Celebration of "One of These Nights"!

[AlreadyGone95]

This popped up on my Facebook news feed earlier. Very cool post, though I disagree with the original Rolling Stone review.

[thelastresort]

I disagree with a lot of that article, but this:

One of These Nights is not a great album

... I actually agree with to an extent. Oddly for me it probably has the three strongest singles any Eagles album offered, but it's always left me cold as an overall piece.

I think an example of what I mean is the fact that the band have kind of given it the 'leave it alone' treatment (like LROOE gets currently): the three singles are rightly staples and rightly go down as three of their finest outputs, but the rest of it has long been abandoned. This may be down in part to just how much of the album was made up of contributions from Randy and Bernie (and to a lesser extent Felder), but even for the likes of the MTV and Millennium Concerts, when the likes of The Last Resort and Ol' 55 were revived for one last time, the fillers on OOTN remained dormant. Even nowadays, when the other five 70's albums have enjoyed some revisiting for the History tour (TLHTM, PMAIAR, Those Shoes etc), One of These Nights is still 'Right, three singles, that's it'.

Looking back it's interesting even back in the day: Visions, IWYP and Hollywood Waltz never were performed live; JOTS lasted as a staple until Bernie left; TMH was in and out until Randy left; and ATTIG got played once as a very sneakily-done farewell song at Wrong Beach. They were still playing Desperado filler by the time OOTN stuff had been purged from the set.

Anyway, I'll end with what I originally meant to say...

Happy birthday OOTN

[Jonny Come Lately]

Happy 40th anniversary to One Of These Nights!

(I can't quite believe this album has turned 40, I think it was probably the first Eagles album my parents heard back in the 1970s as it was their breakthrough album in the UK).

Although it's not their strongest album (it's not quite as good or consistent in my view as the two before it or the follow up) it's still a pretty strong album by most standards and one I certainly enjoy listening to. Like all of the Eagles albums there is a good variety of different musical styles and several classic songs.

The three singles on this album are definitely amongst their finest works - One Of These Nights would probably make my top 10 Eagles songs, with Lyin' Eyes and Take It To The Limit also being very high up my list, however I am also quite a big fan of ATTIG (every bit as good as the big three IMO) and the underrated Too Many Hands and Journey Of The Sorcerer. I just wish the album had a stronger ending than IWYP, it's just a bit too sappy for my liking although it's still listenable and I quite like Bernie's acoustic solo.

I've been listening to Lyin' Eyes as I write this and I am reminded of its greatness - the harmony vocals are outstanding, even by Eagles standards (I absolutely love the harmonies in the final verse that come in on the 'my oh my, you sure know how to arrange things' line, and the combination of Don and Glenn's vocals in the first verse is also a highlight). I also really like Bernie's Telecaster licks and I like Randy's bass line quite a bit too.

Randy's vocals on TITTL and backing vocals on the title track are great but I also love his bass playing on the latter as well as on TMH (I love the bass flourish in the bridge towards the end). I think this album was his peak as an Eagle given that he had two lead vocals, one of them being his biggest hit and shone on harmony and backup vocals elsewhere. He is certainly more prominent on OOTN than he is on the Hotel California album I think.

I suspect part of the reason why the album tracks on OOTN have rarely been played or recognised over the years is that most of them highlight Bernie, Randy and Felder - even a Henley vocal like Hollywood Waltz is defined by Bernie's versatile country rock playing. I'm not sure why they've almost completely neglected ATTIG though, given that IIRC both Don and Glenn think it's an underrated song and although Felder shines with his R&B guitar it's not tied to him in the way even the likes of VOL and Those Shoes are.

[NightMistBlue]

I'm one of the - ahem - select few who enjoys "I Wish You Peace." Typically, I like the more upbeat songs (I always skip "My Man" for example), but "Peace" is lovely. Bernie does a great job on all the harmonies. I don't know if the other guys didn't participate because they didn't like the song or because Bernie worked on it alone by choice. Maybe Patti was in the studio and they stayed away.

[Brooke]

I'm one of the - ahem - select few who enjoys "I Wish You Peace." Typically, I like the more upbeat songs (I always skip "My Man" for example), but "Peace" is lovely. Bernie does a great job on all the harmonies. I don't know if the other guys didn't participate because they didn't like the song or because Bernie worked on it alone by choice. Maybe Patti was in the studio and they stayed away.

I've always liked it too. I think it's very pretty and has some nice lyrics. I think the guys just weren't happy with Patti being involved at all.

[Funk 50]

I Like I Wish You Peace too. It has a great sentiment, pleasant tune and one of my favourite Eagles guitar solos. I think it was pretty bad form for some band members to publicly diss it.

It's better than Visions by a distance. I suppose band policy dictated than Felder must have a lead vocal. A policy I'm pleased that they ditched, in Felder's case, on their subsequent albums.


One Of These Nights as a whole isn't really the type of music I enjoy listening to privately but they do sound great on the radio.

I wouldn't have bought any Eagles albums without Joe Walsh's intervention.

[UndertheWire]

I like Bernie's voice and I'm always a sucker for the softer songs, so I'm happy with "I Wish You Peace". I've always considered "Visions" to be the weakest track on the album.

[Jonny Come Lately]

I like Bernie's voice usually myself, but I've always felt it sounds a bit weak on I Wish You Peace personally, and while I do like the acoustic guitar solo (the harmony vocals are quite good too) I don't really like the use of strings on it much - I think I'd have preferred a more stripped back, folk-y production on the song (FWIW, I think the strings work on TITTL because it's a big, powerful song, whereas I'm not keen on them in the more mellow IWYP).

I should say I don't really dislike the song at all, it is perfectly pleasant to listen to, it's just not a tune I play much outside of the album itself. Interestingly I tend to play it a bit more around Christmas, it's better than some of the schmaltzy, cheesy or just plain overplayed Xmas songs you can't avoid around that time of year.

While Visions isn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination as far as I'm concerned (it is still the second weakest song on the album and would probably be in my 10 least favourite Eagles songs overall), I do at least quite like some of Felder's guitar playing on it so I prefer to IWYP. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

[Freypower]

I'm one of the - ahem - select few who enjoys "I Wish You Peace." Typically, I like the more upbeat songs (I always skip "My Man" for example), but "Peace" is lovely. Bernie does a great job on all the harmonies. I don't know if the other guys didn't participate because they didn't like the song or because Bernie worked on it alone by choice. Maybe Patti was in the studio and they stayed away.

All the harmonies?

Glenn can be clearly heard in the 'aaah' part behind 'when your storms are high'. At least I assume it's Glenn. I have never heard of any instance where the harmonies on an Eagles song would be sung by only one Eagle. What is your source for this?

[Funk 50]

Bernie does a great job on all the harmonies. I don't know if the other guys didn't participate because they didn't like the song or because Bernie worked on it alone by choice.

I kinda skipped this until Freypower focussed in on it. As far as I'm concerned, I Wish You Peace is an Eagles song written by Bernie Leadon and Patti Davis. ie. Don plays drums, Randy plays bass and they all sing harmony vocals, I certainly don't see it as a solo Leadon effort.

I Wish You Peace may have run against their desire to rock out more in 1975 but 40 years later it still sounds good and it isn't that far from, particularly Glenn's, recent stuff.