I listened to it the more I liked the rest of the song so I moved it up.

[Freypower]

Good heavens Soda. The song name Gloria for me means Van Morrison/Them's Gloria ('and her name is G - L - etc') but I take it you mean Laura Branigan's song.

I have this album on CD so I can rank it.

1. Neve Surrender
2. Asphalt Jungle
3. Haywire
4. Still Alive
5. Night Owl
6. Who Tonight
7. Bad Girls
8. Winners

Only 8 tracks!

[UndertheWire]

I was wondering what you all thought of the lyrics. I listened to them for the first time recently and my first impresions are
1) Better lyrics than I expected and more coherent than many of his contempories.
2) Yuk! I'm not sure why I felt like this but possibly because they are mostly third person commentaries on casual sexual encounters. It makes them somewhat voyeuristic (or maybe I'm influenced by the Bad Girls video).

I can see them as a following on from some of the Eagles songs such as Those Shoes and Victim of Love. It seems stranger that this married, family man is writing that kind of song.

[Freypower]

I think it may be because he's trying to sound 'hip' and 'contemporary' so perhaps he thought the lyrics needed to sound 'streetwise'. Some of them do echo Eagles songs in which he was prominent. I agree with your comments about the content being mainly about sexual encounters. The only song which appears to address his own relationship, Still Alive, is OK at best.

I prefer this album to Road To Forever. I think the singing is better & the guitar work is more prominent. RTF may attempt to be more personal but some of it jars with me for various reasons.

[sodascouts]

I find Road to Forever far superior in just about every way, including lyrics. I agree that the ones on Airborne are for the most part rather shallow. I hate "Bad Girls" and one of my least favorite songs on RTF is "Girls in Black" because it was basically that song reheated.

[UndertheWire]

Don said that "Bad Girls" and "Haywire" were two song ideas he'd come up with for The Long Run but they were not accepted so he finished them himself.

I like the chorus of "Haywire" - kind of like The Little River Band - but the melody on the verse is monotonous. The lyrics make me cringe (especially as he said he was thinking of 13-16 year olds). "Bad Girls" is too repetitive and irritating even before considering the subject matter.

[sodascouts]

13?! Oh my gosh. That's just gross and wrong.

[Funk 50]

I'm pretty sure Don was referring to the carnal lusts of teenage boys in Haywire rather than a predilection for underage girls.

I enjoy listening to most tracks on Airborne, I don't enjoy his second album but, despite his inference that he is, in my opinion, Don isn't a solo artist.

He can bring some guitar wizardry to a project but I quickly find that tiresome, listening to a whole album. He needs a band around him but after displaying dissatisfaction in the dream job that is the Eagles and then subsequently suing his band mates, he may find that difficult (he was trying to get a band together just before HFO).

It looks like Don is reduced to a future, releasing uninteresting solo albums and being a premium Eagles tribute act. But as long as he and his fans are happy


Airborne Preferences:

1 Still Alive
2 Never Surrender
3 Asphalt Jungle
4 Night Owl
5 Haywire
6 Who Tonight
7 Bad Girls
8 Winners