I Don't Hate The Fuckin' Eagles, Man, But I Hate Don Fuckin' Henley...And Here's Why

Donald Hugh Henley is a big fat liar who doesn't want us to have nice things. Like, you know, unreleased Eagles music from their heydays. Donald "People Call Me A Liar, And They're Right" Henley flat out denies that such a thing exists. When they brought out a handful of live tracks a couple of years ago - the same ones that ended up on the bonus live disc of The History Of The Eagles I believe - he said. "We tried to find stuff, but that's it, there's literally nothing left in the vaults." Says the guy under whose auspices the Eagles put an awful cocaine-fueled and deeply unfunny 'gag reel', an awful  joke song, and a three-and-a-half-minute potpourri of musical scraps from The Long Run on the band's box set, just to have something unreleased on it, but somehow forgot cruelly decided not to put early b-side "Get You In The Mood" on there, an item Eagles fans had been clamoring for years. It took them eighteen years and another box set to do that. 

And of course, there is more stuff. Some stuff we know, and a lot of stuff we don't, because Henley flat out doesn't want us to. The perfectionist Eagles don't want you to hear demos or early run-throughs of songs, much less any abandones songs or outtakes. Such things don't exist in Eagles Land, according to Don "I have a very loose relationship with the truth, and that's the truth" Henley. There is no way a band as perfectionist as the Eagles created these things out of thin air, without trying out arrangements, getting the vocal arrangements right etc. Also, we know this to not be true because despite their absolute best efforts, one or two tracks snuck out, most notably "Get Up Kate", an outtake from the debut album. Like "Get You In The Mood" it's another Glenn Frey-track, which probably explains its fate - he has four credited songs, having given one to Randy Meisner to sing - plus the b-side and at least one outtake. Clearly, Frey was way ahead of evryone else in terms of bringing material in the band's earliest days, so in order to stay balanced, some of his stuff didn't get out at the time.

But why wouldn't you want to bring this stuff out years later, when hardcore fans who have waited decaded for this stuff? Well, the Eagles don't do outtakes, thanks for asking kind sir, and now screw you and get lost with your bullshit before we sic security on you. Mr. Henley wishes not to be disturbed. So, you wonder, am I going anywhere with this? Yes, yes, I am. The Eagles infamously sacked legendary producer Glyn Johns midway through the recording of what became On The Border. They were sick and tired of the rainy English weather, of Johns' 'no drugs in the studio' policy and of Johns' supposedly soft production syle, when the band tried to, quote, unquote, 'rock out'. Johns also infamously didn't see tha as a rock act ("The Who is a rock-and-roll band, and you are not that", he told them), and so they packed up their shit, fle back to the States and hired Bill Szymczyk to complete the recording to their liking. Only two of the On The Border tracks, "You Never Cry Like A Lover" and "The Best Of My Love" were saved from the Johns sessions in London. Now, I love "You never Cry Like A Lover", despite or because of Johns' echo-laden production, that Henley and Frey hated so much. And, you know, "The Best Of My Love" was the first Eagles song to make it all the way to number one. So, I dunno, maybe that Johns fella knew a little something about something? 

But that in't my point. My point is: of course there were more songs written and played in London in 1973, and of course the fuckin' Eagles and Don fuckin' Henley don't want you to know taht, and they sure as hell don't want you to hear them. A single bootleg from a 1973 exists that has to works-in-progress exists (shout out to BB Chronicles who made this available), and while Bernie Leadon's song, possibly titled "Georgia Peach" (but who really knows?) is a neat, but rather non-descript country rocker, Randy Meisner's "Wait And See" is indeed the great, lost Eagles song. It certainly sounds like no other Eagles song, and certainly no other song from the Country Eagles of the first four albums. It's a ten minute plus monster with some bluesy guitar and some extremely loud guitar - as close to a guitar freak out as the Eagles ever came. Now, some lowering of expectations are in order. The Eagles aren't all of a sudden sounding like Hendrix or Captain Beefheart or something, they still unmistakably sound like themselves. It starts with steel guitar, so you feel relatively safe in thinking it's, you know, a Randy Meisner ballad, but you can hear that the song wants to rock out, and around the two-minute mark the rock guitars come in. Things slow down again, with some patented Eagles close harmonies, but well...if this track wants to be a guitar epic, well, who's gonna stop these young men? When they repeat the title phrase a couple of times around the four-minute mark, you'd think that here the track would be faded out in a studio version, but the band is just getting started, revving the guitars up again.

Johns was right, the Eagles aren't The Who or Led Zep, but damn if they don't give it their best shot here, and on one of the Johns sessions tracks to boot. Whether you think the word 'great' in 'great lost Eagles song' is exagerrated or not, "Wait And See" at least shows something that I insist on to people who write off the band to easily. They did some genuinely interesting stuff in their early years, when they were still willing to take chances. In the latter years, everything is so polished that you can almost find your reflection in it, but even worse, everything seems calculated to maximum effect. No one can say that an Eagles track surprised them, but, say Randy Meinser's ghostly guitar rocker "Take The Devil" from the debut or Bernie Leadon's weird symphonic-country instrumental "Journey Of The Sorcerer" from as late as 1975's One Of These Nights are weird enough to have your ears perk up. 

The bootleg from which "Wait And See" isn't great, so some indulgence in terms of sound is required. This is an audience recording from 53 years ago, after all. I did some noise reduction and raised the lead vocals a bit, for them not to be overwhelmed by the instrumental backing, but I can't do wonders and you would still be able to tell that is comes from a so-so bootleg, so I stopped there. I think it's plenty listenable, so that's good enough for me. Of course if Don "who you're calling a liar, here, buddy...I lie if I choose to all day long, son" Henley would have been nice enough to, you know, issue the studio run through that must surely exist - again, there is no way in hell that the Eagles improvised this ten-minute monster on the spot - but yeah, that would really be the fday that hell freezes over. So, for this song, this is about as good as it gets for the time being - someone with more and better knowledge of audio software should take a crack at this - and well, until hell freezes over, tell me what you think of the great lost Eagles track, sung by the great lost Eagle in the ever-underrated Randy Meisner.