[On August 25th, 1976, the rock band Boston released their self-titled debut album. It would go on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time, so for its 50th anniversary this week I wanted to pay rocking tribute by AmericanStudying what a handful of iconic 70s bands can tell us about the nation. Leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post through which I hope we can keep on rockin’ in the free(ish) world!]
How three 70s mega-hits help chart the story of the iconic rock band, and of America as well.
- “Take It Easy” (1972): I’m not sure there’s a more telling sentence in any rock band’s Wikipedia entry than this one: “The idea of naming the band ‘Eagles’ came during a peyote and tequila-influenced group outing in the Mojave Desert.” Obviously there are universal layers to that image which could come from any time in rock history, but I also think there’s something very early 1970s about it, as the revolutionary counter-culture of the 1960s gave way to a more hedonistic counter-culture in the following decade. And the first track on the group’s self-titled debut album makes a concise argument for the benefits of that shift, and more exactly for not taking the world quite so seriously: “Lighten up while you still can/Don’t even try to understand/Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy.” I’m way too analytical to ever be able to heed the advice of the middle line of that trio (and so, I believe, is founding Eagles member Don Henley), but there’s something to be said for figuring out when and where we can lighten up, and the Eagles began life making music to help us do just that.
- “Hotel California” (1976): Success and fame and all that come with them make it a lot harder to keep takin’ it easy, though, and we can see that shift underway as early as the band’s second album, Desperado (1973), which uses outlaw metaphors to probe the rockstar life (not for the last time). But I think it’s the band’s signature and biggest hit, found on their fifth studio album of the same name, that more thoughtfully reflects their evolution. The song’s central and extended metaphor, the titular resort hotel, symbolizes not only the rockstar life, but also and especially the whole of the Golden State to which so many Americans across at least the last couple hundred years have traveled seeking the Promised Land. I think many of its lines and details are a bit on the nose, but I really love this couplet, “So I called up the captain, ‘Please bring me my wine’/He said, ‘We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.’” A reflection not only on changes in this place and nation with which the speaker is frustrated, but also, I’d say, in the band themselves as they relate to those shifts and perspectives.
- “The Long Run” (1979): The Eagles would put out just one more studio album, 1979’s The Long Run, before breaking up in 1980 (and eventually reuniting in 1994 for Hell Freezes Over, an album that features the beautiful song “Learn to Be Still” which could occupy a fourth spot in this post for sure). The title track seems to suggest a return to the ethos of “Take It Easy,” as illustrated clearly by the opening verse: “I used to hurry a lot, I used to worry a lot/I used to stay out ‘til the break of day/Oh that didn’t get it, it was high time I quit it/I just couldn’t carry on that way.” But while the rest of the song tries to be a love song about a couple who are gonna make it, that future feels at best uncertain to me: “Did you do it for love?/Did you do it for money?/Did you do it for spite?/Did you think you had to, honey?//Who is gonna make it? We’ll find out/In the long run.” An anthem for a band about to end its run, but also, I’d argue, for a nation in a moment of deep malaise.
Next iconic and telling rock band tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Thoughts on this band or other iconic ones (from the 70s or not) you’d add into the conversation?
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