Ten Songs That Make Me Cringe: One More Iconic Band to Trash (#1)

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Later this evening I'll start the pop songs I can't stand. Unlike these rock songs, most people agree that those songs are hunks of garbage. In the "classic rock" world, however, all of these songs are revered. I know you all don't agree with all of these songs, but do remember, it's my opinion and mine alone. It has no bearing on you if you like (or love) these songs. That's the great thing about music: there's a taste for everyone to love as well as a taste for everyone to hate. So, who's perched atop my "fingernails-on-a-chalkboard" list? Believe it or not, one of my favorite bands. #1: Life in the Fast Lane - Eagles I don't own Hotel California any longer. That album is way too uneven for my tastes, and the title song, with its "are you on drugs? If not you won't understand this song" cryptic messages (there's a reason a lot of fundamentalist Christians misinterpret the song as being about hell), didn't thrill me before it became one of the most overplayed songs in FM rock history. Oddly enough, I love side two of the album (for those of you who never owned the vinyl, that starts at "Victim of Love" [technically the "Wasted Time" reprise]), and "The Last Resort" (the closing song on the album) is my all-time favorite Eagles song. The only song on side one I love is "Wasted Time." The issue is I despise "Life in the Fast Lane" so freaking much that it detracts from just about everything else on that album. And why do I hate it so much? Like yesterday's song, I loathe the hypocrisy. This song is about the wild excesses of the drug-fueled world of the mid-70s. In the 1979 Rolling Stone cover story Don Henley (lead singer on the song) blasted "them" (whoever "they" are) by griping, "And 'Life in the Fast Lane,' if they didn't turn that song into a celebration of exactly what we trying to warn them about. Everybody's got cocaine now, no matter how (crappy -- no, he didn't say crappy) it is." Yeah, Don. About a year after this interview ran Henley was busted at his house for, among other things, 22 grams of cocaine (along with 16 quaaludes, five ounces of grass [this was 1980, remember], and a couple of underage prostitutes). Now what was that you said about "trying to warn" people about drugs? Further, and ironically (to reinforce my disdain of the hypocrisy), the close-out groove of side one had one of those little carved-in messages that were the trademark of producer Bill Szymczyk (if you have the vinyl, look at any close-out groove of an album he produced and you'll see a message). This one said, "Is it 6 o'clock yet?" Three years later, in a radio interview when The Long Run was released, Joe Walsh explained what that meant: Szymczyk, in order to have something productive come out of the recording sessions (that would frequently start at 2 PM and go until 2 AM, or later), had a steadfast rule: no mind-altering substances before 6 PM. "And about 2:30," Walsh laughed in the interview, "we started asking, 'Is it 6 o'clock yet?'" Look at just about any promotional picture or video of the Eagles on that tour and you will see "Wasted Time" indeed. I know there were a lot of bands who walked around in a drug-induced fog in the 70s, but the Eagles were poster children for it. (Glenn Frey, photographed on the inner sleeve of Hotel California with a joint in his mouth, blamed the drugs for his intestinal problems that eventually took his life at 67 in 2016.) Oh, and musically, it's equally annoying. The Eagles rocked harder and better than this Aerosmith-wanna-be lame track. The little synth-style "let's mimic what Queen did to their vocals on 'Killer Queen'" at the end is also grating. It's the start of that notion that, to me, has ruined mainstream, commercial music: "hey, did you hear what so-and-so did on their last album? How about we do that, too?" Get real, and get original. This song, to me, started the downward spiral from which the Eagles never recovered, breaking up in 1980 and not reuniting until it became economically fea$ible and beneficial to the band'$ member$ to do $o. Love the band. Hate the song. Thanks for reading. Life in the Fast Lane Written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Joe Walsh Recorded by the Eagles From Hotel California, 1976 I don't post songs I hate (and you all know this song and can probably sing it backwards in your sleep), so here's an alternative Eagles song: