I’m grateful I spent four months listening to every song the Eagles recorded, one a day without fail, with Chris O’ Leary, Scott Seward, and at least a dozen other hearty mates. Twenty years after the Titanic sank, the survivors could look at each other and mouth, “We saw her go under, bow to stern.” Likewise we can say, “We listened to ‘Frail Grasp on the Big Picture’ and ‘Witchy Woman’.”
The Hague
Lyin’ Eyes
Get Over It
Love Will Keep Us Alive
Witchy Woman
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Best of My Love
Meh
Take It Easy
Heartache Tonight
Already Gone
Seven Bridges Road
Sound, Solid Entertainments
Life in the Fast Lane
Take It to the Limit
New Kid in Town
Good to Great
The Long Run
One of These Nights
I Can’t Tell You Why
Hotel California
Humanizing The Vacuum 
Holy Moly! Four months? I thought it was a couple weeks!! OK. Of course, they were inescapable even in South America. As a kid I didn’t undestrand the hatred. Now I know better. Anyway, just fot kicks, isn’t “Witchy Woman” about a heroin addict? I mean they mention “the spoon” and “the moon in her eyes”. I always thought that was pretty easy to decode. Not about n depicable woman like I read elsewhere. I know their mysogynistic ways, but that song was about something else, I guess (?)
Anyway, not that I care.
“The Long Run” and closer “The Sad Café”. The latter it’s the one I believe every regretful word. Even if the sax break looks ch(easy). “I don’t know why fortune smiles on some
And lets the rest go free” is perhaps the most poignant line Henley-must-die has ever written. I could totally see “Boys of Summer” picking up where this left off.
Trying…
Ok, this is gonna be long. Re-evaluated and enhanced (hour help was priceless, really) I’m stubborn with some divisive choices (you’ll know which ones for sure) But these are the songs I’m ok with in my preferred secuence order. Asterisks to what I added from my original 70s list of 275 songs. Some comments just because I’m practicing at doing blurbs on my own. And to demonstrate I put in some thought behind!! You are invited to join in https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1168177054
So we can share lists? Pretty please?
70/71 (only)
* Sly & The Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
* Edwin Starr – War
* The Temptations – Ball of Confusion
* Sly & The Family Stone – Everybody Is A Star
* The Five Stairsteps – O-o-h Child*
* Aretha Franklin – Call Me
* The Delfonics – Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time*
* James Brown – Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine (“Superbad” perhaps better, but this staccatto strut? More like bravato!)
* The Jacksons 5 – I Want You Back (It may be odd this is my only J5 entry. I like ABC and The Love You Save, I’m not much of a fan of tiny Michael’s helium voice, no matter how genius the arrangements were. But this is where he got all together vocally as a baby)
* Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours
* The Spinners – It’s A Shame
* Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Tears of a Clown
* Van Morrison – Domino
* Aretha Franklin – Don’t Play That Song
* Elvis Presley – Kentucky Rain*
* Toots & The Maytals – Pressure Drop
* The Abyssinians – Satta Massagana*
* The Melodians – Rivers Of Babylon
* Badfinger – No Matter What * (Name me a better Macca tune off Let it Be. I dare you! These were out-doing Macca early on. No Phil Spector intromission with cheesy violins needed. Crunchy guitar. Yeah!)
* Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking*
* Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Ohio
* The Kinks – Lola
* Creedence Clearwater Revival – Who’ll Stop the Rain
* Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song (Most hilarious, short, lovable, Zep banger ever: about Iceland!!)
* Neil Young, Crazy Horse – Cinnamon Girl
* Creedence Clearwater Revival – Up Around The Bend*
* Free – All Right Now
* Santana – Evil Ways
* B.B. King – The Thrill is Gone
* Grateful Dead – Uncle John’s Band (I knew they could zap guitars for days. But harmonizing like this? Gettouta here!)
* Jesse Winchester – Quiet About It * (I can see Elvis Costello, as an early teen with acne, taking notes. His first album is amazing)
* Bob Dylan – If Not For You* (I prefer it over the Harrison cover)
* Crosby Stills Nash & Young – Helpless
* Van Morrison – Crazy Love
* Nick Drake – Northern Sky
* Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water (It’s here because it takes ALL the places Let it Be didn’t. Showing how can you get a climax with strings arranged properly, intead of adding strings after the first mix. Spector was distracted. I can’t cheat and put he demo version of “Across the Universe”, even though I’m tempted)
* Led Zeppelin – Tangerine
* The Kinks – This Time Tomorrow (Obvs, the “second” single after Lola. Why do they choose the stupid “Apeman”? Even “Back in the Line” would have been a better decision!!)
* Grateful Dead – Friend Of The Devil (This deep cut is better than single “Sugar Magnolia” and acclaimed “Box of Rain” to me)
* Creedence Clearwater Revival – Lookin’ Out My Back Door
* Neil Young – Southern Man*
* Van Morrison – And It Stoned Me
* James Taylor – Fire And Rain (He bores me to death, except on this one. The drumming is amazing for a ballad- Better than the trash cans someone was hitting in early Carly Simon hits!! That’s a fact!!)
* Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind
* Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart
* Paul McCartney – Maybe I’m Amazed (YES, it was a single elsewhere minus the US where they charted the infinite lesser live versión later on. His anger in the bridge is what makes it unforgettable and Mother Mary could have gone back to the Convent with her “wisdom” and shove it up her %&$·.. Linda was the calm after the storm. But this is all storm. He was not phoning this in like in the Big Hit. His best solo single.)
* John Lennon – Mother (He would have loved the song above… if he hadn’t been so busy screaming and bashing his former pal for half a decade. The angriest duo that never was. Imagine that song!! I love this bc it’s desperate while “Julia” was sweet)
* Norman Greenbaum – Spirit In The Sky (Not very appreciated. I say this got “glam guitars”, a distorsion of blues, a first over…
* T. Rex – Ride A White Swan* (A battle til the end with “Hot Love” but they would do sexy more insouciant soon after. This was spaced-out glam, minimalist, and out of a Lewis Carroll book. A psychedelic seed. A children’s song made on joints with hilariously noisy guitars. It kicks “The Circle Game” out of this list which is wiser and makes sense but it’s also corniest. And I love Joni!!)
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* Badfinger – Day After Day (No phony Beatlemania for me. Joe Jackson robbed more than 7 bars for “Breaking Us in Two” -9 bars, exactly- Thief? And I love that song, anyway)
* The Move – Chinatown*
* Ringo Starr – It Don’t Come Easy* (Best solo Ringo by a country mile. “Photograph”s melody and nostalgic lyrics is aces but its arrengements are candy store for exentricities I don’t dig much when played all together – castanets, slide guitar on descending chords, a sax breaks in! Wait, something new is coming! Where’s the bagpipes?? – I’m guessing it’s overproduced to disguise Ringo is a mediocre crooner, but it enhances his limitations more apparent. It shoulda been in spare acoustic guitar only and to hell with the crooner! Harrison was not Benny/Bjorn! Ringo’s not Agnetha/Frida and JN not Spector! We never got the ABBA cover we deserved. That would have been in this list for sure)
* George Harrison – My Sweet Lord (Still better than The Chiffons song, anyway)
* Paul McCartney – Another Day*
*John Lennon – God (I love this mini-sequence where you can see what the four Beatles were after!! It’s practically a therapist dream sequence. All four personalities defined so clearly. The whole of LET IT BE wasn’t so revealing as these four in a row!)
* Van Morrison – Into the Mystic (I love Van’s mystic lyrics. Leave me alone! Trascendental R&B)
* Derek and the Dominos – Bell Bottom Blues (Don’t care for either Clapton or D. Allmann but together? OMG. Clapton never reached these passionate vocals ever again and the Patty Boyd card was fresh back then until it became repetitive and dull. Clapton surely was a creepy stalker. Poor Patty and Harrison. But you better believe he was obssesed here. Him so horny!!)
* Creedence Clearwater Revival – Have You Ever Seen the Rain
* Rod Stewart – Maggie May
* Little Feat – Willin’ (I love Lowell George just as much as Keith Richards did-and other bunch of notorious musicians)
* Janis Joplin – Me And Bobby McGee
* The Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane
* The Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar
* T. Rex – Bang A Gong (Get It On) (Truly the birth of glam is HERE. Tom Ewing is wrong!)
* The Velvet Underground – Rock & Roll
* Derek and the Dominos – Layla (See BBB, plus a pretty piano romantic coda. Clapton already jerked off so he was smoking in bed and quieter. The coda it’s also sad in a way. Stalkers are sad people, basically)
* The Doors – Riders On The Storm (You wouldn’t know I despise the Doors except for this marvel of quiet dynamics and alluring, hypnotizing organ. Nevermind a ballad that was not about love was unprecedented before them. Instead of boring or pretentious, It really soothes my nerves, gets me to a stormy evening on the desert and ends with actual storm noises recorded, also a first. For once I understood what the apologizers said: it’s a trip. Not to the subconscious blah. A real one, to another place less menacing than this but mythological nonetheless)
* The Allman Brothers Band – Midnight Rider (Poor vocals and poorer harmonizing. That’s why they needed Clapton on fire. But it’s short and the picking on the acoustic guitar is extraordinary. The melody idellible. Unforgettable. So I can stand the poor delivery for this is another -thankfully short by their standards- trip. This time to the actual Far West. And I hate the Hillbilly rythm of “Rambling Man” I basically hate Hillbilliy country music. Can’t help it. And their “instrumentals”? Meh.)
* Rod Stewart – Mandolin Wind
* The Rolling Stones – Can’t You Hear Me Knocking (I always thought the coda dragged on too long. Until I recently hear it without the song attached. And learnt that was improvised. Now I think it’s genius)
* Led Zeppelin – Black Dog
* Alice Cooper – Eighteen (The only Cooper song I knew besides “School’s Out” and liked before I met your blog. The wah wah guitar followed by the noodling solo. I mean, was this band ever so tight? Still his best song imo. Don’t like “School” for the same reason I don’t like AC/DC mostly. En español: el rock peludo con olor a huevos de macho no es lo mío. I like Alice being comic, broody and earnest. School is demagogue to me and too theatrical. Its melody, too. Anyway, Kiss should have stayed home with this band around. Clowns!!)
* T. Rex – Jeepster (They went full boogie here. They were a helluva boogie band -a la Mott- sometimes)
* Mott The Hoople – Death May Be Your Santa Claus* (Speaking of which, what can I say? This is all yours! I need a page in my own blog to talk about this and Ian Hunter. Thanks!!!)
* The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again (Single Edit) (ONLY the single edit. This band was my crush when they were mod, basically in the 60s. Synths flourishes, 8 min. songs and screams? No, thanks. This song is best and good in its short version. After Tommy they went hiperemotional. Not my cup of tea. Responsible for Styx and so many synth-driven rock bands with stupid names known better as dinosaurs. That would be the overrated Who’s Next and progeny)
* Neil Young – After The Gold Rush (Beats slightly the other White version of eco-activism: “Big Yellow Taxi”. So Ladies of the Canyons gets zero songs. It was a single, too, in 71. Not in America)
* Rod Stewart – Reason to Believe (…while Rod, the mod, gets three songs off “Picture”. One of my fav albums, ever)
* The Rolling Stones – Dead Flowers
* Willie Nelson – Me and Paul
* Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors* (Initially in my list. Then, out. More tearjearker than heartbreaker, but her most winning melody imo. Undeniable. She and Wagoner were into simplicity on arrangements. I love that about Nelson, too. And the reason I have problems stomaching George Jones: too ornamental!!)
* John Prine – Sam Stone (His only song in the list. I like him most being folkie than full-on country I guess. The Dylan influence. He hasn’t had the voice for “Angel from Montgomery”. And a woman singing that it’s not the same. Off that song from the list.)
* John Lennon – Working Class Hero (Fighting Dylan’s best impersonation ever with Prine early on)
* David Bowie – Oh! You Pretty Things (How choosing a song off this album? This one’s the first one I heard off his Imperial Phase. Its sweetness has stuck with me. The piano intro, a statement mission of purpose)
* Joni Mitchell – Carey (Second Joni song in the list bc “Both Sides Now” it’s the only early one of hers I truly need. An underrated standout from Blue)
* Carole King – It’s Too Late
* Al Green – Tired of Being Alone
* Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine
* Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
* Aretha Franklin – Spanish Harlem (Dig the Spanish strumming Ben E. King missed on his version. Yes, realities were hasher than this but I like she went for full sunny production here. That picking guitar it’s on par with eveything great made by Paco de Lucía!!)
* The Staple Singers – Respect Yourself
* Betty Wright – Clean Up Woman (Really surprised you overlooked this Miami treasure that is Betty Wright on your lists. Crisp Caribbean funk. Feminist lyrics ahead of the time. She respected herself, truly. No biblical pleas needed. What’s not to like? And what a voice!)
* Sly & The Family Stone – Family Affair
* Funkadelic – Can You Get To That
* Marvin Gaye – Inner City Blues
* Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (The missing link between folk tradition, R&B delivery, funky percussion. Withers’ first two albums are peerless)
* The Undisputed Truth – Smiling Faces Sometimes*
* The Dramatics – Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get (The cha-cha-cha rythm is genius in a R&B ditty. What I get is some Big Band vives before the time of Dr Buzzard and his band of iconoclastics)
* Aretha Franklin – Rock Steady
* Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
* Van Morrison – Moondance (The fourth song off the same album, an early record alongside Sticky Fingers, Exile, Innervisions, is as unabashedly jazzy and romantic as Harvest Moon is Topanga Canyon-romantic. And I am a romantic. So is Van’s music)
* Serge Gainsbourg – Ballade De Melody Nelson (This is funky, dirty, sexy, jazzy… What is this? Also, romantic. The French Master of the Budoir before Prince showed up and took over. Also see: John Cale’s tribute “The Man Who Couldn’t Afford to Orgy”, also in my list in ‘74)
* Leonard Cohen – Sisters of Mercy (This was an obscure track in Cohen’s debut but a single off “Mrs. McCabe and Mrs. Miller”, which allows me to make no commentary except it longs me to see that movie again, and again…)
* Carpenters – Superstar (The most perfect song-arrangement Karen was allowed to sing, ever: Baby, baby, baby ooh baby….)
* Al Green – Let’s Stay Together
* Marvin Gaye – Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Because I needed the black perspective on eco-activism and the fade out is made of psychedelic angels of doom – before “Living for the City” went to duplicate the effect for too long- which leads me to…)
* The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up* (I understand the gibberish may put some off. In context, this psychedelic beauty of a swansong is more touching for Wilson’s fast descent into madness. It’s prophetic all the way to the Mental Hospital)
* Donny Hathaway – A Song For You (The only Russell I need is also a bluprint for vocalist the size of Wonder in the 70s and George Michael: ‘cause my love is in there, hidinnnnng”)
* Carole King – So Far Away (Oh God, isn’t this sad? And the song King truly earns her “maternal” vocal-tag delivery. I hate flutes, but here them enhances the sadness. What a coda. See also: Simon’s “Something So Right”, also in my list in ‘73)
* Joni Mitchell – A Case of You
* The Chi-Lites – Have You Seen Her
* Al Green – How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (In my opinion one of the covers that surpass the original in every way posible)
* Candi Staton – Too Hurt to Cry (Not being Aretha, Gladys Knight, Betty Wright and Candi were my fav singers of the early decade…. by far. This piece of gut-wrenching Southern Soul gets no love. A shame)
* Bobby Womack – That’s the Way I Feel about ‘cha (To me, only Otis Redding blew my socks off the same way. A PERFORMANCE. His best one. The Aggghhh before the last chorus!!)
* The Temptations – Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
* John Lennon – Imagine (Say what you will about this one. Lennon could have been an obnoxious bastard at that time, a bad father… mommy issues, whatever. He believed in this. So multitudes of that generation. This song along, burries the 60s FOR GOOD- And I’m not talking about the lyrics. The end of an era. The 70s started after this, truly. See also: McLean’s “American Pie, Pts. 1 & 2” In early ‘72)
* Van Morrison – Wild Night
* George Harrison – What Is Life* (The remastered version puts this single again in the list. You appreciate more what Spector did)
END
Wow — a hellva list. You’re right about Al Green, Bill Withers, Joni. I’m less certain about “Spanish Harlem” — it seems a miscalculation. But you gave me the inspiration to check it out again.
Thanks, Alfred! It may be, But to me makes the song warmer (still, I think whoever did the guitar part is a virtuoso) and possibly the reaon I went visiting Spanish Harlem when living in New York. I have both versions in my list, but these one, I think, it’s a total re-interpretation (like a cover should be): It paints SH as Valhalla, a romantic place it doesn’t exist for sure, but it’s not hiding is a love letter. And the strumming guitars are not Spanish imitation of flamenco a “La Isla Bonita”. It truly reminds me of Paco de Lucía’s picking, while the interchanging organ with the acoustic guitar sets the song rooted firmly in R&B, which matches the lyrics change: “There is a rose in Black Spanish Harlem”. Giving the song the crossover between black and latino a whole new meaning from the original (and total sense) It’s the hybrid that makes it right to me.
Not to mantion I was super surprised to learn Spanish Harlem was not as florid as the song but that black men were more usual living with latinos than I was expecting!! It’s that intermingle I saw that rockets that cover to “great” for me.