And Glenn plays the (IMO) rather essential keyboard part. I asked Bernie about this on his official forum years ago and he confirmed it.
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HAPPY 40TH ANNIVERSARY TO ONE OF THESE NIGHTS!!!
It amazes me on an almost daily basis how this band's songs continue to resonate with so many people all over the globe.
Since this is one of my favorite Border board styles, I thought I'd pay homage to it by posting the album's cover art. Just shows how creative Soda was while staying true to the original ...
https://eaglesonlinecentral.com/images/ootncover.jpg
https://eaglesonlinecentral.com/images/ootnback.jpg
Count me as another fan of the much-maligned "I Wish You Peace." I think it's quite pretty and a lovely sentiment as well.
I like I Wish You Peace as well, beautiful song.
I don't mind IWYP, it's quite warm and fuzzy, it's just I don't hold much regard for it as an Eagles song. It's calming lyrically and has a smooth solo, but there's nothing about it to say the Eagles recorded it. Other weaker Eagles songs still have something 'Eagles': for example TGFY (sorry FP ;)) has that distinct Frey-Henley harmony that graces Tequila Sunrise and Lyin' Eyes, and Visions has some decent distinguishable harmonies and great guitar work. For me, IWYP is much like Learn to Be Still and Love Will Keep Us Alive in being quite mediocre, nondescript releases.
I think you've hit the nail on the head tlr - that is exactly how I feel about IWYP. It's not terrible, and is fine to listen to when I'm in the mood for it, but it's just kind of there. I find LWKUA to be more or less the same, again it has calming lyrics and a smooth solo but it's some way off vintage Eagles as far as I'm concerned.
I also agree with your points about TGFY and Visions, and the aspects of those songs you brought up. I prefer the latter as I think its pros (the guitars and the harmony/backup vocals) outweigh its cons (Felder's lead vocal and the lyrics), especially as I feel whereas to me TGFY mainly has the shared vocals and the chorus going for it, the rest being fairly meh.
Having said this, I disagree about Learn To Be Still, a song I like a lot which in my mind is much better lyrically than any of the other songs you mentioned. Both IWYP and LWKUA come across as a little too soppy for the Eagles whereas I find the more thoughtful and introspective lyrics of LTBS raise it substantially above those other two. It certainly feels like a Don Henley song if admittedly less so an Eagles one - where the other two are fairly generic love songs (compared to the more specific situations described in, say, BOML or Lyin' Eyes) LTBS benefits from lyrics that bear Don's stamp as a writer (particularly the use of imagery and biblical references). Musically I can understand why some people aren't crazy about it but I do like the music myself, especially the guitar solo, and I think it does fit the lyrics quite well.
I completely agree with you about LTBS - it is one of my favourite Eagles songs - I love the guitar, the music, the lyrics and it just makes you think about how you live your life sometimes.
I think its a pity that it went by the wayside as regards being played live or on best of CD's.
It would be interesting to know their reasoning behind how songs are selected for shows - apart from the obvious hits, they don't really diversify must from a standard setlist.....apart from HOTE tour, when they added some gems of songs (DD/D reprise, SN, TS)
But love OOTN album - especially OOTN and ATTIG. IWYP is nice for a quiet moment :grin:
I'm a little late, but Happy 40th Birthday to OOTN!!
My own little ears! I shall listen closely again. It all sounds like Bernie to me. I believe you're correct that this is the only Eagles song where one member does all the vocal parts.
UPDATE: I listened on headphones this time and can still only hear Bernie's voice. Anyone else want to weigh in?
I just truly love this album and cover. It my next favorite to the Border album.
Getta Baby One of These Nights........All time favorite line.
I'm sorry, but as I said, I can clearly hear Glenn underneath the 'when your storms are high & your dreams are low' part. I don't believe for a second that no matter how much they disliked the song Don Henley & Glenn would have relinquished that much control. I think Bernie may be harmonising with himself on the verses, but in the big 'ahhhh' part they must all (except perhaps Felder) be singing. It's the Eagles. Their harmonies as a group made them what they were. They weren't going to drop it for one song.
It was you who made the claim that only one member sang all the parts. I never agreed with this claim. I said I had never heard of an instance where this could have happened.
Here is what I wrote earlier in this thread ... "I also like Visions. I don't think it's a great song, and it's not one of my favorites, but I do enjoy it. I never skip it when I listen to the album". I feel almost exactly the same way about I Wish You Peace as I do Visions.
As far as the harmonies on the song, it sounds to me like some of the band members may have contributed to them. Of course, none of us here knows for sure. Since there is no conclusive evidence that I'm aware of, all we can do is listen and speculate.
With IWYP I've always wondered, since Henley has been so vocal to disown it, why it made the cut for the album in the first place? The only two reasons I've managed so far are because Bernie needed a lead vocal, despite already having two credits on the album; and since the album was only nine songs long, whether ideas were a bit thin on the ground, and IWYP offered the perfect filler and closer.
Something just doesn't click though, Glenn and Don H. always seem very reticent to discuss their output, yet Don has been very blunt in his verdict of it. If they were as controlling as they are perceived to be, why was it ever released?
That's a really good point. I've sometimes thought that ATTIG was meant to be the closer. When you think about it the progression from the disillusionment of that song to Hotel California - the song and album - makes a lot more sense than it does from IWYP. I have wondered whether putting ATTIG as the final track on Greatest Hits Volume 2 was partly to make up for the fact that it wasn't closer on OOTN.
Another possible reason for the inclusion of IWYP, I would suggest, is that by this stage Don and Glenn were so keen to appease Bernie, who at that stage they probably wanted to try to keep in the band, to such an extent that they were willing to put a song they hated on the album just to make him feel wanted. This doesn't fit the 'control freaks' narrative, but then again why should it?
I find it interesting that in Heaven and Hell IIRC Don Felder says something along the lines of 'Don and Glenn hated I Wish You Peace'. It's well known that Don H in particular isn't a fan of the song, but Felder doesn't have much else to say about it as I recall. Maybe I am being too cynical but it suggests to me that Felder isn't crazy about IWYP either but that it wouldn't suit his agenda to say so.
I personally find it hard to believe that Don and Glenn did not write anything during this era beyond the five songs both their names appear on. The quality of the big three and ATTIG (HW I suspect has Henley/Frey lyrics but music by Bernie and Tom Leadon although I am guessing here) indicates that they were in a rich vein of songwriting form. I don't think it's inconceivable that strong Henley/Frey songs were lost in order to give the other band members a chance to shine, and it is possible these songs may have disappeared as they wouldn't have fitted the Hotel California concept. The lack of outtakes and unreleased songs means we may never know unless they tell us themselves. To me, this suggests that there was a desire to achieve some semblance of equality in the number of songs provided by each band member (which was lost on the next two records where Henley dominated the lead vocals and songwriting). There is a clear attempt to try and integrate Bernie's songs on the OOTN even though they don't really fit whereas there is little evidence of this happening for Randy on Hotel California where he has just the one song.
Given that we know there were at least two songs which were played live in 1973 after the release of Desperado and not used for On The Border, it shows that there must have been some reason to include IWYP specifically beyond simply having a Bernie vocal. The more I think about it, it's worth asking why Georgia Peach wasn't used - Bernie had only two vocals on OTB and OOTN combined (one per record) and it fitted Don and Glenn's desire for a harder rock sound in way that IWYP certainly doesn't.
That's in line with what I was thinking. There's an interview from September 1975 which mentions that Bernie had left a few times but had been persuaded to return. There was a fear that the band wouldn't survive a change in personel.
Bernie Leadon has said that he and his brother had written the music for Hollywood Waltz with different lyrics but Henley-Frey wrote new lyrics and named it. I wondered if they considered having Bernie sing it.
I have to say that the one where Glenn's hair takes up so much of the frame makes me think of the Almost Famous t-shirt scene.
wrt to Georgia Peach, could it have been recorded for the On the Border album, in London with Glyn Johns, rather than for Desperado? Do the lyrics fit in with the outlaw theme?
The lyrics don't fit with the Desperado theme. It's just that it's listed as a Desperado outtake. Maybe it was recorded before Desperado became Desperado, or right after the album was finished. I'm making these guesses because the song is distinctly listed as not being a Glyn Johns On The Border outtake.
Anyone got any links as to where Georgia Peach can be heard?
Gosh, that would be wonderful to hear. Too bad we'll probably never get the chance. Scarlet Sun, do you know if Randy's song "Wait and See" was ever recorded?
TLR: https://www.eaglesonlinecentral.com/...ead.php?t=3092
You'll need your bat sonar on sadly, the sound quality is dire!
I so wish the Eagles could be persuaded to release some of these gems, but they don't seem a bit interested in the reissue-with-rare-tracks trend. A loss for their fans.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...pslfjbfvzw.jpg
Bernie has performed Hollywood Waltz, so he could have had the vocals snatched off him as they did with Felder and Victim Of Love.
I can imagine Don dragging his heels when the band were working on I Wish You Peace, so there could be more Leadon in the harmonies than normal but I'm sure it's not the first or last Eagles track that Henley thought was substandard, as he contributed his considerable talents as drummer/singer.
I'm sure the fact that he was a new boy, saved Felder's Visions. Neither the song or the lead vocal are really up to Eagles standard.
I got this in a Google alert. My apologies if it has been posted before. I don't remember ever having read it. I know that it is Eagles In thePress. I'll post it there as well, but I thought it was appropriate here too.
http://www.thelegacyofmusic.com/2015...-these-nights/
Glenn says: "We took it to L.A., put all the drone guitars and Felder’s solo on in L.A., and went back to Miami to put the vocals on in March."
This too supports my assumption that Glenn did most if not all of the harmonized guitar parts. The harmony (or "drone") guitars were done by "we", while the solo was by "Felder".
I think that either Glenn and Don played them together, or Glenn was being humble again and didn't find it necessary to emphasize that HE did those guitars as he had already started the sentence with "We took it to L.A."
Personally I think that there's a 2% possibility that Bernie was involved with that kind of guitar stuff.
I frequently see fans of Felder citing One of These Nights as a track that he should have had a songwriting credit on/ wouldn't exist without him. Is this something that Don has claimed, or just because of the bass-line and guitar solo?
I think it's only because of the bass line. Some Felder fans (Don himself too, I think) probably think that he should have been credited, because that intro bass line is so distinctive.
But I never see Gene Simmons fans (or Gene himself) complain that Gene should have been credited on Paul's "Black diamond", "Firehouse" and (above all) "Love her all I can", because he wrote the riffs. 80% of "Love her all I can" is carried by the guitar/bass riff Gene wrote when Paul had already written the basic song. Gene didn't feel he needed to be credited on any of those, because Paul had written the basic songs already (chords, vocal melodies and lyrics). Like Glenn, Gene is very modest when it comes to his musical ability.
IMO Don F's story about OOTN is a bit weird. He has said that Glenn only had about one chord when he presented the idea. On the other hand Don F has said that he came up with the bass lines. So, did Glenn have the E minor chord written (:hilarious:) and Don F came up with the rest on the bass?
The KISS example:
KISS' "Love her all I can" had already been recorded by Wicked Lester, Gene's and Paul's previous band. The KISS version you can find below starts with Paul's rhythm guitar alone - a sort of "chord riff". What you hear Paul play in the beginning was what he originally wrote for the chorus in terms of instrumental ideas. In the Wicked Lester version Paul kept playing that throughout the choruses, but in the KISS version he only does it in the intro.
When the drum beat starts, you hear the bass (Gene) and the rhythm guitars (Paul & Ace) play a riff. Now, that was written by Gene, and he didn't ask for a credit. And Don F should have been credited, because he wrote the bass lines for OOTN? :headscratch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6WYUyRIMrA
I am one of those that felt Felder should get more credit for the bass track, especially the intro. Not necessarily songwriting credits. I guess because he's so well known for Hotel California, and while that song has grown on me in a live environment, I'll take listening to OOTN over HC any day, and the intro really does it for me.
From H&H:
About "Visions":Quote:
The title track originally began life as an R&B song on accoustic piano, but it didn't sound right to me when Glenn first played it to us. Randy was stuck in Nebraska, snowed in, and couldn't get to the studio, so I told Glenn, "Wait a minute, I'll play bass." I came up with the introduction and bass figure. We played a couple of demo passes with me playing the bass part over Glenn's piano, and I wound up writing the entire bass line for the title track. When the weather finally cleared and Randy was able to fly in, I taught him what I'd written, verbatim, and we recorded it for the album. As long as the track came out good, I didn't care.
I took a look at the lyrics and they do seem to be more typical of Felder (going by his Airborne songs) than Henley.Quote:
I also wrote a song called "Visions," for which Don provided some of the lyrics..."
Felder also says that Henley and Frey would go off and write and only emerge when they had a finished product and then the rest of them would come up with ideas on how to perform it.
Tough crowd! :) Southern rock was getting very popular in the U.S. at the time (Lynyrd Skynyrd and others), so maybe that factored into it also.
I really like this song, it's a lot of fun, especially the backing vocals. The band sounds like they're having a blast, especially Glenn.
Over the years I've gotten the impression that some famous song writers are stingy and some are generous when it comes to handing out song writing credits.
Bill Wyman said he came up with the riff for Satisafaction. One of the greatest hooks of all time. I've not heard anybody challenge Bill's statement, yet Jagger/Richards have the song credit. Sting was embarrassed to get a healthy cut of Dire Straits, Money For Nothing when Knopfler rephrased his "Don't Stand So Close To Me" as "I want my MTV"
Long Road Out Of Eden is credited to Henley, Frey and Schmit, yet the highlight of the track is Joe's guitar solo. To his credit, Henley. questions his songwriting credit for Doolin/Dalton which was apparently a pre-Eagles track.
One I can't quite work out is, to my knowledge, Don's only solo composition, A Month Of Sundays. Intro written by actress, Maren Jensen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maren_Jensen.
I'm not a fan of Felder's intro to One Of These Nights but I think it's worth a writing credit. Judging by the sleeve notes, it looks like the rationing of song writing credits, on some Eagles albums, was predetermined before the albums were made.
In hindsight, the mid seventies were Bernie's creative peak as a songwriter. Great picker, fantastic harmony singer, not so hot or committed song writer.
Further to Funk 50's example above, I believe Black Sabbath (at least in the early days) always used to credit every song to all four members as they believed that nothing would be the same if one of them wasn't there. In reality it was usually guitarist Tony Iommi who came up with the music, and bassist Geezer Butler who came up with the lyrics.
When we've discussed credits elsewhere, I think it was said that the legal copyright of a song is just the lyrics and vocal melody and the rest is just the arrangement. Indeed, when you ask someone about a song, they will usually just sing the lyrics. Part 2 of the doc has a good example when a group of people are asked what they are looking forward to hearing and they sing the words "One of the nights...". No one sings the baseline and the song is quite recognisably without any of the instrumentation.
Further support to the idea that the OOTN bassline is just an arrangement comes from Felder's description. The bass was added to a song that had already been written. It changed the sound of the track but not the song.
However, it does seem that the band sometimes gives songwriting credits for the music (beyond vocal melody) or riffs and this seems to be when the song started with that music eg Witchy Woman, Hotel California, Victim of Love, Hotel California.
As I said the other day, I believe Felder wrote a lot of the lyrics of Visions as well as the music because it's more his style than Henley's.
I wonder what the copyright position is on instrumentals.
Joe's guitar solo on Long Road Out Of Eden and therefore I believe is not considered part of the composition so he shouldn't be credited as a writer there IMO. I agree that it is a highlight but that is neither here or there when it comes to songwriting credits - he isn't credited on Hotel California either. To give another example, David Gilmour's guitar solo is by far my favourite part of Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, but the song is credited solely to Roger Waters as Gilmour's contribution was just the solo.
In Mark Knopfler's case I suspect he was quite content to give Sting part of the credit (barely deserved in my view - especially as Sting himself sings the 'I want my MTV' lines, not Knopfler, and the song would have worked fine without it in my view) because he was otherwise the sole songwriter in Dire Straits and therefore giving credit for one of just two songs which used elements of other compositions (the other being Tunnel Of Love, which did need to credit Rodgers and Hammerstein for the Carousel Waltz introduction) was not a big deal to him as he didn't need to worry about not being recognised for his writing in the way that someone in a band with multiple writers would be.
I hadn't heard that Don Henley had questioned his writing credit on Doolin-Dalton, but I did once read that he wasn't quite sure whether he merited being credited for James Dean. Is this an indication that those two songs were for the most part written together by Glenn, Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther and that Don only became involved at a later stage? James Dean IIRC was written for their second album before it became Desperado and was left until On The Border so it isn't inconceivable that it was written around the same time as Doolin-Dalton, especially as both songs focus on anti-hero/rebel characters.
My impression is that both Doolin-Dalton and James Dean were started before Henley joined the Souther-Browne-Frey writing team, so he may have just helped with the polishing.
Yes, both of those were from the Longbranch Pennywhistle days, when JD and Glenn were living above Jackson. I always imagined Don added a bit lyrically or something to deserve the credit.